Episode 37: Absolute Borderline / The Raising of Lazarus

     Dr. Calvin Robertson cocked a cynical and incredibly irritating eyebrow as he sat down in the centre of the Command Centre's bridge.  "So, Captain.  Commander Fuyutsuki's left you with the reins, for now.  What are you going to do with your new executive power?"
     To tell the truth, Shigeru really didn't know.  He supposed he'd just hold down the fort, and let things run along their usual schedules.  If an Angel were to show up, they'd have to fight it anyway, but everything else was more or less routine.  Nothing to be worried about.  Dr. Robertson always had several things to do on a weekly basis.  Masaharu seemed to be working more and more overtime, and Yamashita just kept to his job description.
     Overall, in the last twenty-four hours since Fuyutsuki had departed for some secretive reason, he couldn't detect any noticeable change in the work habits of the bridge crew or those of any of the hundreds of other NERV employees he saw each day.
     He was well aware that Dr. Robertson was just mocking him.  Instead of answering, he just picked up the repair reports compiled in the aftermath of the last battle.
     "Four weeks?  Units-14 and 16 are going to be unusable for four weeks?"  He flipped through the pages, reading the lists of damaged and irreparable systems.
     Dr. Robertson nodded, never leaving his typing.  "That's correct.  Apparently, you've learned to read.  We're waiting for spare parts from Germany and Russia.  And the Americans appear to be having another one of their irresponsible labor problems.  Speaking of which," he said, eyes fixed on the keyboard, "I believe Lt. Masaharu was just complaining about his long work hours.  If he wants to get out of here before dawn tomorrow, I would recommend to him that he begin working on the diagnostics I ordered."
     Masaharu chuckled uncomfortably and turned around to face his station again.
     "How about Unit-02?"  Shigeru found it listed near the bottom of the stack of paper.  "It was damaged too, wasn't it?"
     "Hmm.  Fairly simple regeneration-type repair.  Should be done by next week."  Dr. Robertson played with his coffee cup, swirling the black sludge around.  "Horrible.  I was supposed to tell you that the Sixth regained consciousness for the first time yesterday."
     That was good news, and certainly more than Shigeru would have hoped for, given the condition Hikari had been recovered in.  Likely, though, she wasn't going to be released any time soon.  The emphasis of her treatment had been moved from healing the wounds to replacing the LCL with blood again.  Even so, she was probably going to have to spend considerably more time in hospital afterwards.
     Although...  "Couldn't we see if one of the other pilots could synchronize with Unit-15?  It worked for Shinji and Rei."
     Dr. Robertson shrugged.  "It's a very long shot.  But, if your highness requests that it be done, it can be worked into the schedule."  He put down the coffee mug, grimacing at the stains the drink was leaving on the ceramic.
     Shigeru rolled his eyes.  "Well, it wouldn't hurt to try.  Whenever we get the chance would be fine, I suppose."
     "Yes, my liege."

