Asuka had not come back, as she had promised him.

The sun had almost completely set, and the last of the cicadas were just quieting down, when Kensuke was walking through the streets of Tokyo-3, head held down and hands in his pockets. He had gone to the arcade for years already, even already as a small pipsqueak, but now it just wasn't the same anymore. The brief time he had spent with Asuka had spoiled him; going there without her just felt insufficient now.

He sighed. The worst part was that he didn't even know how to feel about it. He couldn't be angry, because it was well possible that her absence wasn't her fault. It could even be that Section 2 had simply whisked away Asuka. That prospect could have him in panic, but that wasn't really possible, either, because it was just as likely that Asuka had simply shut herself in, as she had before… and Kensuke didn't know if he had any right to intrude on her then. Probably not. So all he could feel was… down, really. Not really depressed, just sort of constantly bummed out.

And while he was not panicking over a possible abduction, he was worried about her. Her time in Tokyo-3, her whole life had been rough. She needed something better, and yet it seems she had simply disappeared. She didn't show up in class anymore, and he couldn't ask Shinji, either, because neither did he. He had even mustered the courage to ask Rei about it, and she had said Shinji would soon leave Tokyo-3. The girl had looked strangely absent saying that… almost lost. And if Shinji were to leave soon, was the same true of Asuka?

It's not fair. He could hope this meant something better would be in store for the two now, but what were the chances? After all, someone had to pilot the Evangelions. Which, really, was another concern. If Shinji is leaving… and maybe Asuka, too… He didn't really feel comfortable with the thought of the fate of the city being in Mari's hands.

He emitted another long-drawn sigh as he entered the garden around his family's house. When he opened the house door, he heard voices coming from inside. His father and… somebody else. Instead of announcing that he was home, Kensuke remained quiet.

"I'm sorry, Mr Kaji, but that is all we could come up with." That was his father's voice.

A sigh, and then the sound of somebody blowing breath out. "It's not exactly much."

"We may still be the largest newspaper in Japan," Aida senior answered, calm and perfectly unperturbed by the accusation. "But we are only that, not an intelligence service."

This piqued Kensuke's interest. Spy stuff... Slowly, as stealthily as a clumsy teenager could manage, he came closer to the living room from where the sounds had come. He was, once again, grateful that the walls here were well-built and stable, not as flimsy as in most Japanese dwellings. He pressed himself against the living room's wall and listened in.

"True," the other man (Mr Kaji?) admitted. "But you have to understand. I'm putting my life at risk working with you. And while I don't mind the risk, I do mind if it is for only such meagre results."

"You're not the first informant we have worked with," Kensuke's father tried to reassure the man. "That's all we can tell you. The shell companies that you have traced back to NERV have been busy buying up AI tech labs for quite some time now. If this goes on, Silicon Valley will soon be under Commander Ikari's control. Most of Japan's own AI industry already is."

Mr Kaji cursed. "And Ritsuko is stonewalling me. She is developing something, but she won't tell me what." Another blow of air - cigarette smoke, most likely.

"Now, about that girl?" Kensuke's father inquired. "That Mari Makinami?"

"Would you believe me I had as much luck as you did?" Mr Kaji asked. "Here, it's all on this disk. But the short version is: 'That girl' doesn't exist. Even in the classified databases and registries there is nothing on her. However…"

"Yes?" Aida senior prompted him.

"I managed to hack into Ritsuko's computer," Mr Kaji continued. "I found nothing on her little science project, but I did manage to get into the pilots' medical files. Take a look at her brain scans when you go through the data. I'm no medical expert, but the one I showed this to said they were highly irregular, and not in a way she recognizes from any known neural disease. And then the references in her medical file…" Another blow of smoke. "All classified. I couldn't get into those. But they all linked to NERV databases. And I know which ones those were, at least." A lower tone of voice. "The links go to dossiers about NERV secret projects, I'm sure of it."

"NERV… did something to the girl?" Kensuke's father asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine, but it sure looks like it," Mr Kaji answered. "Your newspaper, they have medical experts they can turn to, right? Let them take a look at it. And whatever you do find out…"

"We will share with you, don't doubt it," Aida senior reassured him.

