This is the first fic, to be followed by others, that will comprise a series of one-shots. Author Preconceived Disclaimer: As you read this you will be interested to note that a certain takeover of the company known as Gainax has been engineered recently. If you will all turn on your television sets to CNN you will see my handsome, picture perfect face right above the words:

I OWN THIS BITCH-ASS COMPANY! SUCK THAT YOU PANSY WANNABE WRITERS! I OWN THIS COPYRIGHT NOW!!

But don't be alarmed. In fact, using my new copyrights: I intend to gather all of the great Fanfiction Authors of that lovely series known as Evangelion. And have them write a book for each of their Fanfics.

OTHERWISE! I SUE! IWILLIWILLIWILLIWILLIWILLIWIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!! Nyyyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

*Thumbs nose at audience* I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!!

*Bludgeoned with heavy mallet borrowed from Akane (No, don't own that either)* The author of this fic would like to apologize for that last Preconceived Disclaimer. It was wrong, and in no way reflects the true maturity level of the author himself. Or any of his schizophrenic personalities...except for Mr. Bunnies...and Captain Fruitfly...BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Now, on to the real disclaimer.

AU Warning. I have artistic license and I'm driving like Misato sober!

Angst Warning: Not really too much, just a touch of darkness to set a mood.

Authors Personality Warning: My friends call me Shinji...really. And I have a birthday coming up recently and I *AM* depressed about it. This is a reflection of what I can conceive Shinji going through.

Timeline Warning: After Karou. Take that book called Shinseki Eva and goto last two episodes and the movies. Prepare to rip out...RIP OUT! Begin AU!

Warning Warning: Too many of them!

Warning about the Warnings: IF YOU READ THIS: I SHALL TURN YOU INTO A NEWT! GET ON TO THE STORY DAMN YOUR EYES! (No, don't own Mel Brooks either...maybe if he's dead...)

Reviewed and Commented on By: Tchernobyl1. Arigato Tchernobyl for your review and criticism. Even your comment about how I was actually good at what I was doing. That was a big boost for me in getting this done.

The Seldon Planner Presents

Birthday of a Pilot

It had been raining since three in the morning. Shinji blinked as he watched the faint gray dawn approach without warning. The sun hidden from his view by the ever-present clouds that saw fit to pour out their condensed vapor. He was soaked, staying up all night out on the balcony in the rain does that to a person.

But he didn't care...why should he.

"Might even kill me and end my suffering." He mirthlessly mouthed out before glancing down at his waterlogged watch and checking the time once again.

06:37

The watch beeped a soft alarm which he quickly silenced.

"Happy birthday...Shinji."

And he turned and walked into his darkened home.



He quickly moved about his room, changing out of his wet clothes and getting into dry ones. Smoothing out his ragged hair and brushing it down into what he hoped was something close to normal. He stopped for a moment as his fingers trailed down to his eyebrow. His eyes narrowed and his skin wrinkled as the delicate sensory organs traced the thin white scar that ran down across the thin hair above his eye.

He sighed and dropped down to his bed.

'Why do I do this?' he thought. 'Why do I do the same thing every year...no one cares...not father, not my Aunt and Uncle, not my teacher...Misato probably doesn't even remember. Asuka......Asuka wouldn't care if I dropped off of the Earth and died.'

He finished putting his socks on and paused a moment, eyeing tentatively the last item he wanted to put on. It was the last thing in the very back of his small closet. A small patch of brown in a sea of blue, white, and black uniforms. Shinji sighed once and reached for the leather jacket, a small smile crossing his face as he recalled this particular clothing article.

But he crushed it quickly as he remembered when he had gotten it.

He really never had a chance to wear it since it was eternal summer in Japan. It was more sentimental value rather than anything else...a happy memory for his bleak outlook on life. Today, today it would have a purpose though. And he was happy for that.

The rain fell steadily down.

***

Asuka yawned loudly as she rolled over in her bed. Almost as if they possessed intelligence of their own her eyes opened and stared menacingly at her alarm clock, poised several feet away from her bed so as to give it a chance to actually wake the pilot up before her hand descended on it.

07:01

"Damn..." she groaned out, bringing her hand up to slap her face abstractly. "Why do I have to wake up this early on my one day off? Is it too much to ask to sleep in till ten?"

She groaned again as her ears finally registered the dull patter of water hitting on the sides of her room and rolled over onto her belly, covering her head with the warm pillow. That's when she heard the front door open.

"Unh..? Who the hell would go out in something like this?" She asked, her eyes narrowing as she stared out at her own door. She waited a moment, then another before she heard the door close.

'Could it...no...he wouldn't, not in this weather...would he?'

Asuka ended her thoughts in a growl of frustration and leapt from beneath her warm sheets, shivering a bit as the damp clammy air closed in around her unprotected skin, and confidently walked out of the room. She crossed the hall in two steps and hesitated before the one door with a sign on it. Her hand reached out and likewise hesitated before she reclaimed control of it and reached for the handle.

"Hey Shinji-"

As the door slid to a halt, Asuka could see the bed of her co-worker.

It was made, and empty.

'Why the hell would he go out in something like this?' she asked the room, a bare room as she distractedly noted. Before turning to look over his desk, thinking to find some accusing evidence to point to his perverted inside.

What she found was something else. His phone, wallet, ID, and a small desk calender. The date, today she noted with interest, was circled in black pen. She also noticed the smudged ink that littered that page, as if he had been crying.

"What's so important about this day that he would cry over it?" she asked with an incredulous air. She paused and realized that for several days she had noticed him becoming more withdrawn, quieter, and on several occasions not even responding to her gibes and insults...not even to apologize.

Something was wrong...and apparently today was the reason he was becoming depressed. But what was today?

