Misato currently felt very much like she was conducting a combat operation. She had an objective, she needed to stick to her strategy, and things could go horribly wrong. In fact, right now she would probably have preferred directing a combat operation. At least you could submit angels with enough overwhelming firepower. But this… this required her to be delicate, and Misato was unsure if she could do delicate.

For the first time in three days, both she and Shinji would have no other choice but to be in close proximity. It was Saturday, synch-tests had been scheduled at NERV, and she would drive him to there. She had not even commented when he had come home very late again the previous day. This was not an issue to be resolved by putting him on the spot in the apartment's corridor. The entire point was to make him comfortable again with the notion of talking with Misato again, and with living at her apartment. But in order to get there, he had to know that he could do so, that she was not offended, that there was no reason to avoid her.

To her relief, he had not run away and taken the train, as part of her had feared. Instead, he waited at the apartment door, and the two walked down to the street in silence. That silence continued when they entered the car and she started it. Shinji just looked outside the window, his face as far away from her as possible. If he was surprised at how slowly Misato was driving he did not show it. She wanted to gain as much time for this as possible. It was not easy for her, either.

Finally, without looking at the boy, she said: "I'm not angry, you know, Shinj." That got no reaction, so after a while, Misato continued: "And you don't need to explain anything. I… I think I understand. In any case, it's your decision what you tell me."

Tokyo-3 was a planned city, with a street grid intelligently designed to handle all foreseeable traffic and then some. In addition, the public transportation system was all-encompassing. As a result, there hardly ever were jams in the city. Misato could leisurely cruise through it without needing to pay much attention to the street; there hardly was any other car on it. The sun, now eternally a summer sun, shone from high up on the city.

"You can just come home normally," Misato went on. "And talk to me normally. If that makes you more comfortable, we can simply forget about the past days."

Shinji still looked out of the window, unmoving, as if she had not said anything. Misato felt a slight stirring of despair rise inside her. She had not expected her little appeal to solve everything, but it looked right now as if it was effecting absolutely nothing.

"Or you can talk with me," she nonetheless continued. "About... what you told me. You aren't really wrong, you know. But, well..." She stopped herself. "But that's only if you want to. It's up to you. We can talk about it or forget about it, just as you want. But there's no reason for you to avoid me."

Shinji continued looking outside. Even as the car entered a garage in the Geofront, and all he had in front of his eyes was a simple grey wall, that did not change. Even without his SDAT player, it seemed like he was in his own small world.

It was only when the car had stopped and they were leaving it that he asked: "Would talking change anything? You'd still be the Operations Director, and I'd still be a pilot."

But I don't want to be just your Operations Director, you need someone that cares for you... Misato remained quiet. She had taken Shinji in because she had felt sorry for him, and she still did. She had genuine sympathy for him, and the more she had gotten to know him, the more she realized what a withdrawn person he was and how much a weight piloting EVA was on him, the more she had gotten to care. But maybe that was in fact the problem. He had nobody who just cared about him: Even his own guardian was the person who would send him into battle time after time again.

"Shinji, I..." she began, and then shook her head. This was too complex to talk about on the way from the garage to the testing area. And there was no use in a talk if she would be the only one speaking. She could only hope that her appeal had at least on some level gotten through to him.

This day is a complete waste.

Misato had always been one for unusual ideas. Sometimes those were in fact brilliant: Only someone like her could have the chutzpah to requisition the most advanced prototype weapon of the JSSDF and the power output of all of Japan... and in the end, that had saved the day. It was befitting that the Evangelion operations were led by such a tactical maverick.

But at other times, her ideas were simply plain crazy. Asuka still remembered that from her time with her in Germany. And this... this was definitely such a time.

She understood the concept behind the cross-synch tests, in theory. It was always possible that a pilot might get injured, and that a replacement was needed for their unit. And in general, it would allow for greater tactical flexibility if pilots could synchronize with units other than their own. Asuka suspected Misato was also preparing for Shinji finally deciding to run away, which was definitely a concern as far as she was concerned.