"Good. I should be going," Mr Kaji stated. "I managed to evade my Section 2 detail, but I shouldn't dawdle. Next time, we'll meet at a more secure location.

Shinji's face was still tear-stained as he entered the kitchen. He hated it. It was always a welling up of tears and ugly sounds. Most of the time, he didn't cry at all. Most of the time, he just felt too detached to everything happening around him - or to him. He couldn't remember a time when life hadn't been painful, when the world around hadn't been grey and overwhelming. That was just the way of things; life was a series of bad events. He no longer cried about them.

But as he had packed his belongings, he had thought of Rei, and while he had desperately cast that thought aside, eventually the tears had come. He would leave her. The only person who had ever loved him. The only person who had ever done something for him. The one time when life hadn't been all in gray. And now he was abandoning her. He might have saved the world three times over, but in the end, he was still a pathetic boy.

And yet, stepping into the kitchen to fill a glass of water at the tap, he could feel the allure of just leaving it all behind. The oppressive silence that had fallen on this household, facing Misato over and over again after everything that had happened, watching Asuka slowly crumble…

He opened the tap, filled the glass and drank. The water helped calm his nerves. He would be gone soon, so it really was best to get this all over with quickly. To just cut all ties to this place. It was not like he could avoid that now.

He hesitated as he turned around again. Asuka had just entered the kitchen.

With neither of them bothering to still go to school right now, they did occasionally run into each other in the apartment. And with Misato being at NERV most of the time now, fleeing and avoiding her own household, both would simply grab something to eat whenever they felt like, or go to the grocery shop to fill up their reserves again.

Asuka grunted something that, with some good will, could maybe be interpreted as a greeting. Shinji half-smiled at that as he shuffled past her, muttering a "Hello".

"For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

Shinji had already reached the kitchen's doorframe, and now stopped. He turned around and asked sheepishly: "What do you mean?"

Even she, the great German pilot, had quit now. When Shinji had heard about that, upon coming back from Rei, he had felt a sort of ugly, vicious pleasure: Misato and NERV had fucked up again, and they were running low on pilots. But he knew he shouldn't feel those things: Ultimately, it was just mean-spirited and lowly Schadenfreude. Besides, NERV being down to two pilots might have been well deserved, but was also concerning.

In any case, he hadn't felt any great urge to talk about this with Asuka. Not with him soon leaving anyway. It would have just been too complicated. It was better to avoid that hassle.

"About…" Asuka's back was still turned towards him. "Look, you are an idiot, and she is an idiot, and all this sweet lovey-dovey stuff is sickening, but… I'm sorry about Rei. That's all."

Shinji smiled ironically. He would miss Asuka as well. Then his heart skipped when he remembered… "Uh… and… uh, I guess... " He breathed out. "I… I'm sorry about Kensuke. You… you two deserve better."

"Not like anyone here cares what we deserve," Asuka replied bitterly. She breathed out, as if shedding her anger. "Thanks. It's just… I don't think I could have left without… well, without your example I wouldn't even have known it's a possibility." She turned around. Her smile was probably supposed to look triumphant, but instead it looked shaky. "And now we're both leaving this Scheißdreck behind. Let's see how they can deal without us, if they don't value us, right?"

"Ahhh… r-right." Shinji wasn't quite feeling it. If 'they' couldn't deal well without them… Though his heart had done another skip when he had realized what Asuka had tried to tell him: That he had in fact had a positive impact on yet someone else.

"Maybe, once this is all over…. Ah, whatever. Verdammte Scheiße." Asuka stomped off to the refrigerator and opened its door so angrily that Shinji almost thought she would yank it off.

"Yeah. Maybe," he answered vaguely…

...and just as he was about to finally return to his room, he heard someone entering the apartment. Misato stood in the entrance, in her NERV uniform, and looked into the kitchen.

"Shinji, Asuka… we need to talk," was all she said, her left hand holding her right elbow.

As the days passed by, Asuka had come to be strangely content, even though it was a hollow contentedness.