'Misato will know. She always knows what's wrong with that pervert.'

And with a smirk she turned and left Shinji's sanctuary, her presence immediately dissipating as Shinji's more familiar emotions closed in an transformed it back to his room. His lonely, cold, insensitive room with bare walls.

The rain beat down harder.

***

To Shinji, the rain was a blessing. It salved his troubled and turbulent mind. Soothed his disturbed soul.

To him, the rain that drove man and women alike from the streets and forests in search of shelter, was but a gentle caress that could have been a passing person that took a moment to pity him. Pity him and comfort him...and for a boy who had little comforts in his life, this small pleasure was painfully aware in his subconscious. But he didn't mind. Small pleasures are meant to be had on ones birthday...and for him, small pleasures are more important than a hundred gifts.

'Not that you have had much of either.'

Shinji frowned at his last thought, blinking several times as cold rain trickled down along the line of his scar and into his eyes. He reached up and brushed them away, taking his surroundings with his cleared eyes as soon as he could.

"Almost there...almost."

And still the rain continued. But he didn't mind, he didn't mind at all.

***

Asuka glanced up at the clock and growled as she flipped her eggs over in a half-hearted attempt to make an omelet. She cursed silently and in one swift motion made the mess turn into scrambled yellow and white.

"Geez, Misato...could you at least try to wake up one minute earlier than normal?" she complained to her guardians door.

She paused as the thought of actually going into her room and waking her up ran fleetingly across her mind. But then she remembered Shinji's warning the first day she moved in with them...and the unspoken rule he followed in never going into her room.

The spatula lowered for a moment as she considered her roommate. She had been living with him for nearly a year now, the last angels either not deigning to show themselves, or having been killed off already. She had gone through some serious times...and some memorable occasions with Shinji.

"...Shinji...Oh! Why the HELL am I thinking about him at a time like this!?" Asuka furiously shouted at the eggs that she noticed beginning to blacken.

"Schiese..."

"Oi! What the hell are you yelling at Asuka?"

Misato's unprecedented appearance made her ward give a piercing cry and jump slightly against the stove. Unfortunately for Asuka, the stove was on, and her hand landed on it.

Neighbors considered the value of their health as the second cry that morning made them groan and shift, silently cursing NERV and all its affiliates.

"Ow, damn..."

"I'll get some lotion for it," Misato returned moments later with the cooling medicinals and watched with an amused eye as Asuka silently took it and rubbed it in gingerly. "So, where's Shinji?"

Asuka couldn't help but be amazed at Misato's clear headedness. She even felt her jaw drop as she noticed no beer cans in the immediate vicinity of her guardians hands or feet.

"What? Asuka, hello?"

"Do you have some secret stash of beer in a hidden fridge that you told Section 2 to install when we were out?"

"No Asuka," Misato gave a small laugh. " If you're wondering about me, I just do that morning routine when Shinji's here."

"How did you know he wasn't?" Asuka slyly asked, still believing in the hidden stockpile of Yebisu theory.

"Shinji doesn't let the eggs burn so badly that they wake me up," Misato's eyebrow arched.

She then laughed as Asuka threw out her entire book of curses in English, German, Japanese, Spanish, and a few more that sounded like Greek, Italian, or Latin. After Asuka subdued herself Misato looked down the hall at Shinji's door.

"Is he sick today? God I hope not, no one should be sick on a day like this."

"No, that idiot isn't even here," Asuka replied, finally standing and appraising the mess of black and yellow smoking in the frying pan.

"WHAT?"

The two NERV personnel ignored the loud thump from the apartment above them.

"What do you mean he isn't here?" Misato continued, her voice a few decibels above normal.

"He isn't. I woke up around seven and heard the door open and shut. I went to see if Shinji was coming back to his room but he wasn't there."

"Shit! Did he leave anything?" her voice became concerned and her eyes pleading.

"Yeah, His ID, cell, wallet."

"Crap! Why didn't you come find me!" Misato stood and rushed to her door, but was stopped by Asuka's tight grip.

"Just what the hell is up, hun? What's so important about today that the moron would cry over it? I mean I know he's just a pansy but-"

Misato's palm silenced Asuka's insulting speech quickly and forcefully, and for several minutes the two stood quietly, not daring to speak or say anything. Finally Misato spoke up.

"You just don't know, do you. You always never did pay much attention to others lives...especially his."

Asuka held her hand up to the red cheek and rubbed it gently.

"Do you know what he did after the fourth?" Misato sat down, praying that Shinji would be alright for a few hours.

"I read the reports," came the sullen reply as Asuka sat as well.

"What isn't in the reports is that he wasn't fourteen when we put him in Shogoki."

"W-what?"

"From what I gathered from Ritsuko, he was born later than was expected and we all assumed that his birthday was just past as he arrived here...it was actually four weeks later."

"Right when he ran away..." Asuka finished.

"There are other things about that date that aren't in the reports," Misato gave into her need and reached back into the fridge for her morning sustenance...beer.

"Like what?" Asuka was beginning to take an interest in all of this. The Invincible Third Child, now being repainted into more of a wimp than she first imagined.

"Toji Suzahara-" Misato's voice caught at that name but she downed a beer and continued. "Actually clobbered him pretty good for his sister getting into the hospital."

"Hun?" Asuka knew Toji's sister was in the hospital, but why beat up Shinji?

"He blamed Shinji on putting her there in the first place, as so he took it out on Shinji...who took it without a word of complaint," Misato laughed bitterly as she saw Asuka's mouth drop slightly. "Then later that same day he nearly killed both Toji and that other kid...Kensaku?"

"Kensuke Aida," Asuka supplied.

"Yeah, him. Nearly squashed them like a bug with Shigoki. Two meters either way and they could have become red paste on a mountain."