     Somewhere in the back of his consciousness, Shinji was aware that there was a ceiling under the brilliantly painted pattern the light was making above him.  Somehow, the morning sun had discovered a way to bounce back and forth between the glass windows of the central block so that it was reflected into his room.
     He became aware of the cicadas again.  They were always chirping.  It was strange, really.  No matter how horrible things might seem for him and Asuka, or anyone else, for that matter, there were always cicadas.  Nothing ever made them go away.  When there were Angels, there were cicadas.  When he'd run away that first time, there were cicadas.  Even days before Third Impact, the day of Third Impact, there were cicadas.
     Nothing ever seemed to bother them.  Then again, he reminded himself, they were just insects...mindlessly chirping away, content.  Their world wasn't necessarily his world, and he wasn't really concerned about what they did.
     On the other hand, they hadn't been around in such force a few years ago.  Kensuke had told him once that it used to be pretty quiet, even up in the mountains.  Misato had said that the ecosystems of the world were still recovering from Second Impact, but it seemed as they had stabilized fairly well.  Being a part of a natural order as they were, he supposed the cicadas had come back with the environment.
     He was part of a natural order too, and, like the insects, he couldn't understand the greater world around him either, moving about with a very weak grasp of his universe.
     Above him, the fluid mosaic of light began to shift a little, reflected differently off the neighbouring buildings as the sun began to rise.  He watched in silence, his eyes darting around the gauzy patterns as they formed sharply divergent curves and ellipses that seemed to lace together like some kind of divine cobweb.  There was peace there, he thought, contrasting it to himself.
     Slowly, he began to turn his head, his eyes leading the motion hurriedly.  The confined, mudane panorama of the far side of his room was rapidly eclipsed by a sight that both elevated and cast down his heart.
     It was not as if he had expected or hoped that Asuka would disappear from his side overnight, although the conflicting movements in his soul were generating tremors that wanted to tear him apart.  Slowly, his eyes began to pan over the upper contour of her resting being, starting near the the tilted shell of her ear.  His gaze passed through the lazy streams of red hair that lay in wild, disorganized strands over her cheek, her neck -- the one part of her he dared not touch ever again, and her shoulders.  This last began to move in a casually pulsed stutter as she drew a deep, gentle breath into her chest.
     Shinji snapped his attention back to her face, already too acutely aware of her somnolent  body lying next to him.  More than anything in the universe that so confounded him, more than anything he saw within himself, he was always tortured by her.  It wasn't a malicious torture, with ill intentions or any kind of premeditation of her part.  In fact, none of it was her fault in the first place.
     This was one of the reasons he was always being rent apart by her.  He understood her the most and the least at the same time; he was learning more about her than anything he'd ever cared to study in his entire life.  But every time he came an iota closer to understanding her, it seemed there was something still buried, eluding him.
     He sighed, closing his eyes.  He had never seen any shame in asking her to divulge her secrets to him; despite her day-long pause, it had been an act she wholly sponsored, even with the pain it may have brought.  There was no difficulty in loving her within his own heart, only in translating that into something visible.
     On the other hand, he still felt guilty, the rationalizations not breaking the illogical arguments of a tortured soul.  He still wasn't sure he could trust himself with the stewardship of her soul.  The fact that he cared for her so deeply brought responsibilities he'd never had to deal with before, and he didn't want to treat them as unsolicited; that would be insensitive and cruel, the precise antithesis of what he wanted to be.  That would be like running away.
     And yet, he couldn't entrust her to himself, to his selfish impulses that caused her so much trouble, discomfort, and base pain.  He didn't want to let himself near her.  Almost trying to protect her from everything, even himself.  He'd felt this way for several days now, perhaps as far back as the morning of the Angel's attack.
     Shinji bore many phobias across his shoulders, some foolish, some justified.  In some way, these new responsibilities spawned more, as he feared he would fail at them or worse.  Second only to his fear of hurting her was that that hoped she wouldn't fear him for having done it at all moments of the past.  She forgave him, granted, and frequently.  She never had to say the words, she made sure he understood.  But forgiveness wasn't the same as not fearing, for obvious reasons.
     Forgiveness never begot fear, but fear could extort forgiveness.  This, Shinji did not want.
     Gradually, he became aware of her stirring slightly beside him.  Lost in thought and time, isolating himself behind hermetic eyelids, he hadn't remarked the progress of the digital clock on the floor beside the bed, counting seconds into minutes, then into hours.  Implacable and unstoppable, it moved onwards, bringing the morning with it.
     Shinji opened his eyes again, looking up, beyond the warm, sunlit range of craggy mounts that was formed by Asuka's rumpled t-shirt and the beddings.  The sun had indeed risen, and, because the central block had completed one of its many daily migrations to and from the ground, the light no longer had to take such a tortuous journey to find its way to his room.
     In terms of sheer beauty, Shinji preferred the gauzy strands of light that had decorated his ceiling some time ago.  Nonetheless, the purer, more direct light of the sun spoke volumes and illuminated his entire room like a great fire.  And despite the evident energy the light bore, it seemed to bathe the entire room in a tranquility Shinji didn't believe he deserved.
     With significant effort, he tore his eyes away from the now-quiet and ethereally angelic Asuka...for the time being, he knew he wasn't going to be able to stew there in his guilt and indecision much longer.  Already, he felt great weights being laid across his shoulders, a yoke only he knew existed.
     With such downward force bearing down on him, it took near-superhuman effort to wrench himself away from her further, into a sitting position.  Carefully, he picked out a path around the foot of the bed, circumnavigating her folded legs with total caution.  He still needed to do this during weekdays, or else neither would find themselves fed at noon.  He was used to it.
     Strangely, not having to extricate himself from her made the trip all the more difficult.
     Normally, he thought, it took him several minutes to find a way to do that; and just as frequently, free her from his own arms before he could attempt moving.  Today, he hadn't been woken with that same requirement, as he hadn't been able to face her the night before, even sharing the same bed.  Even though his shame had been shown to him, and the folly exposed, he couldn't bring himself to touch her, even stare longer than a hurried, anxious glance.
     One part of him scolded him, warned him of letting her drift too far away; and yet, another told him that it was more appropriate, that he was less apt to harm her spirit and body by keeping his distance.  For now, he did the latter, too afraid of touching her.
     Standing amid Asuka's pile of dirty laundry, conveniently located at the base of the bed, Shinji yawned and stretched.  With a low groan, he tried to put her out of his mind, and stooped to gather the clothes and towels.  Best to leave her alone for the time being.
     As he reached the door, however, he was interrupted, and the imposed ignorance would become impossible.  "Shinji..?"
     "Y...yes?" he replied, but no response came.
     Slowly, he began to turn, impeded only slightly by the immense load of fabrics bound in his arms.  Looking back towards the bed, he saw, in the perfect illumination of the early morning sun, her still-sleeping figure shift amid the rumpled sheets.  He could only see the sun-gilded red crown of her head and the one arm reaching into the shadows opposite her on the mattress from his angle, but it was enough.
     Rapidly and silently, Shinji slid the door shut behind him, and hurried to put the clothes into a bag.  Not knowing why, he felt like he needed to cry out in pain, like some wounded animal with its paws bound in chains.
     He needed to get out, anywhere would do.  Even the automated laundromat.