She would make an end to it all, wipe the slate clean. Leave everything that has happened to her behind - her mindrape, her exploitation, her abuse. She would break free of NERV, of the people who for years had only used her. Misato would not be able to stop her in that. She was free. She had won. And yet, this was a hollow victory. It was something she could have had at any time earlier in her life. And even now, nobody cared about her or what she had done.

All she would leave behind was resentment and hard feelings. But that was alright. She had come to accept that. It was better than nothing. At least Misato's comforting, lying facade had been broken. Asuka could take satisfaction in that - a sort of perverse satisfaction in the heavy atmosphere engulfing the Katsuragi household. After all, it was just the truth finally laid bare.

And now, now when it was all over, Misato wanted to speak with them? Asuka scoffed at the thought. She would listen, but she did not exactly have high seemed to be the same way. Both teenagers at the kitchen table, facing each other, while Misato sat at the table end - and both of them were eying the Colonel, still in her NERV uniform, with open mistrust. There was a long and deep silence.

"I… I just wanted to say…" Misato's voice was strangely quiet and subdued. "That I understand." Asuka and Shinji looked at each other, unsure what the Colonel meant. "Some people… I as well… well, we don't really see the big picture, do we? We don't care much about the world. We do what we do for personal reasons."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Asuka heatedly demanded to know.

Misato looked at her, her face stony and unreadable. "Asuka, you know what happened to me as a teenager. And Shinji, I think Kaji told you about that." The boy nodded. "That's why I joined NERV. Ultimately, it was never about saving the world. It was about… I couldn't allow my father to have died in vain. It was a personal reason. A selfish reason."

"I don't like where this is going," Asuka growled. Shinji's face was by now as cold and stony as Misato's.

"So… if you now want to return to Germany, Asuka… I can't hold that against you," Misato said. "That would make me a hypocrite. You and me, we both don't care much for the world."

Asuka jumped up from her chair. "What? How dare…" She was shaking. How dare she?

Shinji's gaze was now rigidly cast down. It was him whom Misato addressed next. "That's why I kept you here, Shinji."

The boy looked up, surprised.

"What do you mean, Misato?" Asuka asked aggressively.

"I never managed to make up with my father. Never managed to forgive him. Never managed to thank him for… for…" Misato breathed out. "I threw away that chance when I was your age. I thought… I had hoped Shinji could do it better. That's why I kept him around. That's why I proposed he should be a reserve pilot. That was my entire reasoning, not the pilot corps or the EVAs or anything."

" 'Personal reasons'," Asuka spat out venomously.

"Yes," Misato just confirmed and looked at Shinji. "I tried with all my power to keep you here, even when I saw how miserable you were, so that you would do it better than I had."

Shinji sat there like he had been punched, face aghast, eyes wide. "That's… that's why?"

Misato nodded. "It was never the big picture. So I can't fault you for leaving. You and me, we have just been following our personal..." She stopped. "Shinji'...?"

The boy was again rigidly looking down. He seemed impervious to everything going on around him. "Shinji?" Misato got up from her chair and walked over to him. "Look, I know it is... " She tried to lay a hand on his shoulder - but the boy swatted it away.

Both Misato and Asuka looked at him shocked. "Shinji!"

Now the boy looked up again, right at the Colonel now standing next to him. His face looked… scary. Distorted. "All this… because of how you lost your father?"

Misato had no answer for this. She looked away. Abruptly, Shinji stood up. He trembled. Then he turned around and got his shoes in the apartment's area. A moment later and he was gone - even slamming the apartment door on the way out.

"Shinji!" Misato called after him, but it was too late.

Asuka sat down again, crossed her arms and scoffed. "Well, now." It was almost amazing. Another fumbling attempt by Misato to cover for what she had done, gone up in flames. Another aspect to the Colonel's general awfulness. It made Asuka feel vindicated in her feeling of hollow triumph.

Misato stared at her - now not being calm and stony but understanding, but looking quite emotional and annoyed.

Asuka defiantly raised her chin. "I thought you 'understood'?"

"Asuka!" Misato hissed.

Asuka stood up again as well. "Keep your false 'understanding'. I don't need it. Come back to me when you have an apology." And with that she went back to her room, leaving Misato behind in the kitchen. The Colonel leaned on the table.