But in reality the chross-synch tests made no damn sense. EVA-02 was hers. It worked for her because she had trained in it for eight years already, more than half her life. It was the Standard Production Model, the final and ready form of the Evangelion series, the schema later Evangelion units would use, free of the instabilities the Prototype and the Test Type suffered from. It only made sense that it should be piloted, exclusively, by the best pilot. Maybe Shinji and Rei had a certain knack for compensating for the weaknesses of the inferior units, but that would not help them with EVA-02.

She could have told Misato and Dr Akagi as much, but nooo, they had to actually test that. The results so far were unsurprising: Neither Shinji nor Rei had managed to synchronize with EVA-02. To be precise, both had managed some points of synchronization. Apparently, it was near-impossible to enter the entry-plug of an Evangelion with an A10 headset and not get some connection. But in Rei's case that connection amounted to 3%, and in Shinji's to 6%, both way below the minimal 16% necessary to even get a unit moving at least very shakingly.

Next in line had been EVA-01. Asuka had been the first to try it. It had been... weird. In a way she could not fully describe, the unit had felt different to EVA-02. Colder, harder. She had achieved 6% connection as well, and she had felt the low rate. Synchronizing with EVA-02 was like easily slipping into a warm bathrobe, the attempt with 01 felt like rubbing against a cold steel wall. Inferior models using inferior technology. 'Made in Germany' still wins out.

Now, she was in the Pribnow Box watching Rei enter the entry-plug. Ritsuko and her technicians had not been very enthused about a pilot still in plugsuit and smelling like LCL inviting herself into their domain, but Asuka did not care. It were exactly those eggheads who made her do those stupid tests, so she might as well watch them in turn. She stood in a corner and sulkily leaned against the wall.

"Alles Quatsch..." she muttered.

Misato spared a short, angry glare for her. She just scoffed defiantly in return. She looked at the other person leaning against a wall, at least two metres away from her: Shinji Ikari. The boy had his view cast down, and in particular he seemed to avoid eye contact with Misato. He had only come up into the Pribnow Box some minutes ago, after learning that was where Asuka had been during the EVA-02 tests. It was a curious decision: Asuka had come up here because staying in the locker rooms or the waiting areas would have been just plain boring. So she could understand if Shinji felt the same... only that he had not spoken a single word in since coming up, and mostly looked down on his feet. He could have done that elsewhere as well.

"Third stage connection complete," Ibuki announced from her terminal. "Harmonics are stable. Synchrate at 38%"

"That's just three to four points lower than her synchrate with EVA-00," Dr Akagi commented.

"Seems like we got ourselves the first successful cross-synchronization for today," Ibuki announced so cheerfully that it caused Asuka to silently groan. The lieutenant was the very picture of the annoying genki girl stereotype.

Dr Akagi looked over Ibuki's shoulder at her screen and nodded. "That was to be expected. The personal data of Units 00 and 01 is nearly identical. Really, only Shinji and Rei ever had any realistic chance at cross-synching."

Misato was standing behind the terminals. "So, Rei, how does it feel to finally pilot EVA-01 after all?"

"It smells like Ikari," the pilot reported with barely any inflection.

Asuka blinked hard. That was not an answer she had expected. "What the fuck does she mean by that?" she hissed over to Shinji. "She knows your scent already?"

To her surprise, she saw that Shinji was now looking up. He even had gone some steps ahead, and seemed to be intensely starring at the scene before him.

"Shinji?" Asuka prompted. "Don't you dare dodge my questions!"

Instead of answering, he muttered: "I... I know that unit. EVA-01."

"Are you stupid?" Asuka almost yelled back, voice barely subdued enough to not disturb the technicians. "It's yours!"

Shinji shook his head and stepped back to the wall again. "No, from... before that. Long before that."

"So you have seen EVAs before after all?" Asuka questioned him. Typical. Just typical. Nobody tells the truth.

"I... don't know," Shinji answered. "I can't remember. But now that I'm looking at EVA-01 from above... I know that view, I'm sure of it. Something..." He seemed to shudder. "Something happened here."

Asuka merely raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

He kinda fits to Wondergirl. Both are just weird. Shinji was a nice enough guy, but that was exactly the problem with him: EVA pilots were handling the most powerful war machines on the planet. They were not supposed to be nice. Angels would not be defeated by polite words. Maybe it's a Japanese thing. Then again, it's not like Wondergirl is the height of courteous behaviour.