     The command centre, busy even on a Saturday morning, was packed to the doors with technicians as Dr. Robertson put the MAGI through their paces yet again.  Most had been working under his whip for several hours already, and while there had been no serious crises, his supervision was enough to prompt discussions of early retirement.
     As a matter of fact, there had been no real displays of good humor or simple goodwill.  At least not until Masaharu picked out a somewhat familiar rhythm of booted feet against metal.
     He hadn't heard that step, with its regular, paced speed of self-confidence and a pride centered on accomplishment.  The gait was light, with moderate strides...  He caught himself leaping to the conclusion that the walk fit the stereotype of a young woman.  Append to that the rather recognizable attitude of one who is well-rested and eager to work...
     Masaharu swiveled in his chair just as a young, dark-haired lieutenant took her seat at the bridge, almost singing.
     "Good morning, Shoji," warbled Arashio as she put her coffee mug down on the work surface.  "Man...this chair's gotten lumpy since I left.  How's everything?"  Her left hand became preoccupied with a small stack of files on the floor, while her right typed in her security clearance code that would unlock the console at the front of the bridge.
     Masaharu's jaw hit the floor.  "Holy..," he almost shouted, remembering at the last second that there was a certain Doctor working on the lower bridge, "Ah...are...a..."
     Arashio looked back at him like he was going to have a seizure.  "You okay?  You look like you've seen a ghost..," she snickered.
     "A...  Are you for real?"
     Arashio winked, then kicked him in the shin.  "Yup!  You feel that?"

     A boy stretched, rubbed his forehead in the dark.
     Rather than let the blurry ceiling confound his eyes for the rest of the morning, Kensuke reached straight to his table and picked up his glasses.  Instantaneously, as the earpieces landed in their usual positions, the world's uncertainties and inherent vagueness disappeared.
     Kensuke passed a critical tongue over his teeth, grimacing at the less-than-pleasant taste the morning brought.  Other than that, he could only really find one other point of physical discomfort.
     For whatever reason, the new frames for his glasses didn't quite fit right.  They hadn't yet found a way to conform themselves to his facial features, pinching slightly at the bridge of his nose and making themselves mildly irritating around the ears.
     This was one of the other inconveniences to having to wear corrective lenses, but it was simply annoying at worst.
     Reaching up to a place somewhere above his head, he found the light switch.  The fluorescent tubes mounted in the ceiling flickered a few times, but finally came alive, illuminating the spartan barracks room with a pasty glare.
     The walls bore no decoration or embellishment, only the unburnished dull silver of plate metal.  Next to the entrance was a nearly prohibitively small washroom, with a standing shower, infinitesimally tiny sink, and a toilet.  A small television monitor and a few bookshelves were recessed into the wall, and other than the tiny desk that housed his computer, there was little room for entertainment or diversion.  Much as it should be, for anyone in a military environment.
     Oddly enough though, its occupant really didn't have much in the way of a military schedule.
     Kensuke had a calendar, one of the things he had deemed necessary, and today had been marked in green.  Meaning, of course, some kind of synch test that would have started somewhere around noon.  As things stood, unfortunately, he had no Eva to perform the test with.
     It had taken the Operations Department several days following his release from the hospital to finish compiling the in-depth debriefing information.  It wasn't until then that he had been informed of the damage incurred to Unit-16, his gray and green Eva.
     The pictures of the damage itself represented in grotesque, cauterized detail that the huge creature had been carved entirely in half.  Apparently, the entire lower abdomen had been split in half following two extremely powerful blasts of the Angel's particle weapon.  It also marked his third consecutive defeat.
     His first reaction to the loss of Evangelion Unit-16 was that it was irreparable, and that it would have to be removed from the roster.  On the contrary, Dr. Robertson had corrected, still being as much of a jerk as he could, Evas could survive massive damage, and be repaired to fight again.  Only the nearly complete destruction of the giants could put them out of commission entirely.
     While the repair schedules had not yet been finalized, they had been able to postulate a projected completion date of somewhere around three to four weeks before Unit-16 could be reactivated.
     Ultimately, this meant three to four weeks of inaction.  Kensuke had realized he ran the extreme risk of falling out of practice, that his hard-fought-and-won synch ratio would dwindle away in the intervening time.  Not only that, he had extrapolated from the timing of the last few Angels that he would likely miss another chance to prove himself worthy of piloting his Eva during this lost lapse of time.
     Kensuke mulled this over in his mind during his strictly shortened shower, unable to break free of the topic.  By the time he finished, slipping his glasses back over his eyes, there had hardly been enough hot water passing through the bathroom to make the air even remotely misty.  It remained clear, not impeding his improved vision in the slightest.
     The phone rang.
     Kensuke answered it.  Afterwards, reacting to the news, he dressed hurriedly, and tore out of the tiny cubicle like his life depended on it.  In his mind, at least, it very nearly did.