Misato crumpled her beer can as a demonstration before tossing it to the side and reaching back into the recesses of the fridge for another three.

"So, what happened?"

"He was chewed out by me...and he retreated to his room for five days. It took me that long to figure out he had left before then. Section 2 couldn't even track him," she griped as her fingers ripped off the tab to her next beer. "He wandered, I guess...we don't even know where he went those days. Until Section 2 caught up with him in a field with...Kensuka?"

"Kensuke," Asuka replied in a frustrated tone.

"Right...anyway, they found him and I gave him a choice: pilot Eva or leave Tokyo-3."

Asuka leaned forward and asked her question as Misato began to down her second, "He chose to stay?"

That made her guardian start a bit and she hastily pulled the beer away from her mouth and wiped her lips with a convenient forearm.

"No," Misato continued after she had made herself decent enough. "No, he left."

"What?! So why is he still here?" Asuka stood up, her chair slamming into the ground and the table creaking as the Germans hands slammed into its tabletop.

"Sit down Asuka, let me finish," Misato waited several minutes under her friends glare until she relented and sat in a upright chair. Both she and Misato winced as they realized who's chair she had sat in, but continued.

"Section 2 took him to the station. He met Toji and..."

"Kensuke," Asuka supplied once more.

"-there. They had his stuff with them, apparently Shinji forgot it at Kensuke's campsite and so they deduced rather quickly where he could be found and returned it to him."

"Amazing, the pair might actually have brains between the two of them," the red head's sardonic remark seemed trite and out of place for the situation. Misato frowned and turned her gaze outside the balconies windows, her eyes stoically taking in the rain.

"Shinji asked for a moment...the conversation doesn't matter, rather what he did in it."

"What, break down and cry as he left his friends?" Asuka felt a little annoyed as she predicted his spineless moments. When Misato didn't speak she finally let her confidant expression die.

"He nearly put Toji out cold."

Asuka blinked.

"The rest doesn't really matter though, it's the words he said right before the Section 2 men left him that really caught everyone's attention....He said...he said happy birthday," Misato finished her beer and started on the fourth, Asuka frowned as she didn't remember her starting on the third. "It's been a year in Hell for him Asuka...I'd assume that you would know about it-"

"What's that supposed to mean?" her tone shifted to indignation.

"But you've had your own problems, and those take priority for you...but I read up on some of his previous life. He's done this before..."

Asuka finally realized something, and she cursed her stupidity for taking this long to do it, "Today's his birthday...isn't it."

Misato nodded, then continued, "Every year he's done something like this...he's-"

"He runs away from everything! That's what he does!"

Misato looked up blankly and nodded, "I'm not saying what he does is the best thing in the world to do Asuka...but I wanted to try and stop him from doing it this year, I just guess he was too fast for me to stop."

"What do you mean, stop?"

"Have you looked in the spice rack Asuka?"

The German girl looked dumbly at her guardian for a moment. Then she followed the line of Misato's point and noticed an envelope, blue, with Shinji's name on it sitting directly in the middle.

"Usually he takes spices from that shelf to use in breakfast. And when I found you making it I assumed that he hadn't gotten up yet, or he had and just ignored it. Now its too late," she downed her last drops and slammed the can down hard.

"Why do you say that? We could go look for him, drag his sorry ass back here-"

"Asuka, if the boy can elude Section 2 for four days how are we going to find him?"

Misato's logic is an annoyance; confusing at some times, then perfectly clear in others. Asuka growled her displeasure and sat back heavily in the chair, rocking it back on two legs.

"Well...why don't we just sit here and enjoy the day off. There isn't really anything we can do for the boy. He will come back when he's had enough of his moping," Misato tried to cheer the girl up, reaching back and re-opening the fridge. An estranged 'warrk' startled both females momentarily as the opening door hit a passing Pen Pen, who took the opportunity to snag a beer before bolting off for his own room.

Asuka gave the penguin a strange look before he ran away, and laughed at Misato who cursed Pen Pen for stealing her beer. But it died off quickly as she remembered the conversation.

"Shinji," she mouthed, unnoticed by Misato as she tried to pry open Pen Pen's door with her hands.

The rain continued.

***

And Shinji noticed.

It wasn't that he was cold. Well, he was but it didn't affect him much. His jacket kept most of the cold at bay, though it didn't help much as some water trickled down his neck and soaked his shirt. He silently accepted this as his one connection to the reality of what he was doing. And he accepted it as a blessing for hiding his tears.

Shinji wondered if that was why he liked the rain so much. But he pushed that aside and resumed his gaze out across the marvelous city called Tokyo- 3...his home. He wondered why he came back here...why he even bothered to stop his legs from lifting him over the railing that seperated him from the three hundred meter drop. A drop that would effectively end his pain and suffering.

He wondered, and he cried.

'No one would care...no one. The only one's who would care are dead...the only one who would be hurt is me.'

He stood, watching the blinking lights of a repairing Tokyo-3 blink on and off through a sheet of opaque gray.

'Gray...like Karou's hair...like Rei's mood....like Tousan's stone heart.'

Shinji sighed once more before pushing himself off of the railing and turning away. Leaving the one place that his guardian had brought him to after his first battle. He liked reminding himself why exactly he continued to live. Even if no one cared.

He headed for the nearest bus stop, there were two more places to visit...then he would head home. Home to his normal life. If taking the pity of his guardian while giving her pity in return could be considered normal. If being hated by one's secret love could be called normal.

If one could do that...then it is normal.

The rain cared not...it merely fell.

***

Asuka hated the rain. It brought back too many bad memories.

Memories about the fifteenth angel...about her coma.

