Gospel 1:4

Shinji leapt up the escalator, taking the stairs three at a time. "Hurry up Asuka!" he shouted over his shoulder.

More shots echoed down from above and Shinji redoubled his efforts, leaving Asuka behind.

"Shinji the hero to the rescue," she muttered under her breath, stumbling over her skirt as she tried to follow Shinji. "Come back here you idiot!" she shouted. "What do you think you're going to do up there? You're going to get us killed!

Shinji ignored her and leapt off of the top step, launching himself into the lobby in front of the security gate. He brandished his school briefcase like a weapon but his foot came down in something slick and Shinji suddenly found himself on his back, sliding across the floor. Seeing the red trail that he left behind, Shinji realized that he'd slipped in a pool of blood.

"Why are you here?"

Shinji looked up, realizing that he was lying at his father’s feet. At that moment Asuka came running into the room, screaming obscenities in German at the top of her lungs, and in the following confusion Shinji climbed to his feet. "We heard gunfire. I thought that we could help."

"How did you hope to do that? Do your school supplies make you think that you're bulletproof? You would have been killed."

"I—I’m sorry," Shinji stammered. "I thought… that we could help."

"You thought wrong," Gendo said coldly.

Shinji looked away, unable to meet his father’s eyes. He then noticed two men being eased onto stretchers and four covered shapes in a line on the floor. An icy hand seemed to close around his heart. "Rei and Terry, they left ahead of us. Are they…?"

Gendo shook his head. "They’re fine."

Simultaneously, Misato and Fuyutsuki arrived at the security gate, both at a run.

"Sir, are you—?" Fuyutsuki started asking.

"I’m fine," Gendo said before the Deputy Commander could finish. "As are the Children," he said, turning to face Misato.

Vail started to swear as a medic applied a compress to his wound. "Goddamn pissin' arseholes!" he swore in English. "Those stinking bassards shot me in the gut! I'm gonna be stuck eating tapioca for a month!"

As the medics bore away the stretchers Gendo drew Ritsuko to one side. "Would you care to explain your actions?" he whispered fiercely. "It almost seemed that you were trying to get yourself killed."

Her expression didn’t change as she answered, "So I am worth something to you."

For a moment it looked as if the Commander was about to explode, but then he regained control, his face growing so rigid that it might have been chiseled from stone. "I need your expertise, nothing else," he said, grinding each word out.

"Of course," Ritsuko replied leadenly.

"Major Katsuragi, Miss Soryu," Gendo began, turning suddenly away from Ritsuko, "I would like you to escort Dr. Akagi back into the geofront. The attack has… traumatized her."

"Yes, sir," they replied simultaneously.

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"Wake him up," Gendo ordered the medic. They were in a small, bare room, and the only other people in it were Fuyutsuki and the surviving attacker. The man's eyes fluttered open a few minutes after the medic injected him with the stimulant and as soon as he was conscious he tried to hurl himself off the stretcher. His eyes widened in shock when he realized that he couldn't move any part of his body below his neck.

He locked his eyes on Gendo's face. "You're not going to get anything out of me," he said defiantly.

"On the contrary," Gendo said, smiling tightly. "You will tell me everything I want to know."

"Not likely." The bravado of his words was refuted by the sheen of sweat that sprang up on his face.

"I think that you will," Gendo said and gestured to the medic, who handed him small glass vial. "This is ten molar hydrochloric acid," he said, holding the vial in front of the man's face. "The doctor behind me has a syringe filled with two CCs of this." The man's eyes widened slightly but he said nothing.

Very carefully Gendo uncapped the vial and poured its contents on the man's leg. The acid immediately at through the material of his pants and the skin underneath began to blister and bleed. The blood drained from the man's face, but he tried to spit defiantly at Gendo. Because of the position of his head the saliva only dribbled down his lips. "Pain is a blessing in it's own way." Gendo said. "When the body feels pain the brain releases chemicals ten times more potent that morphine to dampen it. Pain however is as much psychological as physical. A soldier on the battlefield can lose half his torso and not know the injury worse than a scratch until he falls over dead if he doesn't recognize the wound. A man with a relatively minor injury will fall down screaming, overcome with unendurable agony, even while his comrade marches on with his organs trailing behind him."