A moment later Asuka heard the angry sound of a glass being swiped off the table and shattering in a thousand pieces.

Rei sat in her apartment, on the one non-broken chair, at her desk. She sat upright and rigid, her face, unblinking,and stared into nothingness. The room's curtains had been drawn shut.

For the first time in her life, Rei had a desire, actually wished for something, something for herself… but felt powerless to do anything about it. She could just sit there and count down the seconds until the inevitable would happen. It was an unbearable contrast: To feel as if you had to move heaven and earth to prevent a disaster, a personal apocalypse, and at the same time to feel utterly, and completely powerless to do anything at all.

Feeling had been good these past few days - these past few weeks and months. There had been new feelings, new sensations, good feelings. But now, there was something inside Rei, something that made her feel like being torn apart. As soon as Shinji had left, she would have to ask Ritsuko to put her on the psychoactive pills again.

I could ask him to stay...

In fact, that was what she had intended. To go to him, and ask him to remain here, in Tokyo-3. She had planned this with the Commander, but it wouldn't even be an act. There truly was nothing what she would have wanted more than that. And despite how it made her feel, how she hated herself for it, she had fully planned to do that.

...and yet, somehow, she had just remained sitting here. Always with that intention in mind, but never actually getting up and doing it. She dearly desired Shinji to stay, but she found she just somehow couldn't do it. Couldn't go and burden Shinji with this request. She was fairly certain he would say yes... that in itself a novelty, familarity enough with someone to predict their reaction. But the thought of what that would mean for him... something deep within her, something in her stomach, formed knots thinking about it.

This was also something she had never experienced before. An inability to do a planned action that was not physical. And thus, she hated herself for even having suggested this action, while at the same time just sitting there, idly watching time go by, while she couldn't actually do it.

There was a knock at the door.

Rei's head suddenly jerked up, and her entire posture got stiff. After several years, there had only been one person who had actually knocked at her door. It was thus not difficult to infer who it would be now, and yet... Rei had always acted on logic, but now she found she didn't dare to hope.

Another knock. "Rei?". It was Shinji.

For a moment, Rei froze. It was not something that had ever happened to her before... or at least not while she was still taking Akagi's pills. Back then, all emotional impacts on her had been so hazy she had simply done what seemed obvious to her, or had done nothing at all. But now, she felt that impact very acutely. A fluttery feeling, but at the same time something like a deep hole in her stomach. Being confronted with Shinji now would mean having to ask him...

By the time she finally reached the door there had been a third knock and a second call for her... and then nothing. When she finally opened the door, she didn't see Shinji. Instead, she had to take a step outside to see him trotting away, head held low, towards the building's external stairs.

"...Shinji."

It came basically automatically. An instinct to call out for him. It hadn't been a shout, of course. Even now, she didn't really show emotion. It was just her usual voice, as always. And yet... Shinji immediately turned around.

With slow steps he came back towards her door. The two looked into each other eyes, neither sure what exactly to do. But all uncertainty for Rei was gone. It was Shinji. A bright spot in her world. Nothing bad had... would ever come from him. And suddenly, his arms were around her. She still reacted with a bit of surprise, but then all tension left her body.

I can't lose him. I won't.

Shinji had left Misato's apartment without any certain goal in mind. He had just needed to get out, to get away, to have nothing to do anymore with Misato's lies and callousness. It was worse than he had ever assumed. He had thought that people only ever saw others in terms of their usefulness; that the only reason people took any interest in him at all was his use in piloting EVAs; that he was needed to defend the city and the world and that hence people expected that of him. People wanting to stay alive and hence using him as their tool of survival.

Worse. So infinitely worse. All the pain and suffering, all the fear and trauma... it was all because of Misato's family history. It was all because she thought she could correct her past mistakes through him. Live vicariously through him. That was all she had ever seen in him, and if that meant he got whipped or boiled alive, hey, then that was necessary, apparently.

It was not something he had been able to deal with. He had run on pure instinct, just walking away stiffly. Running away again... but this time the thought didn't sting. What Misato had done just had in fact been too much.