She grimly smiled as she recalled the first thing she saw after waking up. It had been Shinji, curled up like a ball. Getting sleep in an uncomfortable looking chair off in a distant corner. He was half-covered by a blanket that some kind nurse had probably thrown over him after he had closed his eyes. But now it was strewn haphazardously around his legs and lower torso.

At first she felt anger. Anger that he was here, probably to mock her with his superiority. Anger at his weakness and his apathetic personality. Anger simply because she had nothing else left to give out to the world.

Then she noticed the dark rings under his eyes, and the scar that ran above them. She knew a lot about sleep deprivation as a college graduate with a minor in psychology and physiology should. She could in a few moments determine the exact amount of days a person had gone without sleep just by analyzing the thickness of the ring and by more subtle things.

To her eyes, Shinji had gone nearly six days without rest...but, where he had gotten the scar was a mystery to her.

'Why? I never asked why he did that,' Asuka thought silently.

"What's on your mind Asuka?" Misato was lounging on the couch...but she was tense, alert.

"...Well, no...its nothing."

Misato glanced up at her second ward and then turned back to her book. She had done her best to find a replacement for Kaji...it failed miserably at first. But a few weeks ago Shinji had given her a book, telling her she might find some solace in it. The cover had been torn off, and the title had long since worn off from constant re-reading. But it did help; and now she went to the library ever so often to search out for new books, new escapes from her pain.

'I'll admit it is running away. But it helps more than anything else,' she silently added, turning the page and reading on in her latest book.

I will not fear. For fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I shall face my fear. I shall-

"I wonder where he went."

Misato looked up from her page and gazed softly at her downcast pilot. She wondered if it might be worth the trouble, and decided that it might bring the whole thing to an end. And that might result in a hitch.

"Y'know..."

"What?" Asuka eagerly asked, leaning forward against the kitchen table.

"Kensuke-"

"Finally got it right," Asuka muttered quickly.

Misato stuck her tongue out and continued, "Might know where he would have gone. You could ask him and go out to find Shinji."

Asuka's eyes widened at this then narrowed, as she seemed to regain her senses, "Are you trying to blackmail me on purpose?"

"Hun?" Misato put her book down alongside her beer, honestly confused at the turn of topics.

"Asking that stooge is like trying to get a favor from Gendo Ikari!" Asuka ignored Misato's pained wince and continued in a louder voice. "He'll haunt me to the grave and consistently ask me to return the favor by doing something I'd rather burn at the stake for before I do it!"

The tenants were all up by this time so none of them even bothered to thump the floor, ceiling, or walls for silence. It was entertaining, somewhat.

"Oh, comon! If you said that Shinji could be in trouble he would do it," Misato tried to salve the situation and get the girl moving.

"Hell will freeze before that happens," Asuka's tone made Pen Pen shiver in his fridge.

"Well," Misato rummaged around underneath the couch for a moment before pulling up another book. "According to Dante, Hell is frozen in the Eighth circle...or was it the Ninth?"

Asuka's left eyebrow developed an annoying tick, "I knew Shinji was planning to do something like this...he's humiliating me through you and those...those DAMN BOOKS OF HIS!"

"Asuka! You know that isn't true!"

"So? Since when has logic ever worked when Shinji's involved! GOD! Why am I even bothering to talk about HIM!" she flung herself from the chair and stormed off to her room.

Misato quirked her eyebrow up as sounds of rustling clothes and hurried movements drifted from Asuka's open door. A moment later she raised her other eyebrow as she saw her red haired ward rush out dressed in a full- length brown leather trenchcoat, carrying a red umbrella in her hand.

"And where are you going?" Misato asked, noticing her other hand hiding a pair of hiking boots.

"Out. To Hikari's."

"I thought she was on vacation?" she slyly asked.

"The mall. Ja," came the frigid reply before the door opened and Asuka walked out.

Misato smiled. "Worked better than I thought it would."

"Warrk?"

She looked down and smiled before accepting the outstretched beer in Pen Pen's flipper. Almost in unison they popped their respective tabs and began speed drinking.

"YYEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Waaaarrrrrrkkkk!"

The skies grew darker. And the rain fell harder.

***

Shinji sighed as he dropped in his fare. Several people looked sympathetically at the wet boy. Others subtly shifted away from him as water dripped off his jacket. Seeing one girl, around his age and not bad looking either, cringe away like that sent daggers through his heart.

'Am I so worthless that people can see it? Is it not enough that people who know me call me worthless? No, of course not. God would love to see me suffer...me. The great Third Child. Killer of Angels.'

He winced slightly as his leg bashed into a seat, hard. But he held his teeth together. Pain was something he had been forced to overcome in his time. It wasn't even that painful, compared to other times...

Like the fourth...and the fifth.

The trees moved by.

He started recalling details about his flight from NERV after the fourth. How he slipped away in the dead of night. How he had apologized to Misato. How he had wandered sleeplessly through the imposing city of steel and concrete.

He wasn't sure how but he ended up on a cliff side above Tokyo-3. Conveniently located so that he had a clear view of the imprint his Eva had made in the mountainside earlier that week. Even with the mists that morning he could clearly make out the exact spot where Kensuke and Toji knelt, cowering underneath his mighty monstrosity.

'Not so mighty after all,' Shinji bitterly recalled another rainy day like this. A day filled with pain and anguish for his already perilous mind.

"Asuka."

A few people looked up and back at him. They only saw his tears fall, or it may have been residual water running from his hair. They ignored him. And he ignored them.

'You do this so much...ignore everything and hope the problem gets solved for you. You never could face down anything...anyone. Until it meant someone else would die or get hurt. But I always end up hurting somebody by trying to help...Kaasan, I wish you were here to help me.'