"You're like the soldier with the little wound. Every nerve in your leg is screaming at your brain to send endorphins, but it can't hear them. However, your mind is still clear enough to assess the injury and it tells you that you should be in agony."

The man's face lost off its color and he rolled his eyes, trying to look away from his leg. "You can't do this!"

"Who will stop me? Do you think that anyone even knows you're here? Who authorized this operation? Kihl? Did you think that he would risk letting you live even if you'd succeeded? A terrorist attack against a high profile target would be an easily accepted story, and no one would raise questions if all of the "terrorists" conveniently died during the attack. You owe him no loyalty. Answer my questions."

"No," the man said, drawing from an unexpected reserve of courage.

"Very well," Gendo said, gesturing to the medic who uncapped the syringe of acid, stepped up to the stretcher but then hesitated. "Do it." Gendo ordered.

The medic swallowed nervously then slid the needle into the man's elbow and depressed the plunger. The man's arm immediately began to swell, the skin turning white. Gendo withdrew a gun and laid it on the stretcher next to the man's head. "Right now you must be imagining that you're in extreme agony. The sooner you answer my questions, the less agony you'll have to imagine."

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Asuka trailed several steps behind as Misato led Ritsuko back down into the geofront. The scientist seemed to make every movement by rote, as if her body was present but her mind had sent itself faraway. Misato took them to one of the lounges overlooking the geofront and since it was currently the middle of a duty shift there were few other people, allowing Misato to sit Ritsuko in one of the coveted seats in front of the observation window.

As Misato looked over the scientist's shoulder down into the geofront she realized that this was the first time she'd returned to the lounge since the reception for Kiyomi's wedding, when she, Ritsuko, and Kaji— She broke off that line of thought. Thinking about Kaji was dangerous. It was better to think about the present.

"Asuka," Misato said, beckoning the girl forward, "would you please go get Dr. Akagi a cup of coffee? Two creams, three sugars."

"Yes, Misato," Asuka said, leaving the two women by the window.

She crossed to the other side of the lounge and grabbed a porcelain mug off of a tray, filling it at the coffee maker. She added the requested amount of cream and sugar and carefully carried it back over to the table. Dr. Akagi was hunched over in her seat and her shoulders shook with sobs. Asuka set the coffee down in front of the doctor then sat several seats over unsure of what else would be expected of her.

Misato lifted Ritsuko's hands out of her lap and set them around the mug. "It's okay, Ritsuko," she said soothingly. "We're out of harm's way now."

The doctor lifted the mug to her lips and drained half of its contents, either not noticing or not caring about the coffee's heat. "Are we?" she asked, slamming the mug back down onto the tabletop. Coffee slopped over its sides. "Are we really safe? The Angels were bad enough, now we have to worry about our own species! We risked our lives for them. We paid for our victory over the Angels with our own blood! And this is the thanks that we get." She tossed down the rest of the coffee. Misato pried the mug from her hands and gestured for Asuka to refill it.

Misato waited until the girl was out of earshot before asking Ritsuko the next question. "Why didn't you drop when those men attacked? Why'd you stay on your feet?"

Ritsuko stared down at her lap. "I wanted to see what he'd do, if I was important enough to him to risk himself for." She laughed bitterly, "I would have found out, if the 6^th child hadn't interfered. It only would have taken another few seconds to learn whether or not I was worth anything. Another few-. " She stopped speaking as Asuka returned with another cup of coffee and after placing it in front of her, the 2^nd child returned to her seat.

"Asuka, dear," Misato said, "why don't you go back to the apartment? There's not much more you can do here."