     The huge white cubicle, incredibly, didn't really seem constraining around Unit-15's nearly gleaming bulk.  Perhaps it was because there was very little contrast between its colour and that of the room surrounding it, making it look, in places, like it was a part of the wall.
     Then again, no one would have been strange enough to want to carve that face into the wall, let alone the rest of the body.
     Shigeru looked on as the technicians swarmed over the Eva's body on mobile cranes, checking leads and securing the restraints.  Behind the Eva's neck, the wall was open, through which he could see the entry plug being set up.
     "Do you think this will work?" he asked Dr. Robertson, who was still standing over one of the control stations.
     Dr. Robertson shrugged.  "You're the one who suggested it, Captain.  We don't know enough about the new Evas, really.  There's a chance, but it isn't a big one."
     Shigeru frowned.  "I thought you were in charge of Unit-16's assembly in Russia."
     "I was.  Your point?"
     "I just figured you'd be better acquainted with them, that's all."
     Dr. Robertson paused, changing directories on the screen, then resumed typing.  "Oh, of course.  I know more or less everything there is to know about their physical systems, control interfaces, and the S2 theory."  He paused.  "You assume too much.  And you're letting our good little inspector watch the test."
     Some of the equipment transports and mobile cranes were clearing the floor of the facility, retreating back to their garages in the geofront.  Shigeru watched them go, refusing to let Dr. Robertson irk him any further.  Some time ago, he'd discovered that the best way to deal with the man was to ignore him as much as possible.  As a matter of fact, just about everyone on the bridge had figured out how to do that by now.

     Finishing her lunch in silence was strangely unsettling to Asuka, particularly today.  She presumed it must have been that way for Shinji as well, given how she had something of a tendancy towards being more talkative.  She noted, too, how silent and unsettled he seemed as well, as he stood to place his own plate in the sink.
     Even though she knew very well he was extremely quiet and mostly unassuming, she also knew him well enough to see exactly how strange this was.  As a matter of fact, he had been like this since she had emerged from the shower to discover he had returned with fresh groceries and clean laundry.  All morning, he'd barely said a word.  He even spent most of lunch staring into his tea, when he wasn't actively eating.
     She felt it troubling her, but wasn't quite sure exactly how to respond.
     Cursing herself, she reminded herself just how easy it had been in the past; Shinji could be read like an open book, once you got to know him.  And yet, she felt subtly changed, as if she was suddenly living without innate or experienced knowledge.  Was this the same Shinji?  The same Shinji with whom she'd fallen in love?
     So much seemed different, like he just didn't want to look at her anymore.
     Come to think of it, he hadn't been able to say much since returning from the hospital, and it wasn't the first time she had wondered if the last Angel incident had had an effect on him, on his mind.  She had learned one lesson about the Angels long ago, that one couldn't ever assume what powers any given Angel had.  She hoped it wasn't too serious...
     She knew she had been exposed to her past by the one, and she pitied him greatly if that was what he was currently experiencing.  From her standpoint, there was nothing so painful as the past and the pain that stemmed from it.  Even if she felt she had, in part, conquered it...with his help.  Maybe he needed hers.
     Nevertheless, she also couldn't help wondering if it was in part her fault.  Seeing the way in which she had retold her tale of misery and the way they had dealt with it, she imagined that he could still feel guilty for something.  She didn't regret it, although if she had known this distance was going to be the end result, then she definitely would have put more thought into it.  Shinji could carry guilt forever and a day, and that had only been about a week ago.
     From the few days before the Angel's arrival, she had seen quite a few of the individual facets of Shinji, some she'd never imagined could exist.  Right from their very first meeting, he seemed to have a highly restricted repertoire of expressions.  Among them, worry and submission seemed to be foremost.  On occasion, he found himself capable of a few emotions more suitable to other people, but those surfaced relatively rarely.
     Looking back, she began to examine those she had seen recently; some, she regarded as having seen too much of.  Starting with worry, of course.  That had been the first that coloured that interminable day which she had spent agonizing over her past, and pain therein, and whether or not she should relate it to him.  Subsequently, over her recounting, that had become sorrow.  And, as far as she could tell, it was genuine.
     She chided herself.  Of course it was genuine.  She'd seen the tears he wished he'd spill, but hadn't in his preoccupation with her comfort.  Looking up, she saw him finish scrubbing a plate, lay it by the side, then start the next one.  In a fleeting moment, her look scanned just beneath his eyes.  She couldn't catch them, they were downcast, not even remotely directed at her.
     Asuka was stunned momentarily as she matched them to memory, too.  That very nearly had been his face while he'd held her in the dark, although this wasn't quite sorrow...  As she couldn't quite place it, she moved on.
     The morning after had brought perhaps the most surprising side of him to light...one she had decided she would rather not have seen, in recent days.
     Her memories of them being shaken out of displaced sleep by the telephone and alarm klaxons were too blurred to remember what he'd looked like then, at least until they'd arrived at the geofront.  That morning, he was set on fighting the Angel, too.  Duty had an annoying way of taking precedence.
     It wasn't until the Angel had nearly won that Asuka found herself the most disturbed.  Even now, Shinji's roar -- indistinguishable from that of the Eva's -- echoed about her skull, intensifying the horrid look of desperation and animal fervour that plagued it for those ten, long, long minutes.  The Angel then died, but she had no way to tell how long the images the combat had spawned for her would persist.
     Nevertheless, she wasn't afraid of him, wasn't going to be.  Not now, anyway.  After a moment's pause, she looked up again.  He hadn't changed, he was still leaning over the sink, scrubbing away in silence.
     This time, she met his eyes, in earnest.  And again, she couldn't quite identify what she found there.  She could still see a concern, a care for her...like that of every other day.  Something, however seemed to dull it, placing a thin film over them.  Almost glazed with...pain?  She smiled hopefully, trying to trigger a similar response...at least until he suddenly looked away.
     The phone rang.  Shinji answered, almost glad to have an excuse to discontinue looking directly at her much longer.  A minute later, he replaced it in its cradle.
     "Who was it?" she asked, trying to sound as cheerful as she could.  It didn't feel right, pretending to be so casual when she certainly didn't feel that way.
     "NERV," he replied, not looking at her.  "They're doing some kind of pilot exchange test...they want one of us to act as control data."  He still looked a little worn, a darkening of his features...and it appeared that Asuka wasn't the only one putting a good face forward.
     Asuka frowned for his benefit, still pretending.  "What a waste of a weekend.  They're going to try putting those two dunces in Hikari's Eva?  Don't they have any respect for her?"
     "I guess..."  Shinji shrugged.  "Do you want to go?  They want us to exchange Evas for some reason, too."  As far as he could tell, Asuka was fairly touchy about Unit-02, and had always virulently denied anyone access to it, especially Rei.
     "They're not going to let one of those two into Unit-02, are they?"  Asuka thought for a moment, concerned, if only for a second, about something other than Shinji.  "It would just be you, right?"
     "I...guess so...  I don't think that's what they meant..."
     "Good."  She decided she wanted some more time to think alone, and knew she wouldn't get it if she had to concentrate on maintaining a good synch ratio with Unit-01.  She shook her head.  "I don't really feel like it.  Why don't you go?  I'll see you when you get back, okay?"