The bus slowed. Shinji stood from his seat and got into the line of people crowding to get off. Most of the people went further into the city.

Shinji went to a city...but not the city of the living.

***

Knock, Knock, Knock.

"Coming! I wonder who it is?"

Kensuke Aida paused his AMV right at the height of its song and stood from his computer. His legs and backside tingling with the unexpected movement. His arms swung gently in the darkened interior of his room as he quickly shuffled out of his room and headed for the front door.

"I wonder if Tousan forgot his key again?" the boy asked as he brushed his hair away from his eyes. "Hmn, need to clean my glasses again..."

Then he opened his door. And nearly slammed it shut again.

For the past year he had suffered mightily at the hands of his proclaimed Red Devil from Hell. But he always had Toji or Shinji there to suffer the brunt of her assaults. Leaving him totally out of her angry fits. It had been several months since she went into her coma, and only a few since she had woken up. It was the first time he had seen her in nearly a quarter of a year.

And there was no Toji here to protect him...and definitely no Shinji.

'Shit,' came to his mind first. But then he quickly noticed her eyes. He was good at reading peoples emotions through their eyes. Especially if they didn't take care to conceal their thoughts. Asuka usually had been a blue- steel door. Now...she was ice clear.

"Come in?" he weakly offered, stretching out one of his scarred arms. A souvenir from another past...one that he wished he could forget entirely.

Asuka nodded, noticing the dozen or so white lines that weaved in an out along his forearm. She stepped inside, letting her curt remark dissipated in her mind as she closed her umbrella. She left it next to her shoes and looked up to find Kensuke gesturing her into a doorway.

"Can I get you some tea?" if his friends were here and if she was acting her usual self: he would have been unmerciful in his comments. But not now. Something was going on.

Something ominous. It has to be Shinji.

"Yeah, I guess...so."

The clouds should have told him that today was going to be a bad day. He wasn't as good with weather as he was with eyes though. Kensuke rapidly made some instant tea. He hoped that she wouldn't chew him out for his choice.

'Then again, she might like it,' he fervently hoped. "Here."

Asuka graciously took the cup of steaming tea and gave it an appraising look. It wasn't the usual green tea that Shinji made and Misato ruined. And it wasn't Oolong tea either; the color was much darker than that. She watched Kensuke as he sipped the hot brew and then shrugged.

'He isn't dead yet...' was all she could think before she sipped on the drink. The steam felt wonderful on her cold cheeks. And the drink was bitter...very bitter. Her eyes widened as her taste buds instantly recognized the distinctive taste of Earl Grey.

"It's expensive to get, but I tend to indulge my habits headlong," Kensuke said as he drank again. "So, I know that you didn't come here to get a cup of tea...though you look like you needed it. What's up?"

Asuka dropped her eyes to the cup, staring deeply at her wavy reflection, "Shinji's run away for the day."

Kensuke coughed a bit as his tea went down a wrong pipe and he set down his cup. "Again? But I thought..oh, he probably didn't make breakfast. Well, today is that day..." he wistfully ended.

Asuka felt a surge of impatience at the boy as he glanced out a window at the outside gloom.

"Dammit does everybody know its his birthday but ME?" she angrily gulped a large amount of tea down.

"Toji and Hikari probably don't either."

"Then how does an idiot like you find out?" she managed not to shout at the boy. 'Hacking I'll wager,' Asuka privately imagined.

"I celebrated it with him a year ago," Kensuke levelly replied. "He did wander into my campsite y'know...well, it was an early celebration...if even that."

"How do you mean?" Asuka set her cup down, her drink nearly gone.

"He only told me about it in a note. Handed it to me as he was taken away...still have it somewhere-" he stood and walked out of the room. Asuka waited impatiently as Kensuke shuffled through several binders before finding the correct one and removing its contents.

"Here it is," he handed the near pristine letter to the red head. She barely refrained from snatching it out of his scarred hand.

Kensuke...thank you for letting me have some food last night. And thank you for letting me stay with you. You may think nothing of this but it is probably the best thing anyone has done for me near my birthday...if you're wondering why I mention it, today is my birthday.... here they come.

Shinji Ikari. Age 14.

"He was going to slip it under my pillow and leave before dawn," Kensuke explained, once more sitting and drinking his tea. "Apparently he finished just in time for the Section 2 agents to pick him up. Need to find out how he avoided them for four days-"

"Kensuke..." Asuka softly growled at the boy, cutting the ramble short.

"So, you want to find him do you?"

He could almost giggle to himself as Asuka's eyes went wide and her head snapped up and around. Her gaze stopped him though, that steel wall was up again. This time it had weapons on it.

Yet he opened the can, now he had to release the worms, "You have very few reasons to come see me. I'd imagine you rather plucking out your hairs one by one rather then coming to chat with me about Shinji's past."

"Who asked you anyway?" Asuka feebly defended herself. Kensuke snorted in amusement.

"Please, I saw it the moment you walked in. Now, when did he leave?"

Asuka continued to stare daggers at the boy as he stood and walked over to a hanging map of Tokyo-3 and the surrounding areas. After a few moments of silence she finally relented.

"Near seven this morning."

Kensuke glanced at his watch.

10:38 a.m.

"Well, he has had enough time to see Tokyo-3 from his lookout...so he's probably visiting the city by now."

"How the hell am I gonna find that idiot in Tokyo-3! In this weather too!" Asuka stood and walked up beside the sandy haired boy.

"No, wrong city."

Asuka followed his finger as it came to a rest half a mile outside the city limits.

Tokyo-3 Graveyards.

"He should be visiting right now."

"How would you know?" she turned away from the map and glared out the window, unhappy memories about her own family surfacing in the black recesses of her mind.

"He did the same thing that day back in April...I went with him. He didn't need to be alone in his condition."