For several minutes he had just walked forcefully through the late afternoon city. Just head low, arms rigid at his side, and taking large steps forwards, with no regard for direction or destination. But it turned out, he knew exactly where he was going, he just hadn't known he knew. His steps had taken him right to the residential high rise quarter of Tokyo-3. Right towards Rei's tower bloc.

The deconstruction work here was still ongoing. Workers demolishing one tower bloc after the next was generally the only human activity still ongoing in this quarter. The entire area was filled with their noise, especially an annoyingly rhythmic banging of metal on metal that occupied one's entire accoustic reception and just would not stop.

But now, in Rei's arms, that didn't matter. Misato didn't matter. Even Asuka and his class and Tokyo-3... it didn't matter. He still had no real word for that feeling being around Rei, but it was in fact a lot like coming home. Like getting into a safe place where nothing could hurt him. Where he could drop off all the tension inside him.

"Stay," he heard Rei whisper, an uncharacteristic vehemence in her voice. She led him inside, into her bed room, then onto her bed. And for some moments, they did manage to forget everything around them. There was only each other, and the tenderness between them.

It was deep in the night when they lay next to each other, body close to body due to the lack of space on Rei's bed. Just looking into each other's eyes, fingers gently caressing each other's faces. Rei's lonely desk lamp was the only illumination in the room, but that was enough for Shinji. The dim light reflected off Rei's lithe curves, accentuating them even, presenting a work of art of clean, pale skin and those captivating eyes. It was like Shinji could drown in a sea of red.

"Stay," Rei said again. Just that word, her voice monotonous as always, but maybe even softer than usual - gentle and quiet, almost begging.

It tugged at Shinji's heartstrings. But he was unsure what good her insistence would do. "Ah... Rei..." He breathed out. "I am leaving tomorrow. I'll stay until I need to go to the station, but..."

Rei shook her head. Even in the horizontal, it look uncharacteristically vehement for her. "I want... I need..." She fell silent. That was unusual as well. And she seemed to tense up.

Shinji's hand went forward and grabbed her arm. "Rei. What is it?"

"Shinji..." Rei began. It was an ever so subtle change, but her breathing seemed to go a bit quicker. "I know why you're leaving. I thought about it the entire week. And I... I don't think I can bear it."

Shinji just blinked. He should have seen where this went, but his mind just sort of blanked it out.

"I said I will protect you," Rei continued. "That I will pilot so you don't have to. But I don't know if I'll be able to pilot anymore with you gone. If I'll be able to function anymore."

"Oh." Now Shinji was seeing it. Intense emotions were flooding up in him, behind that simple word. There was only one way he could stay - he would have to fight and suffer again. He couldn't. Why was Rei even asking? It hurt a bit, and...

"Please." Rei's voice was now clearly insistent, begging, even desperate. "I don't want to return to where I was before I met you."

...Shinji's feeling of hurt melted. Now he was feeling guilty for having had that sting at all.

If tomorrow she were to come and tell me she couldn't pilot anymore, that she was breaking down, that she needed me to pilot… I would go out and pilot for her.

He had told that to Kaji... but it wasn't even a matter of needing to prove himself right. He had just stated facts. And those facts still held true; that was all there was to it.

He breathed out. Even so, the thought of actually fighting again... a gigantic shadow looming in the dark distance, the feeling of whips on his back and sides, all of his skin and body lighting up in agony as he was boiled... he opened and closed a trembling hand.

"I know what this will mean for you. I know that you..."

It was the softest rambling Shinji had ever witnessed, but for Rei's relations it was rambling. He squeezed the arm he had grabbed and smiled at her. A weak smile, but a smile. "I will do it."

Rei fell silent and just blinked at him.

...or rather, it was a sad smile on Shinji's face. "I... I can't pretend that it will be easy. Even... even with you around. But... you fought for me. And now... I guess now I will fight for you again. If... if you need it I will do it. Whatever..." He breathed out again. "Whatever it may cost."

There. He had said it. Had condemned himself to further pain, to further alienation from everyone around him, to further thankless efforts. But it was different this time. He hadn't said so to Misato. He still felt resentment for all of that - and in no small parts against himself. How he had suffered so much simply because he had been unable to walk away earlier. Or at all.