     "Good morning, sir!  Reporting for duty!"
     Shigeru recognized the voice, although it had been so long removed from his mind that it took him a few seconds to put his finger on it.  When he finally did, he couldn't think of anything to say, much like the unfortunate Masaharu.  He was still on the bridge, but had been seen staring reflexively at the currently empty chair next to his station.
     Arashio, for her part, was really enjoying her resurrection.  The word 'beaming' didn't quite do her current attitude justice as she waltzed into the room and waited for further instructions.
     Dr. Robertson, for some reason, didn't notice the peculiar expressions plastered on the faces of his two co-workers.  "You know what to do," he muttered, still concerned with some major error the last user of his terminal had induced through sloppy work.
     Yamashita recovered first, although his eyes remained wide with incomprehension and befuddlement.  "You...you're still alive?  But how?"
     "Was I ever dead?"  Arashio laughed, "I just got a little vacation, that's all!"
     "After Section Two picked you up, we started hearing...rumours.  You know," Shigeru finally said, looking at Yamashita, "that whole thing about the double agent."
     Arashio thought it over, or at least appeared to do so.  "Oh, yeah!  That!  It must have seemed that way, didn't it?"  She chuckled.  "Those guys just wanted to know if I had seen anything out of the ordinary.  I think they were looking for someone in my apartment block."
     While Yamashita and Shigeru continued to stare in amazement, Arashio looked over at her new Chief of Science.
     "Excuse me, sir," she began, "I don't think we've met.  I'm Lieutenant Kayo Arashio...  I've been on break."
     Dr. Robertson stood up long enough to grab an interface board, then ducked down next to the computer station.  "That's nice to know.  I hope you know your job better than these two clowns."  He opened a panel, looked inside, and swore.
     Arashio glanced over at the other two, and found they were both giving Dr. Robertson the evil eye.  "What's up with him?  Bad day?" she whispered.
     Shigeru rolled his eyes.  "He's always like this.  Ignore him."
     "If you do that," Dr. Robertson's sentence was punctuated by another fluidly explicit burst of profanity as he discovered something else wrong in the wiring, "you could miss something important, and consequently find yourself out of a job."
     "This," said Shigeru, over Dr. Robertson's recommendation, "is Dr. Robertson.  He's our new Chief of Scientific Development."
     Dr. Robertson thanked 'his honour' for the introduction, and stood up.  "Are the pilots coming or not?"