"April? I was still in my coma," she thought, anxiously gnawing her left pinkie. "Where is he going after that?"

"He should catch a bus and head off to this mountain," his index trailed across the city to a mountain close by to the school's emergency shelter. "He went there and looked at the scar his Eva made during the Fourth's attack..." Kensuke left out what Shinji talked about doing up there. "If you want to catch up to him you should take bus 221 and take it until the Osagura stop. Get off and get on a trail that leads up to the top. They were putting up a travelers rest so you might find him underneath it...otherwise look on the other side of the railing."

"What? Why?" Asuka turned around to see Kensuke writing something out on a piece of paper. He wrote in English so Asuka would understand it easier. Even after a year her kanji was still bad.

"..."

"Kensuke. Why should I look on the other side?" her voice, calm and pleasant up to now, went hard and cold.

"...Better for him to tell you than me."

Asuka took the offered instructions and stood for a moment. Staring at the nerd as he placed his hands in his pockets. After a moment the boy shifted and spoke again.

"Aren't you going to go see him?"

"Yeah...thanks," she cautiously replied.

"If you think that I'm going to blackmail you for this think again. I only do that when the others are around," he waved a hand dismissively at her and gestured to the door.

"Besides, if you did I wouldn't do it anyway. Even simple things for you become perverted hell spawned machinations," Asuka sardonically replied, vividly remembering his other 'schemes'.

Kensuke gave a slight chuckle at that and sighed, 'Besides, having this go on the webpage will be so much more rewarding.' He mentally chuckled with that thought.

"Goodbye Asuka. Good luck in finding him." he shouted to her as she ran out the door and down the street.

'Good luck...the both of you.'

The door closed. And the rain poured.

***

He walked slowly through the black obelisks. It was a feeling of lethargy that made his pace fall, a feeling of non-belonging in this city of the dead. But as he neared the last row, he left that feeling behind. Instead he replaced it with one of happiness, contentment.

Righteousness.

"Hello Tousan...its been a while, hasn't it?"

The stone remained silent. The rain whispered softly in Shinji's ear.

"When I last did this on my birthday...I met you at Kaasan's tomb. I'm sure you need no memory of mine for that day...that was four years ago."

He fell silent again.

"And I still can't let go of my want for your attention...and I can't release my hate for you."

He scowled at the unmoving black rock, then turned and walked down three tombstones.

"Hey Ayanami...its me, Shinji. We never really had time to talk...did we? I wish now that I could have talked to you some more...before you died. I never really understood why that happened to you," Shinji knelt and ran his hands over her name. "Ritsuko said it was some kind of side effect with your clone...but...but I still didn't understand why you had to die. In truth Ayanami, you were probably the only one who even attempted to understand me without changing me...I miss you. Just like I miss Kaasan... just like I miss Karou," His watch beeped as the hour changed and he briefly considered glancing down. "I have to go now Rei, though I may be back next month or so to visit you again. Goodbye."

The rain slackened off for a moment as the slight boy stood and gazed a moment longer at the two headstones. His eyes welled up with unshed tears as he realized what was missing, but he didn't want to re-bury his mother again in a false tomb. That would have been too painful for him to do.

Especially since he was alone. With no one to turn to.

No one.

His back faded in the distance, and the rain picked up as he moved for a particular bus station down the road. The 221 would take him quickly to Osagura and then a narrow footpath would bring him all the way to the top.

Completing his journey through his memories.

His nightmares.

One more stop.

But not the rain's.

***

Asuka shook her umbrella, vainly attempting to free some of the water trapped on its slick surface. She closed it soon after and stepped into the bus itself, paying her fare and moving towards the rear. She didn't know where the route was going after this stop. But she trusted Kensuke insofar as to follow his directions to the letter...then again, maybe she was just desperate enough to find Shinji that she followed the directions.

But it didn't matter.

The bus started moving.

"Next Stop: Outskirts in Najinika district. Outskirts of Najinika," the driver intoned.

Several people shifted in their seats, their eyes drawn to the somber mood outside. A few gathered their possessions, preparing to step out once more into that dreary downpour. Asuka just sighed and wondered where Shinji was at the moment.

'I wonder if he's already gotten to that mountain already?' she studied a map nearby and saw that it would be at least five more stops before her's came up. 'Probably took it already...I guess.'

She frowned and absently daydreamed about the possibilities of Shinji getting on while she was on the bus. She imagined several scenarios: Him turning around and getting off, her following him and having a confrontation...her first daydream put them at odds and ended in a brutal fistfight. Her mind quickly shuffled that one out of the way. The next put them in the same scenario but ended with her in his arms.

'Possibly...but in his mood, doubtful,' she gave a wan smile as she imagined him tougher, smarter, and manlier than she knew him to be.

Another fantasy played out with him getting on and instantly coming back to sit with her, to talk with her, to hold her-

"Mien Gott!" she quietly mouthed, stunned at what she was thinking. 'Maybe Shinji's friends wore off on me...no, then I would have stupidity along with the pervertedness...'

She blushed at what she just said to herself and quickly checked to see if anyone else noticed her. They ignored her and everyone else alike.

Apathy ran like water today.

'But, is it what I want to do with him? I don't know...I don't know..' she sighed and leaned her head against her side window. Noting the bleak look of the skyline the trees made.

The bus slowed.

"Outskirts of Najinka. Outskirts."

The door opened and several people stood and stepped off. Only one got on. A boy in rain-slicked leather jacket, his hair a matted mess of soggy brown. With one scar above his eye.

Asuka felt her breath catch. It was him...her fantasies replayed rapidly in her mind, but this was the here...the now.