But if it was for Rei's sake... well. None of the fights would change, none of the lack of gratitude, none of Misato and his father still being the leading officers for NERV operations. But at least it would have a sense. A purpose. Getting gratitude would be nice. But having Rei, and keeping her happy, was even more important.

For a while Rei just stared at him. Then she just whispered, "...thank you." And... and was that a tear in her eye?

Shinji came closer to Rei and laid an arm around her. "I mean... you... you did the same for me."

Rei eagerly nestled herself in under Shinji's arm. However, her voice was surprisingly serious and hollow when she answered, "That wasn't the same."

Shinji really didn't know what to say to that. So he just held Rei, especially as moments later even more tears were falling down her eyes. Shinji would have had a hard time calling it 'crying', as the girl didn't make any sound at all. All he did was holding her, until he eventually fell asleep.

And thus he didn't notice that Rei didn't, and that eventually, she would get up from her bed.

And so it all ends. It all returns to nothing.

Variations of that thought had been going around in Asuka's head for hours now. Her path had been clear before, but this was finally her last day in Tokyo-3. She was standing on a platform of the city's central train station, and was waiting for the train to Tokyo-2. From the airport there she would have a direct flight back to Berlin. And then...

...she didn't know in fact. This wasn't just the end of her time in Tokyo-3. This was the end of her time in NERV, of her piloting, of the only life she had ever known. She didn't really want to admit this to herself, but fear was creeping up in her.

Fear... and guilt. Plagued by all her problems, she hadn't managed to contact Kensuke again. She just... she couldn't bear to see him again, only to then leave. It was just easier to not think about it, and to just leave.

To run away. Easier it might have been, but she still felt miserable about it. It was not a happy day for her. She had finally won her freedom, but that victory was mired in fear and guilt.

Her train would come in an hour. But Section 2 had appeared very early at Misato's apartment, and had demanded Asuka to accompany them. At first, Asuka had felt like protesting, especially because it was Section 2 - those overbearing, authoritarian brutes under whose constant watch they had all been living anyway. But she had already barely slept, and she felt too exhausted to fight. She had already packed anyway, and besides, this allowed her to just leave without needing to hear Misato's hypocritical good-byes.

They really want to make sure I will actually be gone. Asuka scoffed at the thought while she looked from one Section 2 group to the other - three men up the platform, three men down the platform. She sat on a rolling case, two others right next to hear, and looked at them with a sneer on her face.

There was some sort of movement behind one of the groups. Someone came running fast. The Section 2 agents moved to intercept. There was some protest by the person, some agitation, but the agents wouldn't budge.

...and then Asuka realized it was Kensuke. Her heart sank to her bottom.

The boy was still arguing with the Section 2 agents, and tried to push through. The agents put up with it, but only for so long. Eventually, they pushed back, and they didn't seem to be gentle.

Asuka had watched the whole scene with anxiety... but this, this put her into instinctive, nearly automatic motion. She ran up to the Section 2 team, and before the agents had fully noticed what was approaching from behind she used her shoulder to push one of the agents, now turning around, away, and slip through to Kensuke.

"Ah...Asuka," the boy stuttered. At the same time, a Section 2 agent laid a hand on Asuka.

Asuka just stood there, and commented without turning around, "I'm not under your jurisdiction anymore, and I am not being detained. I can go here if I want to be. I'm even still on the platform. And the train will only come in an hour."

"We have instructions..." the agent began.

Asuka turned around and cut him off. "Do you want me to make this all more complicated for you? Because I can promise you, I can make this all very much more complicated for you." She grinned sideways at one of the Section 2 agents - the one she had swept to the ground in the field, in front of Kensuke's tent.

The grinned at agent scoffed, while the one spoken to made a face. "Keep it short and don't run off."

"You wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for me," Asuka said acidly, and then turned around to Kensuke again. Now, the difficult part would come. "Uh, look, Kensuke. I'm sorry. I..." She fell silent. What could she even say? "I should have come to see you."

Kensuke's face looked... hurt. But he stretched out an arm and laid it on Asuka's shoulder. "Well, now you do."

"Just a pity we won't be able to go to the arcade again," Asuka said with a melancholic smile.