"Yes, Misato." Asuka replied, picking up her book bag quickly leaving the lounge.

"He used me," Ritsuko said. She wrapped her hands around the coffee mug but didn't drink. "He used me until he thought I was all used up and then he tossed me aside. When he realized that he needed me again he pulled me off of the scrap heap, dusted me off, and set me right back to work. He didn't bother even to make sure that my gears still ran right, that my springs didn't need to be wound." Her knuckles turned white as they tightened around the mug.

"Ritsuko—" Misato began

"I hate him!" Ritsuko shouted. The few people in the lounge looked up from what they were doing and over at the two women and the mug made a musical ting as the porcelain cracked beneath her fingers. "I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" Cracks spider-webbed across the mug's surface in musical procession. Ritsuko's voice sank to a heated whisper, "He used me; he used us all. He doesn't care about anything." Coffee began to run between her fingers and pooled on the table.

"Ritsuko," Misato said, as she tried to pry the woman's finger from around the mug, "you're not worthless. You're one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet. Just because one man acts like an asshole doesn't mean you can let yourself fall apart. Try and keep it in proportion."

"Human emotions can blow anything out of proportion. I thought that I loved him and I even believed that he might love me. When we made love, it was one of the few times in my life that I actually felt human. Maybe I did actually love him, a little." Ritsuko gazed wistfully out the window. "In fairytales they always talk about the ice princess, the cold women who break men's hearts. There are never any ice princes." She stared down miserably at her hands. "Frigid prick." She glanced at Misato. "When can I be like you? You have your Prince Charming, for all of his flaws. You have Kaji."

Misato averted her eyes, fighting down the upsurge of emotion that his name brought. "K—Kaji used up his usefulness with the Commander; h—he was cast aside."

The mug exploded between Ritsuko's hands and coffee spread across the table in a muddy pool. Tears welled up in Ritsuko's eyes, dropping down her cheeks, and her coffee-stained hands shook as they pulled a wallet out of her coat. Inside was an aged and well-creased photograph of her, Misato, and Kaji. "I remember when we had this picture taken, back in college. The three of us, friends forever. Then you and Kaji went to Germany and I joined my mother here. It looked like fate had split our paths, and 'never again the twain shall meet.' Wasn't that what I wrote in that postcard I sent you?" Without waiting for an answer, Ritsuko continued. "Then you transferred here and it was almost like the past, then so did Kaji, things were so like the way they used to be that I almost felt alive again. It was almost like our college days, except that that the two of you had grown, matured. The only thing that changed for me since college was my hair color. I felt like a robot, unable to change, afraid to change, incapable of doing anything I wasn't told to. I sought absolution any way that I could," she sniffed, "but I only felt truly alive when I was with the two of you."

Ritsuko's eyes were glassy when she looked up. "When is it going to end? Ikari said that the 17^th Angel's death had removed the last impediment to Instrumentality, that all of our efforts would soon come to fruition. Yet nothing has changed. We're still using children, we're still creating Evas, the dummy system—" she stopped talking abruptly, realizing that she'd said too much. She glanced over at Misato to see if her slip had been noticed.

Misato, however, was staring out of the window and didn't seem to have heard anything after the first sentence. "I don't think that it will ever end. Not until everything and everyone has been ground into dust."

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"The operation failed miserably." The voice came from the second monolith. Its recrimination seemed to hang in the darkness between the monoliths.

The fourth monolith was the next to speak. "If you recall, I was opposed to killing Ikari from the start. He still has his uses, despite his… maverick tendencies."

"Those 'maverick tendencies', as you call them, threaten the success of our scenario!" The twelfth monolith's voice bristled with anger.

"Does that justify the murder of children? We know that the mission's s objectives extended beyond eliminating just Ikari."

The voice of the twelfth monolith was filled with reproach. "Not all of us share your faith in the words of Dead Sea scrolls. If we have need of the Evangelions, then we will have need of the Children."