In the past few days, her thoughts had regularly gone back to the battle with the most recent angel, the one now dubbed Ramiel. That was to be expected, of course. Strangely enough, she had often not thought back to her glorious defeat of the blue octahedron, but rather of her rescue of Rei. Or her and Shinji supporting Rei while walking towards the command post. In a way, that was what Asuka would have wanted: Camaraderie between victorious pilots, the elite sticking together, the only ones that knew what fighting angels meant. That was why she had been so disappointed by the personalities of the Japanese pilots: She had envisioned people with whom she could boast and celebrate, not a subdued wimp wavering back and forth on piloting and an emotion-less freak. She supposed at least the latter one's blue hair gave her a certain aura of exoticness befitting her special status, but Asuka still wondered what the hell her deal was.

She watched as Shinji left the Pribnow Box. Unit 01 was loaded back into the cages; Unit 00 was now brought in.

Dr Akagi had once told Shinji that entry-plugs were not unit-specific. Every entry-plug could be inserted into every unit. However, for some reason EVA-00's entry-plug, or maybe its current one was different to the ones he was used to from EVA-01. The manual control handles were much less pronounced; instead of a control terminal in front of him, between his knees, he only had the handles at his sides. This was not just Ayanami's unit, it was her entry-plug as well.

And yet, it did not feel all that different to his. Despite all the horrors he had experienced as pilot of EVA-01, he felt calm inside it. Maybe it was just the reassurance of having a several hundreds ton heavy war machine under his control, but there was something in his mental connection to EVA-01 that calmed him. And even though he had only gone to the first stage connection with EVA-00, he felt the same here.

"Shinji, how are you feeling?" Dr Akagi asked over the comm system.

"It... it feels like Ayanami," Shinji reported. "As if she were here, somehow."

Maybe that was the difference. The First Child herself had become a major source of calm and reassurance for Shinji over the past three weeks or so. He could not pinpoint the source of his comfort in Unit 01, but now, in Unit 00, it felt like Ayanami, in a way Shinji could not quite explain. But then, that's typical for the Evangelions. I understand nothing about them.

"Hm," Dr Akagi answered vaguely. "If you aren't feeling any problems, we'll be initiating second contact now."

"It's fine," Shinji replied lamely.

Playing guinea pig in machines I know nothing about... The image of EVA-01 from above struck his memory again. What is it with that? That exact angle... I have seen it from that exact angle before and then something... happened. Something bad, as a sense of foreboding told him.

Ibuki reported: "Harmonics are stable. Synchrate at 41%. Three points better than Rei in Unit 01."

"Hey, that's fifteen below your usual standard!" Soryu shouted into the comm system. "Stop fantasizing about Wondergirl and show some effort, Third Child!"

"Asuka!" Misato cut her off.

When Shinji had come to Tokyo-3, his synchrate had been nearly ten points higher than Ayanami's, and these days it usually was nearly fifteen points higher. Cross-synching seemed to totally evaporate that advantage. But Shinji did not care. To him, those were all just numbers. Math talk. Good for the scientists and engineers, irrelevant for him.

"I'm now increasing harmonics by twenty," Ibuki reported. "Initiating third contact."

Shinji breathed out and tried to relax, the way he had been told to act in synchro-tests. It seemed like it would become just that, just another...

...there was a pain behind his left eye.

What... Then a... hum in his thoughts. Something in his thoughts that he had not thought himself.

He instinctively tried to repel this intrusion. He closed his eyes... and a flood of images assaulted him.

Ayanami standing at the street leading to Misato's appartment. Ayanami on her stretcher, in the EVA cages. Ayanami trying to tell him and Soryu about Operation Yashima. Seeing Ayanami after her rescue from Mt Asama. Ayanami in the train, a plug in her ear. Ayanami atop of Soryu. Ayanami at Mt Futago, between him and Soryu, smiling.

A vision of Ayanami standing in the middle of the street, before he had even met her, disappeared again in an instant.

A nude young Ayanami with large eyes floating silently towards him.

There was a noise from outside, from outside the entry-plug, from outside the Evangelion. There was something wrong with the Evangelion. He could feel it.

An EVA malfunctioning... noises... people shouting...

And then he remembered.

A bright white room, full of cables, extending in front of him beyond a window. At its bottom, EVA-01.