     One animated character followed the first in a hectic cross-screen chase, spewing unrealistically sized balls of flame at each other.  Obviously, the creators had opted for more humour than realism.
     This was the state of mind with which Touji watched the cartoon show playing on the television.  Not his first choice of entertainment, but it was Mari's pick today.  Smiling out one side of his mouth, he watched his little sister bouncing up and down on the far end of the couch, her short black hair flying up with every childish leap.
     Apparently, she had discovered this show while she was recuperating in hospital, and had been her only source of entertainement for several months.  Thus, he wasn't about to begrudge her that now.
     Besides, he had yet to finish his homework, not to mention that of the week before.  Inevitably, the extent of his conversation with Mari went only as far as nodding enthusiastically every time she tried to explain some aspect of the series to him.  By the time the phone rang, he had barely gotten started.
     "Hello?"
     The voice on the other end he recognized as being that of Lieutenant Masaharu's, even if it did sound a little shaky.  "Pilot Suzuhara?  Dr. Robertson and Captain Shigeru are waiting for you in the third activation test facility."
     Touji's eyebrows shot up in amazement.  "They fixed it already?" he asked, referring to Unit-14, "But I thought they said it wouldn't be ready for a couple of weeks."  He had actually been glad to hear about that.  He wouldn't have to pilot the damned Eva for however long that period would be.  Consequently, he wouldn't have to worry about Mari, either, or those other worries that plagued him in the entry plug, either.
     "No," replied Masaharu, "they're going to try to activate Unit-15, with either you or Aida as pilot."
     Touji grunted.  Thinking about it, he wasn't really surprised.  The class rep still hadn't resurfaced, and Unit-15 was still in perfect working order.  "Class rep's Eva?"
     "That's right.  Do you need a car?  Dr. Robertson's in one of his moods."
     Touji replied in the negative, saying he'd be there as soon as possible.  Putting down the phone, he looked up at his sister.
     "Mari," he coughed, clearing his throat, "I've got to go to headquarters.  Do you want to come?"
     The little girl looked at him like he was completely crazy.  "But then I'll miss the rest of this!" she whined, trying to look as cute as possible.  "I haven't seen this episode!"
     Rubbing the back of his neck in indecision, Touji stood up to think.  "I can't really leave you here alone, you know.  I mean, what if..."  He paused, trying to think of a compelling reason that might frighten her as much as it did him.  Problem was, being the survivor of an Eva-related accident, there wasn't much that frazzled Mari anymore.
     "I'll be okay, Touji!" she enthused, still glued to her animated characters.  "Really, I will!"
     He stared at the eight-year-old, undecided.  Theoretically, he could leave her here...NERV's security did watch the house; Kensuke had pointed them out once or twice.  Also, she was highly self-sufficient, given that she had spent her entire life learning or improvising what might have been taught to her by the mother she never had.
     On the other hand, he didn't really like the thought of leaving her behind.  Even with all the safety nets, it seemed a very long way to fall, at least for him.
     Still, she wanted to stay at home alone, like she wanted to prove to him that she could handle it.
     He grimaced.  "Okay...but you know the rules, right?"
     She nodded vigorously.  "Mm-hmm!"
     "And they are..?"
     Mari let out a rapid-fire series of answers.  "First rule: don't open the door to anyone.  Second rule: don't go outside.  Third rule: don't answer the phone unless they know mama's name.  Okay?  Oh, and I'm not allowed to use the stove when there's nobody home!"
     Touji repeated what she'd said to himself just in case she'd misstated one, which would give him a reason to bring her along.  But, Mari was a little too precocious for his liking today.  Reluctantly, he reminded her not to forget her own homework, bid her goodbye, and left.
     On his way out, he paused to check for NERV's security men.  Discreetly, of course, as they probably were hoping not to be found.  Kensuke had located two; one in the house across the road, the other in a parked van just up the street.  He found them, and moved on, still a little concerned.