The first monolith' spoke, its voice defensive. "The ends justified the means. Ikari's actions threaten the very existence of mankind."

The third monolith was the next to speak. "You yourself said that Ikari was the only one with the ability to bring our plans to fruition. We can afford to let him to continue to think that he pulls the strings until we are absolutely sure that he is no longer necessary. At that point, cutting his strings will not present a problem."

There were several moments of silence before the first monolith spoke. "So be it."

All of the monoliths faded from sight.

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"I suspected that Steele was involved in this," Gendo said. He slid the gun back into his jacket as the medic draped a sheet over the stretcher.

"If you knew that he was spying for SEELE why didn't you do something about him?" Fuyutsuki asked.

The Commander gave him a level stare. "If I had disposed of him earlier, SEELE would have replaced him with another spy, forcing me to expend more time in order to uncover the new mole's identity. So long as Steele remained passive I was content to let him go scurrying back to SEELE with whatever useless bits of information I allowed him to find. Steele's name however was the answer to too many of my questions. I think that you know how to take care of such… answers."

"You know, Ikari, you'd have a lot more to worry about than SEELE if anyone found out how you treat your guests. Amnesty International, if you would pardon the expression, would crucify you for what you did to that man."

"I do not appreciate having people trying kill me. I want Steele taken care of, immediately."

A frown of distaste crossed Fuyutsuki’s face, "Yes, sir."

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Inside of an office building near the entrance to the geofront, Nicolas Steele, head of NERV topside security, hurriedly stuffed papers into a briefcase. He hadn’t heard anything from the assault team since they'd entered the geofront and he was beginning to worry. Their mission had been to assassinate Commander Ikari and should the opportunity have presented itself, the Children. The squad's leader had assured him that the operation would be pulled off flawlessly, especially after he'd been told that all five of the targets, with the added bonus of Dr. Akagi, were en route to the surface. No matter what the outcome, any survivors of the squad were supposed to contact him and inform him of which objectives had been accomplished.

The call from Chairman Kihl had both surprised and upset him. He'd become comfortable in his position as SEELE’s fly on NERV's wall, keeping a covert eye on Ikari's dealings. To suddenly be thrust into so active a role upset him greatly. Even with the passive nature of his spying he was afraid that the Commander suspected him and he feared Ikari's wrath, should he survive. If there had been any foul-ups in the mission, Steele doubted he would be able to get farther than three blocks from his office before retribution caught up with him.

At this point, whether or not the assassinations had been carried out successfully no longer really mattered to him. The worst case scenario predicted that the squad would only manage to kill the Commander and one of the Children, but that should still generate enough confusion for him to make his escape. He already had a plane ticket out of the country and Chairman Kihl had personally assured him that he'd be taken care of once he completed his role in the assassinations.

It was sprinkling lightly as he stepped out onto the sidewalk and he hurried to the streetcorner, catching the light just as it turned to WALK.

As he stepped out into the street, he heard the shriek of tires on wet pavement and a red sports car whipped around the corner. The last thought to flash through his mind was, much less than three blocks. The car barreled into him, throwing his body over the hood and into the windshield with enough force to send a spider web of cracks running through the glass. His body was launched off the roof of the car and tumbled bonelessly through the air, landing on the pavement like a rag doll with all its stuffing let out.

The sports car’s tires screeched again as it turned another corner and disappeared into the city.

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Asuka paused outside of Misato’s apartment to push the damp strands of hair out of her face. She'd left the geofront without any money for a cab and the distance was too short to make it worth taking the lube-line, so she'd walked home through the storm. The rain had been heavy enough to dampen and chill but not to drench, and Asuka was looking forward to a long soak in the bathtub. She hoped that Pen-Pen hadn't decided to monopolize the bathroom already.