Shinji saw Asuka immediately. How could he miss her? Red hair, blue eyes, perfect face...and a great body to boot. Not too many of those to be found in Tokyo-3. But doubt and fear ran through his mind as he made his way back to her seat.

'Why is she here? Did she come looking for me?' his hope sparked and rose, only to be crushed by another thought. 'No, if she did it was probably Misato ordering her out of the house.'

Then he was beside her.

"Mind if I sit?"

Shinji's voice was flat, hollow. Asuka shuddered, shaking her head at the same moment to hide that bodily reaction. She unconsciously found herself moving closer to the boy as he sat heavily in the psuedo leather seat. Water dripped haphazardously off of his body and landed in various places. Some landed on her and she almost brushed it off but held off for some reason.

Finally, she asked a question.

"Where did you get that jacket?" indeed, she had never seen it before. He had never worn anything like it at all. Shinji winced inwardly at the question.

"I...I found it, a long time ago."

Asuka watched his head droop down low and tried to change the subject.

"So, how old are you today?" she cursed her lack of ready questions but felt this was better than her first.

"How old do I look?" Shinji replied, lifting his head and staring at her face.

She knew the answer to her question of course, but his own made her think...study his face instead. He was a mass of small wrinkles, crow's feet spreading from the corners of his eyes, tired eyes that have seen more than they should have had at his age. The scar that seemed like only another wrinkle added to his tired face...but it was the eyes that did it, the eyes that changed her perspective on his looks. Even Kaji didn't have that look about him, that look of haunted maturity.

"Older than you should."

Shinji smiled a bit, then dropped the smile and looked out the window. Or so it seemed to Asuka. They rode out the rest of the trip accompanied only by the sound of the rain.

Which fell steady and true.

***

"How did you find me?"

Asuka walked next to Shinji under her umbrella. The pair trudging up a muddy path to the top of his last stop, wet and cold but still determined to finish. She stopped for a moment, biting her lip as Shinji continued on in the rain without her.

"Hey wait! Don't you want to stay dry?"

"How?"

Asuka felt her mood for teasing drop and she turned to face the front, "Kensuke told me."

Shinji stopped this time and she with him. Her eyes reflected innocence as the boy beside her let his jaw hang in disbelief at that little revelation.

Then he laughed.

"-God, I wonder what he made yo-you do-" he continued to laugh sporadically and the pair started walking again. Asuka smiled with Shinji, happy to make the boy laugh for a change.

'Happiness, I'm happy when he smiles...when he laughs,' Asuka frowned for a moment as she considered that insight. '...Do I? Can I? With hi-...no, not that. Will he though? Can he?' her inner voice became a slight whisper in her mind, '...should he?'

Shinji saw the darkness furrow Asuka's brow, but let her be. He had his own dark thoughts. Though they were slowly becoming fewer.

"Why are you here?"

"Because I am."

"Asuka, why are you here with me?" he stressed the point.

"Does it matter? You do get to walk with me through the forest you realize. I wouldn't do that for just anyone," Asuka blinked at that sudden admission, then started cursing Freud and his stupid theories about the human psyche.

Shinji caught the admission but decided to save it, "You didn't have to though. Why?"

Asuka groaned in frustration, "It's your birthday you idiot! No one should spend their birthday alone in the rain!"

Shinji inched slightly out from the umbrella, letting the rain hit him on the head, "But the rain doesn't bother me...I like rain."

"Well I don't!" Asuka nearly shouted at him, closing the distance between their bodies and covering Shinji with the red nylon again.

"How did you know?"

"About the birthday? Misato. Really, the stupid things you've done today amaze me. First you leave in the morning to go muck about in the rain. Then you goto God know's where to do God know's what with God know's who!"

Asuka noticed the slight winces as she finished her rant at the boy. She knew instinctively that a nerve had been struck.

"Just what have you been doing anyway?"

Shinji didn't answer. Instead he continued walking in silence.

"Shinji?" her voice lowered.

"We're here."

Indeed they were. The view, though opaque in some points, was astounding. The wisps of clouds that engulfed the top of one mountain was simply breathtaking. Asuka could faintly make out the Evangelion scar from a year ago but just barely. Instead she took in the surroundings and the great view of Tokyo-3 she had from afar.

And true to Kensuke's word, there was a traveler's rest nearby. Which she promptly headed over to. Asuka went three steps before noticing Shinji still staring at the mountainside. With a growl and a frown she stomped back over and grabbed his arm.

"Hey! Wait a minute!"

"Shut up Shinji! You've played in the rain long enough."

"Who the hell said you were in charge of my actions!" Shinji shouted, breaking free of her grasp just as they went underneath the shelter. He stood glowering fiercely at her back while she closed her umbrella.

"No one," came a soft almost caring voice. "But having your lungs fill with water until you drown isn't the best of ways to go."

"I know that," his eyebrows knotted together. He gave a humph of frustration and turned to face the small cascade of water pouring off the roof. His arms crossed angrily before his soaked jacket.

"Shinji?"

That voice made him drop his anger like a dead body. It was caring this time. Loving. Like a mother's voice.

"Shinji, why are you out here today? Why didn't you stay at home?"

Asuka sat on the bench and stared at her roommate. She continued watching him as he walked forward and leaned against a supporting post.

"Because I always do it like that..."

"Why?" Asuka leaned forward and put her elbows on her kneecaps.

"Asuka...I lived an unhappy life for fifteen years...mother dead,"

'His too?' came her thoughts unbidden.

"Father abandoned me, Aunt and Uncle uncaring towards me, my teacher the same...I never got any birthday presents. Only money to get me something for myself...never have used it either."

"Never?"

"No. No gifts, no anything...except my jacket. It's the one thing I do have."