     "Looks like the Fourth finally showed up," muttered Dr. Robertson.  "Begin the test."
     Shigeru shook himself out of his state of thought, and turned towards his co-worker.  "It just occurred to me...is there any possibility Unit-15 will undergo the same malfunction it had during the first test?"  Unit-15 was considered highly stable, but Shigeru now maintained some doubts.
     "You just started thinking of that now?" rebuked Dr. Robertson.  "There shouldn't be any trouble.  Not as far as the MAGI can tell.  Besides...there's only one way to find out."
     The entry plug, whose first occupant was to be Touji, was slotted into the interface at the back of the white Eva's neck.  As it completed the insertion cycle, the armour plates closed behind it, locking him deep within the Eva's torso.  Reflexively, the head tilted back into an upright position, glaring straight into the control box.
     "How are you feeling, Touji?"  Arashio's voice was the cheeriest, no, the only cheerful voice among those watching, and Shigeru had decided she should fulfill the role of communications officer for the duration of the test.
     "Um...okay, I guess.  It...smells different."
     "We'll be going to the first phase, now.  Ready?"
     Touji supposed so.  He'd done this so many times now, he nearly had the entire sequence memorized.  They would count down to the absolute borderline required for any kind of synchronization with the Eva, and, if that was successful, they'd go on to the second phase.

     "Approaching borderline.  Negative 2.5...negative 0.5...  Wait..."  Yamashita frowned at the readings the MAGI were giving him.  "It's staying around minus 0.5.  Not quite there yet."
     Dr. Robertson shrugged, and looked at Shigeru.  "I told you so.  The resida could have difficulty adjusting."
     "Borderline!" announced Yamashita.  "Resida-induced reaction annulled.  All circuits green!"
     Shigeru glanced back at Dr. Robertson, who didn't really seem to care either way.  "What I said still holds true."

     In front of them, the Eva's eyes took on a sickly glow, and its fingers seemed to twitch a little with the surge of power being fed into them.  The massive umbilical cable hummed with electricity, and some of those watching could have sworn Unit-15 took a shallow breath.
     "Touji, you're safely above borderline.  We're opening the neural connections now.  Tell us what you feel.  Beginning phase II."  Arashio's voice was followed by a short crackle, a burst of white noise as she signed off.
     Touji relaxed a little, but he couldn't shake this strange feeling he had that he was violating his class rep's personal space.  This was, after all, her entry plug, and her Eva.  He looked around him, frowning.  It wasn't any different from his plug, the one in Unit-14, but it had a strange sort of feel...
     Suddenly, the neural connections were thrown open, and his senses were thrown into further disarray.  He blinked hard.  For some reason, he could feel a dull ache in the upper left corner of his chest, a more intense pain above his left knee, and his right arm felt like it was being scalded.  Unable to suppress it, he groaned in surprise as more hurts flooded his system.
     Almost as suddenly, it all disappeared, leaving him with a combination of odd sensations.
     "Touji?  Are you okay?"
     He winced a little, clearing his head.  "Um...yeah.  I'm fine.  Just had a little pain there, for a second.  I'm okay now.  Really.
     Arashio's connection was closed momentarily, then opened again as she finished conferring with her two superior officers.  "Do you want to go on with the test?  We can abort if you want to."

     Touji's voice echoed out of the speakers in the control room.  "No...I'll finish this."
     "Fine.  Activate the A-10 connections," ordered Dr. Robertson, pushing the button himself.  "Let's see if he can do this."

     Waves of colour flashed around Touji.  Even after so many reiterations of the exact same sequence, he hadn't been able to determine any order or pattern within them.  Finally, when they cleared, he found himself in a slightly more familiar environment.  Now able to see in just about every direction from the Eva's command chair, he looked around.
     "Strange..," he muttered.
     "Anything wrong?  Are you feeling incompatible?"  Arashio's voice finally bore a hint of genuine concern.
     "Not really.  But I can't feel my legs very well, and...my hands don't seem to be responding."  He paused, trying to think.  It was like his mind was fogged with sleep.  "It's a bit blurry from in here...and I'm hearing this buzzing noise."

     Dr. Robertson looked down at the graph.  "It's what I thought.  The Eva's not responding to the activation command, either.  He's just not high enough.  Nearly two percent, though.  Not bad  for a cross between two dissimilar pilots."
     He paused, saving a copy of the data for himself and the MAGI.  "Get him out of there.  Prep Kensuke for the next one."

     There was a small waiting room off to the side of the hallway leading into the activation test facilities.  From it, like from the observation galleries, the test could be observed not only visually, but also heard over the speakers.
     "Kensuke?  You're up next."
     Shinji watched Kensuke spring fully upright, his plugsuit uncrinkling around his waist and legs.  Shinji frowned.  Kensuke was still pretty enthusiastic...although he did seem a touch tired for someone whose only concern was something he already had.
     "On my way, sir!"
     The door slid open, and Touji emerged amid a moving puddle of LCL and the squelching of liquid, running a hand through his hair.  He sat down with a grunt as Kensuke sprinted through the door, waving a thumbs-up at his friends.
     "How was it?" Shinji asked, looking back to Touji as the door closed again.
     Touji shrugged noncommittally.  "It was okay, I guess.  It didn't really work."