He himself, in a room full of more cables and machines and computers. Behind him, behind a desk that is almost makeshift, a person he loves... Father? That was... Father.

"Ikari, this isn't a daycare centre. This is a very important day."

That voice sounds... familiar.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I brought him here."

Those words, those sounds came automatically into Shinji's mind. Tears welled up inside him. That voice... that voice!

"I want to show him how bright the future will be."

I... waved at those words...

...at Mother's words.

And then, chaos broke out. He had not understood back then, of course, and he still did not. In fact, he had completely forgotten about this all. Even now, all he remembered were people shouting... his Father shouting, desperately, enraged, pleading... broken in the end. Not caring about him, only what was happening in front of him.

He remembered crying. Only one person paid attention to him. A person he had thought had an unkindly face, all frowns, surrounded by short, black, curly hair. He had cried at her legs. But even she had left him. She had set out to save his mother.

She had failed. They all had failed. That day was the last day Shinji had seen his mother.

What the hell...?

Unit 00 was holding his head like a person with a headache. As if it were alive. There were no signals from Shinji inside his entry-plug. The EVA seemed to move on its own. Asuka had read the reports of course: EVA-00 going berserk during its activation test, EVA-01 going berserk against in the battle against Sachiel... Those Japanese units were simply unreliable. Such things simply did not happen with EVA-02.

I should...

Asuka jumped back in shock. EVA-00 had just rammed its fist into the Pribnow Box. And again. And again. The glass began to splinter.

"Rei, get back!" Misato shouted. "Rei!"

The First Child stood right in front of the windows and did not move. She just watched calmly as EVA-00 delivered one punch after the other in her direction. As if it wanted to kill its own pilot. Yet, even as pieces of broken glass flew around her, Rei did not move.

Suddenly, EVA-00's huge Cyclopean face loomed large directly on the other side of the windows. The Pribnow Box was dented, but had mostly held against the punches. Now, the Unit seemingly tried to headbutt its way in. And Rei still just stood there.

"Activation will be terminated in 25 seconds," Ibuki reported. "21... 20..."

That was too long. Acting without thinking, Asuka ran to the front of the room. She grabbed Rei at the shoulder and pulled, but the bluenette still did not move. The Pribnow Box shook as EVA-00's head came down against it again. Asuka now grabbed Rei at the waist and dragged her backwards.

EVA-00's head came down again. The windows burst.

Shocked, Asuka froze, her arms still around Rei. She was only metres away from the alien face of an out of control Evangelion.

The Evangelion roared, another thing EVA-02 had never done.

This was not her unit, but it was an Evangelion. A machine to be controlled by pilots. Asuka looked at it angrily, defiantly. She would not cower in front of a machine.

She also did not let go of Rei.

A train station. A man leaving behind a crying child.

Coldemptyalone...

A park bench. People passing by, pointing at the boy on it, whispering. His father killed his mother...

Coldemptyalonesocold...

An SDAT player. Music in his ears, the world around him forgotten.

Coldemptyalonecoldisolated...

A new room, a new ceiling, empty but for a futon.

Coldemptyalonecoldisolatedfaraway...

Yet another ceiling. He was in a hospital bed. Nobody else was there.

Coldemptyalonecoldisolatedfarawaycoldcoldcold...

There was nothing there anymore. No feeling of comfort. No feeling of Ayanami. Just a leather seat and handles in his hands. He had formed them to tight fists around them, he noticed. LCL all around him. It did feel cold indeed. And something even colder in his head, in his brain, in his mind... something that was absolutely neutral and sterile.

With a sudden jolt, Shinji realized he had come to his senses again. He was still in EVA-00's entry plug. There still was at least a second stage connection, because he could see right in front of the Evangelion. Right into the Pribnow Box... which lay open and dented in front of him. He could see every single person inside. He realized EVA-00's head was right in front of that new hole in the wall.

And inside that room, Ayanami. Held by Soryu.

"Ayanami!" he shouted. "Soryu!"

There was an immediate response from within the Pribnow Box. "Shinji!" Misato shouted over the comm system. She sounded worried. "Shinji, are you alright?"