Asuka almost stood and rushed the boy then and there as she watched him run his hands along the sleeves, feeling the smooth texture as they did so.

"How did you get it?" she sat upright now, wondering about his mysterious past.

"I was...eight. It was rough for me, living with two relatives who didn't care any at all for me,"

'I know what that's like,' Asuka silently added.

"The one joy I had was rummaging through their attic. It was full of things to occupy my time...I found my cello there, and the music that prompted them to make me take lessons for it...I also found this there. It was stuffed into a corner and covered with dust. At first I didn't want it, ignored it. But first I searched its pockets...and I found this."

Shinji reached into one pocket and pulled free a laminated card. It was small and held only a few lines of printed text in kanji. But as she took it from the boy, who sat next to her, she realized why it seemed so important to him.

Ikari Yui

Lieutenant

Gherin Code Clearance Level Blue

Project Evangelion Pilot

"Its possibly the only thing my father hadn't destroyed in his crusade to rid the world of her presence...the only thing I have left of Kaasan. She was so kind and caring to me...unlike my bastard father."

"Shinji..." a tear fell from her eye.

And Shinji Ikari, now aged fifteen years old, could not believe that he was watching the energetic, self-helped, German Eva pilot cry in front of him.

"...Shinji...you have no idea how similar we are...at least your memories of your mother are happy ones though..." finally she couldn't take it. Asuka cracked. The rain, her memories, her feelings, everything: broke free and ran down her face.

"Asuka..."

She continued crying; crying because she knew there was one thing that Shinji had that she would never have.

Shinji would always remember how kind and loving his mother was...all she had was the room and the rope. That's all she could remember about her mother...she couldn't even remember if her mother was even kind to anything other than that damn doll she had...and after everything she had been through, the armor fell apart. It suddenly found that it could not support itself any longer with its original basis...it had become too fragile, too unstable.

And Asuka cried, sobbing as she realized their fundamental difference, their unintended boundary that would probably always separate them from their mutually similar pasts.

But as she cried she felt a warmth engulf her, wrap around her and comfort her. It was Shinji, there with a hug and a warm embrace. One more thing she never got from her mother.

"Asuka..Asuka..please, you shouldn't cry," he surprised himself with his own actions and words.

'Great,' he thought. 'I'm so depressed that I'd commit suicide while trying to comfort someone who hates me...I'm really fucked up.'

But instead of the expected deathblow, instead of heaven's sweet call; he felt her arms slid underneath his own and found the hug returned.

The pair remained that way for several minutes, Asuka's tears finally drying and Shinji's anxiousness as he awaited the usual punches or slaps increasing by the moment.

"Shinji?"

He almost flinched but regained control at the last moment and answered, softly stroking her auburn hair at the same time, "Yes Asuka?"

"I didn't get you a present you know."

"That's okay...I'm used to it."

"Wait a minute, I'm not finished," she said, gently removing herself from his grasp and wiping her face clean with her hand.

"Sorry."

Asuka mock glared at him, but her puffy-eyed visage just made Shinji chuckle. After another glare Asuka joined him.

"I've really got to get you to stop doing that one day."

"Sorry, it's my nature," Shinji said, leaning across and draping his arm across her shoulder. She tensed for one second and then leaned into him a bit, 'Still surprising myself, maybe being a year older makes me more comfortable in situations like this...'

"Shinji," Asuka cut through his thoughts. "I do have a present for you though."

"You don't have to-"

Asuka did the surprising this time, cutting him off with a well-placed kiss that effectively silenced the boy. Except for his slight 'mrrphph' afterwards. Shinji relaxed instantly, enjoying the moment because he knew it would only last a moment. Asuka was kissing...kissing him. And he wasn't being used like the last time.

It was good.

No...it was great.

Asuka finally broke the kiss and leaned back, "Not bad Shinji...learned some tips from the Internet?"

"Back into teasing mode," he thought. "No, Kensuke has enough magazines to handle that..." he waited a moment as Asuka's eyebrow twitched, then a thought came to mind. "And Misato was so willing to practice with me-"

He cringed a bit as her fist impacted against his shoulder, but it wasn't too hard...it could have been harder.

"IDIOT! I don't want to know about your sex life!" Asuka smiled a bit, then stood up and retrieved her umbrella. "Now come on, the rain is starting to give out and I want to get back home!"

"Jawol Mien Führer!" Shinji teasingly shouted out, sounding eerily like Kensuke for a moment. Asuka growled at him before grabbing his arm and pulling him along down the hill. Soon he regained his footing and they set off down the hill.

But this time, Asuka wrapped her arm around the crook of his. They both glanced at each other and smiled. For the first time in a long time, they were happy.

They were happy together.

The rain slowed. Then stopped.

And the sun parted the clouds.





Authors Notes: I finish this today on my birthday: August 16, 2002. Today I am 17, although I don't count it as such until 9:00 p.m. because that's when I was born back in 1985. This fic was inspired by my own personal fight against depression that comes around this time of the year, and by that fic called Another Rainy Day Evangelion. I think that it's the fic where Shinji and Asuka just walk along the street and get into a fight, ending with Asuka running off and Shinji standing in the rain with no shoes on. For those who will say that rain is depressing: I'm just weird. I love the rain because gray is my favorite color and I love the sound of water hitting my roof. It's a great sound to go to sleep to in my opinion. I will say that all OOC ness you detect is my design and my intent. As well as all changes to the storyline and some of the plot. If you still want to complain, please do so! I love reading flames about my work, no not a masochist, and I also love reading constructive criticism. I may decide to continue this by going further along with the story, or by doing birthdays for each of the individual Eva characters. If you want either one please post it in the Review section. If you don't want it, please tell me so in the Review section. Arigato gozaimasu. The Seldon Planner, 17 and counting.