Just as she was about to open the door to Misato's apartment she heard a note of music above the drumming staccato of the rain. Straining her ears, she followed it until she was standing at the door to Terry and Shinji’s apartment. She recognized the sound and she thought that she recognized the music as well. It was Shinji’s cello.

She bit her lip as her hand reached out for the door. If Terry was there too….

The door slid open at her touch and as she entered she saw that there was only a single light on and only one pair of shoes by the door. It’s only Shinji then she thought with a relieved sigh.

She silently crept down hall and peeked around the corner into the living room. Shinji had his back towards her, head down, intent on his playing. She wasn't sure what the exact tune was but it was achingly melancholy. She lingered in the hall unsure of what to do next. A part of her wanted to go to him and another part of her laughed mockingly at the notion.

Her mind returned to a few hours earlier. Gunfire came echoing down from above them. A look of fear crossed Shinji’s face and she was sure that he'd turn and run like a frightened rabbit. Unexpectedly a look of resolve took hold of him and he charged up the escalator.

"He isn't a coward," she whispered to herself.

"I did not pull the plug."

"I need… someone." It was the only way that she could describe the feeling. There was an emptiness inside of her, an emptiness that had started when she'd decided that she would never need anyone else ever again; an emptiness that had grown until at times it threatened to consume her. It was hard to remember a time before the emptiness and the few memories she had were of herself in her mother's arms, before….

After that, she'd kept herself as distant from everyone as she possibly could. The only attachments she'd form to anyone were shallow, puerile, but why should they have been anything more? She was sure that she didn't need anyone. The closest that she'd come to letting herself hold real feelings for anyone else had been in the hospital, when she'd come within a hair's breadth of erasing Shinji forever.

She'd had every intention of pulling the plug when she entered his room. The hatred and emptiness burning inside of her had been a potent concoction, painting oblivion as the best fate for the both of them. She would have been able to do it—if she hadn't looked at his face. There had been a beauty in his face, an expression that said for now, at least, his battles were over.

She'd seen the peace in his face; seen it and coveted it. In the end that had been what stayed her hand. She wanted that thing he had found, that peace. If she'd been offered anything in the world, she would have gladly given it up to experience that peace, even if it were for only a single moment. Shinji had found something she wanted, something that she needed, something that if he shared might fill that emptiness in her heart. She needed him.

Asuka winced at the voice.

"Don’t make me listen to them again," she whispered.

That was the beginning of the emptiness. As she uttered those words she'd felt a pit open in her heart. At first she'd thought it a sign of her resolve and that she had succeeded in locking out the pain that came from needing others.

"Need is not a weakness!" she murmured fiercely. "I can need someone else. I cannot go on alone. I need to not be alone."

Shinji could be weak.

Shinji could be cruel.

Shinji could be kind.

"Shinji?" Asuka asked hesitantly.

Startled, Shinji nearly dropped his bow. "Oh, Asuka!" he exclaimed turning around. "I didn’t hear you come in."

She walked towards him, her mind stumbling over the words that she wanted to say. "Shinji—"

"What do you think you’re doing here?" a voice behind her demanded.

Asuka let out a startled gasp and whirled around. Terry stood behind her, glaring angrily. The sour stink of vomit still lingered about him.

"Shinji was screeching away on his cello again," she said defensively. "It was giving me a headache."

"Well, it's my apartment and I say that Shinji has every right to play his cello, no matter what the neighbors might think."

Asuka and Terry glared at each other, while Shinji glanced back and forth between them, getting the uncomfortable image of two growling dogs fighting over a bone. He opened his mouth but before he could speak Asuka turned on heel. "Fine," she seethed, "get a migraine. Maybe I'll get lucky and you'll go chuck yourself off the balcony."

"Bitch," Terry sneered. Shinji leapt to his feet, ready to pry Asuka's hands from around Terry's throat but to his surprise she kept walking.

"Bastard!" she snarled and slammed the door. She ran back to Misato’s apartment and as the door closed behind her, Asuka let the sobs well up in her throat.