While Misato spoke, Shinji saw Ayanami straightening up and getting free of Soryu's grip. She took a step forwards, towards the EVA, and said something, something not picked up by the comm system. Then she let her head hang low and left. Soryu looked after her.

"I... I am fine," Shinji waved the question away. "Did... did I... did the EVA hurt anyone? Ayanami? Soryu?"

He saw Soryu running over to a terminal.

"She said sorry," Soryu told him venomously. "Whatever for. You could have killed her! Killed me!"

"Sorry," Shinji answered himself, looking down. "I... I didn't mean..."

"Big consolation that is to us!" Soryu shouted.

"Asuka!" Misato cut in once again, and grabbed her away from the terminal by the shoulder. "Shinji... are you hurt?"

Shinji could still hear Soryu scoffing. He shook his head. At least, he did not think he was hurt, but thinking was very difficult right now.

I... I saw mother.

...I saw mother die. EVA-01... EVA-01 took her.

"I'm fine," he simply answered and sounded nearly as exhausted as he felt. "What happened?"

"Unit 00 went berserk," Dr Akagi reported. Her tone was neutral, matter-of-fact, without any worry, sympathy or any of the other emotions making Misato's voice a turmoil. "That was not you. The mental flow reversed. EVA-00 entered your thoughts, instead of the other way around. We disconnected its power supply, but somehow the incident ended even before power ran out, and you became conscious again. So far, we have no idea what caused all this."

Ayanami... that was Ayanami that I felt. Even right before... even right before the Evangelion went berserk. Even right before I... remembered. That thought disturbed him. It seemed EVA-00 had nearly broken the Pribnow Box. Such violence, such fury... those were not things he would associate with Ayanami.

"Unit 00 is still not fully responding to our signals," Dr Akagi continued. "I'm sorry, but it might take a while until we can get your entry-plug out of there."

Dr Akagi and Misato had insisted Shinji should stay in the NERV hospital for some hours for observation. He himself saw no reason for that. He felt fine, but he did not argue. So once again, he lay on a bed, hooked up to all kinds of instruments he did not understand, looking up to a ceiling he seriously began to resent, and listening to his SDAT player.

Mother...

His mother had worked on EVA-01. EVA-01 had killed his mother. His father had seen it. And yet, his father had still made him pilot EVA-01.

I piloted the machine that killed Mother. That... absorbed her. While she was in it like I am in it. Because Father said so.

He really doesn't care about me.

His mother... he could only vaguely recall her. Her warmth, mostly. He could not remember her face, and nearly nothing of her voice – only those two sentences that had come to him now.

"I want to show him how bright the future will be." … Unit 01 destroyed that future. For her. And for me.

The room's door opened. Shinji immediately turned to lay on his side, facing away from it. Misato was in the door frame.

She did not enter.

"They've cleared you, Shinji," she told him. "We can go home."

Shinji clenched a hand to a fist. It was miserable how he still avoided her. He should never have yellled at her in the first place, and now he only made it all worse. But he just did not know what to say.

After the silence had stretched for a while, Misato announced: "I'll wait in the car. Get dressed." She closed the door again and left.

He curled up into a ball. He would go 'home', of course, to Misato's apartment, but the atmosphere there would be tense. He felt like he had no refuge in the world. At 'home', he had to face Misato, and at NERV they wanted him to pilot the very machine that had absorbed his mother when she had tried the same.

That is my life...

He got up unenthusiastically and slowly. His 'civilian' clothes, his school uniform, had been taken to the room. He got dressed. Only afterwards he took his hospital gown, and, with a sigh, folded it.

He stepped into the hospital corridor. Frustratingly enough, he knew the hospital well enough already that he knew the way to the garage.

He stopped, startled, when he came around a corner and saw Soryu there, leaning against a wall. She had changed out of her plugsuit, into a simple jeans and shirt combination.

"Third Child," she greeted him.

"Soryu," he greeted back. "What... what are you doing here?"

She turned around to face him and shouted: "What the hell was that about?"

"Wha... what?" Shinji exclaimed.

"You're the guy who got a synchrate of over 40% in his first try," Asuka accused him. "And yet, you can't control the Prototype? I was in there as well. I didn't cause it to berserk."

"Ah... ah, well..." Shinji stuttered, too put on the spot to even consider the issue, to defend himself. "I'm sorry."