Kensuke nodded, surprisingly seriously. "But at least you'll be free now."

"Yeah." Again, Asuka fell silent. "Now. After ten years of my life wasted by them."

It seemed obvious Kensuke didn't quite know what to say to that, so for several moments he said nothing. Then he grinned melancholically. "Well... you got your freedom. Maybe you'll get justice, too. You've always been resourceful."

"Justice," Asuka muttered. Now there was another new idea. Then she shook her head. "For now I'll first have to get my life back on track in Germany." It was Kensuke. She could be honest with him. "It... it won't be easy."

"You'll manage. And it'll be a better life," Kensuke reassured her.

"One without you," Asuka whispered.

This had Kensuke blushing like a tomato. "Well..."

But before he could actually say anything, the siren system of the city began to wail loudly - an angel alert.

"We need to get to the Geofront;" the Section 2 group leader said and gripped Asuka's shoulder.

And, as a matter of pure instinct, Asuka was about to turn, when Kensuke pointed out: "She's a civilian." Then he grabbed Asuka's wrist. "Let's get you to one of the shelters."

Asuka looked surprised, but then grinned at him, and got out of the thug's grip.

Shinji ignored the alarm clock. He didn't move and was just waiting for it to be over. It was not a deliberate strategy, it was more inadvertent: As if he could will time to stay still if he did so as well. It was better here, in Rei's bed. He didn't want to get up. Didn't want to face what the future could bring.

But even after the alarm was finally over, five minutes later it started again. And by then Shinji was so thoroughly driven out of sleepiness that he had to at least look at his surroundings.

Rei wasn't there.

Shinji jerked up from his lying position... and was relieved to see Rei sitting at her desk, looking outside. But after a while, he furrowed his brows. Even as he kept watching her, no part of her body seemed to move for even just a millimeter.

Slowly, gradually, carefully, he got up and moved towards her. As she still was not moving, sitting unnaturally still, he became a bit concerned. "R...Rei? Are you..."

Rei turned her head around, slowly, thoughtfully. She looked at Shinji with big eyes, but he couldn't really judge the expression. It was not a smile, and while it wasn't much, it also wasn't her usually totally blank face. Did I... did I do something wrong?

"I am sorry, Shinji," she finally said.

"F...for what?" Shinji stuttered, completely confused now.

But Rei just shook her head and took his hand, after a while laying it on her cheek.

Shinji was used to her touch by now, how could he not after last night, but the intimacy of the gesture still made him blush and smile a bit.

...of course it was exactly then that the angel alerts began to sound throughout the city. Hastily, without needing to say anything, the two teenagers began to dress.

"There are no shelters nearby anymore," Rei said softly. "I will ask Section 2 to take you along and drop you off at the nearest shelter entrance."

"Uhhh... right." Shinji had promised Rei he would be a pilot again, but so far he wasn't. For the first time, he would be a civilian during an angel attack.

He wondered if Section 2 would indulge Rei. That didn't really seem in line with their usual behaviour. But then, Rei seemed to have a connection with his father, their Commander. He mentally shrugged. In the end, he had no way to affect the outcome of this either way.

They were quick, in any case. Shinji had barely fastened his belt when there was a strong knock at the door. And only two seconds later, the agents stepped in, without awaiting a response from within. There was no overt reaction to Shinji's presence, but both agents entering now kept their eyes on just him.

Shinji felt judged and also, well, controlled. It was an oppressive feeling as he sat down in the black car. Both he and Rei sat in the back seats, but now, in the presence of Section 2, she was entirely stiff again, looked just straight ahead, and didn't regard Shinji. Or at least that was what the boy assumed as reason. But then again, Rei had been weird the entire morning already...

The car stopped. Nobody said anything, but it was clear that it was time for Shinji to leave. Which he did, glumly.

But then, Rei gently touched his lower arm. His one leg already out of the door, Shinji turned his head around. "...Shinji. I have to fight the angel now." He nodded dumbly. "Afterwards... do not feel burdened by others. You at least can be free."

And with that she assumed her rigidly forward looking pose again, from one moment to the next. Confused, Shinji left the car and hastened to the shelter entrance.