"What were you even doing inside that thing when it tried to kill Rei... tried to kill me?" Asuka demanded to know.

"I want him to show how bright the future will be."

That memory washing over him again drowned out all the shock of seeing Soryu. He cast his view down and again formed fists.

"I remembered," he half-whispered.

The sudden seriousness of his voice made Soryu stop, then she scoffed. "A great time to think about the..."

Now it came all out of Shinji, even though he still spoke to the floor in a subdued, slow voice: "I remembered my mother. She had worked on EVA-01. There was an experiment. I never saw her again afterwards."

"Your mother?" Soryu asked. "I should... I should have known..." She still sounded angry, but it was a crumbling, confused anger.

"I think it was when I was five... four maybe?" Shinji continued. "EVA-01 just... absorbed her."

"Four..." Soryu now simply whispered. Her anger seemed to have gone. "And she was working on the EVA unit you now pilot?" Shinji nodded without looking up. There was an awkward pause, before Soryu asked: "That experiment... a... ah, Kontaktexperiment... a contact experiment?"

Shinji's face jerked up. "Someone... my father, I think... yes, they used that term."

"You lost... your mother... in a contact experiment... with your EVA unit?" Soryu asked. She suddenly looked ghostly pale.

"What about it?" Shinji asked back petulantly.

Soryu closed the gap between them with a sudden step, grabbed him at the shoulders and shook. "What else do you remember?"

"N...nothing!" Shinji insisted. "I didn't even remember all that. It only came back to me... inside EVA-00. I know my father supervised the experiment, and there were a lot of other people, but I don't know who they were."

Soryu let go of him. She kept looking at him, her face still displaying shock, then she suddenly turned and ran away.

Shinji was left behind, wondering. What was that about?

It took some moments until he resumed his walk to the garage.

Misato sat in her car, and had both hands on the driving wheel, even though the motor was off. She had been so proud when the vehicle had been delivered to her. A genuine Renault Alpine from Europe. Now, this hardly seemed to matter. It seemed the Angel War did not leave room for frivolities like her interest in cars.

She felt frustrated. Frustrated at Shinji, frustrated at her general situation and now also frustrated at Ritsuko. The leader of NERV's science section had been unable to explain to her what had happened. Worse, she also seemed uninterested in telling her. This was not the first time Misato had seen Ritsuko unable to solve a challenge. Their memories from college days were full of happy moments, fun times, but also of desperate struggles to pass their exams. Granted, a bit more desperate for Misato than for Ritsuko, but even the faux-blonde had not been a perfect, always correct student. And back then, she had always confided her problems, also her problems with college classes, in Misato.

What has happened since then?

It was clear nobody could have foreseen EVA-00 going berserk. Nobody was at fault here. But after Shinji's accusations, it bothered her that yet again he had to bear the brunt of their failures.

The whole situation would be a whole lot easier if he did not have a point.

She waited nearly half an hour, agitated, but determined to not get irritated with Shinji. Finally, she saw him slouching into the garage and entering the car. Misato started it.

As they left the Geofront and entered the open street, she began to talk: "So, Shinji, what do you want to do now?" Again, he just looked out of the window. "How long do you want to keep this up, coming home late at night, ignoring me, not talking? It's possible for you to keep it up indefinitely, but is that what you want?"

Finally, there was a response, even if it was barely audible. "No. I don't think so."

"I told you, we can just get back to where we were," Misato told him softly.

"Going back to pretending?" Shinji murmured.

"What do you mean?" Misato asked.

Shinji leaned back and now looked straight ahead. He shook his head. "Eventually, the next angel will come. You'll deploy me again. We'd just be pretending everything is in order."

There was a long silence in the car. Finally, Misato answered: "You can stop piloting EVA, if that is what bothers you. I can understand that. We are asking too much of you."

Again, Shinji shook his head. "I already tried to leave once. And then stayed. I can't waver back and forth forever."

"Says who?" Misato challenged him. "Both the first and the second angel would have utterly destroyed Tokyo-3, and you defeated both on your own. You saved the city two times over." And the world, but he doesn't need to know that. "You don't need to worry about what others think of you."

"You say that now, but if the next angel were to attack right now you would say everything to get me into the entry-plug," Shinji argued. Misato was about to answer, but he just continued, without rancour, without much emotion at all: "And I can understand that. Evangelions are needed to fight angels, and I'm needed to pilot Evangelion. Ayanami can take over for me, but that would still leave you with one fewer active Evangelion. With so much depending on the Evangelions, it would be selfish for me to run away."

Misato furrowed her brows. Is that his honest conviction, or is he again just going along with what he's being told? In any case she had to admit that he, once again, had a point. During an angel attack, she would most likely do everything to have three Evangelion units ready and deployable.

"Why did you stay, at that train station?" Misato asked softly.

Shinji looked down, on the seat between his legs. As expected, he took his time in answering. "I thought I had finally found someone who cared about me. I know my tutor never did, he just did his job. I didn't want to go back to that. To being so alone. Even if it meant piloting EVA."

"You stayed because of me?" Misato whispered. Shinji just vaguely grunted confirmation. Misato had thought something like this was the case, but him openly saying so now caused another pang of guilt inside her. "You..." She stopped herself, but then decided to go through with it. The Commander wouldn't like this, but screw him. "You don't need to leave if you stop piloting. I am your legal guardian. I can decide to stay that. And I would, if you want, even if you stop being a pilot." I owe him at least that much.

Shinji looked at her, an undecipherable expression on his face. Then he leaned back into his seat again. "That would be nice, but... it wouldn't work. Maybe you wouldn't try to get me into EVA-01 immediately when the next angel attacks, but as soon as things get rough..." He shook his head again. "The only way for me to avoid piloting it is to leave Tokyo-3."

"And you still don't want to?" Misato concluded.

"I don't want to return to being all alone," Shinji answered.

The car passed a busy intersection, at least by Tokyo-3 standards. Again, Misato furrowed her brows, and then suddenly turned left to enter a supermarket parking lot. Shinji could only brace himself against the sudden forces of inertia. When the car stopped, he looked at her in surprise.

"You're right in one thing, Shinji," she told him in a serious voice, looking straight back at him. "The next angel will come. And when that happens I will deploy you if you're still a pilot. I have to."

"I understand that," Shinji answered weakly. "You are the Operations Director..."

"Yes, I am," Misato replied, then sighed and softened her tone. "Maybe... maybe it was a mistake that I took you in." She saw how Shinji turned stiff at that. "Maybe you deserved someone better. Someone who can care only about you. I do care, Shinji. But I also have to care about fighting the angels, and that's... that's unfair on you. You deserve someone who only thinks of you, not also other considerations."

There again was silence for a long time in the car. And when Shinji answered, he was back to being barely audible: "It's not like there was anyone else who would have taken me in."

"You could have stayed at NERV headquarters," Misato pointed out.

Again, silence. Until Shinji muttered: "Is that what you want?"

"No, Shinji," Misato reassured him. "It is not what I want. I like to have you around. But I'm considering what would be best for you." She smirked bitterly. "Outside of the Angels just randomly stopping to attack."

And once again, silence. Misato was glad to have parked here. By now they would have long since reached the apartment, but this was a conversation that needed to happen.

"I don't know what's best for me," Shinji stated weakly. "I don't know what I want. I don't want to pilot EVA, I don't want to return to my tutor, I don't think I can stay here without piloting EVA... it's pathetic."

"No, it's not," Misato disagreed. "Yes, you are indecisive. But normally, people don't have to take EVA and fighting giant alien abominations into account in their decisions. You do, and that's our fault."

"Maybe..." Shinji began to muse, but as usual it took a while before he continued. "Maybe simply continuing as before is the best option. But, once the next angel arrives, I... I mean, I wouldn't like that you..." He stopped.

"You would resent me for deploying you again," Misato summarized. Shinji looked away. She sighed. "Maybe... maybe that's okay. After all, I am forcing you, a boy of fourteen, into life and death battles."

"But I can't live with you and then..." Shinji argued, still looking out of the window.

"Why not?" Misato interrupted him. "Maybe that is the best solution. You continue living with me... and if I deploy you, you hate me. It's alright if you do, Shinji. We're forcing you into such an impossible situation, asking so much of you... it's right if you resent people for that. I'm not offended by that."

And maybe... probably... I deserve being hated.