     Kensuke had, upon leaving the waiting area, entertained some hope that he might be able to synchronize properly with Unit-15, if not well.  Of course, he knew that this wasn't his Eva, and therefore, it would likely be more difficult.  Touji, strangely, had not exceeded the minimum starting indicator, achieving only a synch ratio of 1.9%...barely enough to register sensory input, let alone even the most basic movement.
     This seemed to run slightly contrary to what he knew about the Evas.  From the training manuals, it seemed the pilots were supposed to interface with their neurological systems, locking into the Eva's most basic control mechanisms.
     Therefore, it shouldn't really have made that much of a difference which Eva was piloted by whom, except that perhaps it required a little more unconscious familiarity when out of one's designated Unit.  For this reason, he found it odd that Touji had scored so low.  Maybe he hadn't been trying very hard.
     In any case...
     Kensuke cleared his mind, set himself to begin concentrating as soon as he heard the clicking sounds of the entry plug screwing into the back of Unit-15's white neck, into the vertebrae.

     "Ready, Kensuke?"  Arashio's voice, fully recovered back to her usual cheeriness, filled the plug.
     "Yes, ma'am!"
     Dr. Robertson signaled Yamashita.  "Engage the first stage protocol.  See if we can get him above the borderline."
     Already, Yamashita had begun the process, and was steadily counting down the remaining differential between Kensuke's progress and the absolute initiation border.  "Zero.  Zero plus one.  Borderline cleared, all readings in normal ranges."
     Shigeru looked a little surprised.  "The Eva didn't protest it, this time."

     "Preparing to open neural connections, on my mark..."
     Kensuke grinned to himself.  The borderline check had taken less than twenty seconds, comparable to his usual performance with Unit-16.  Not the near-instantaneous connections that Shinji and Asuka could now establish, but certainly better than the forty-odd seconds it had taken Touji to establish a correct signal with this Eva.
     Now, he leaned back into the command chair, waiting for the mildly disorienting neural connection to engage.  The vertigo induced from the neural connection was generally strong enough that most people would have gotten sick from it.  However, the hundreds of repetitions for harmonics and training had made it habitual, and thus, it didn't bother him any more.
     "Three..." It was a very, very strange sensation.  Like your actual flesh-and-bone body filled out the space previously occupied by the plug suit, a mild bloating.
     "Two..."
     But after you did, you couldn't feel the LCL anymore, at least, not as much.  Instead, the feeling was a lot crisper, clearer.  Kensuke lifted one hand, and took off his glasses.  He wasn't adverse to sacrificing his sight for now, as it would be restored once he was fully synchronized with the Eva.
     "One..."
     The only real problem was the weird feeling that came exactly as they opened the links.  It was like all the blood in your body suddenly rushed to your head, in one forced surge.  He still noticed it, despite the fact that he should have been used to it by now.  It might have just been pilot specific, though.  Shinji and Asuka didn't get it, but the class rep had reported it a few times.  He couldn't remember if Touji got it.
     "Zero."
     Funny thing was, it never came.  As a matter of fact, neither did the sensation of being naked in the plug suit's sensorial absence.
     "What?"  Kensuke frowned.
     Arashio's voice came on again.  "Is everything all right, Kensuke?"

     "Huh?"  Kensuke didn't say anything for a moment.  "Oh...yeah.  I'm fine.  Are we continuing?"
     Dr. Robertson nodded to Shigeru before he could ask him to advise.  "Of course we are."
     Despite the rapid rise to the absolute borderline, less than half of the neural connection indicators had come online.  The rest had remained dark, non-functional.  Yamashita had speculated that the Eva might reject him, but Dr. Robertson had dismissed those concerns as unfounded.  It was more likely that Kensuke simply could not synchronize properly with the Eva.
     Nevertheless, despite his original disinterest in this superfluous activity, it had piqued Dr. Robertson's curiosity as to what would occur if the A-10 connections were engaged at this low interface level.
     "Go on."

     Kensuke was tossed like a rag doll among the flowing veins of colour and light, landing, finally, securely in the command chair of the entry plug.  A quick burst of nausea flushed through his body, but he held it down.
     For some very strange reason, he still couldn't see well at all.  Dark spots bubbled across his very blurry field of vision, leaving smearing trails behind them.  Neither could he feel his body, really.  He felt like an isolated mind in the entry plug.
     Somehow, he could hear, though, and it was Arashio's highly distorted and twisted voice that slurred out at him.  He thought he could hear the words 'cancel' and 'test'.
     The shifting growl of de-synchronization roared past him, and his senses all returned in balance.  Panicking, he grabbed his glasses, put them on.  The world seemed to have some kind of order after all.  He scratched his head, now feeling extremely nauseous.
     "What's going on?" he asked.
     "Thanks, Kensuke.  We're done now."
     Kensuke grimaced.  It appeared he had failed to synchronize with Unit-15, much as Touji had.  Still, it wasn't like he'd lost the Evas forever.  Unit-16 would eventually be repaired, and there wasn't much else he could do about it except wait.
     So what if he couldn't synch with the class rep's Eva?  It wasn't his, anyway.

     Shinji looked up as he finished synchronizing with Asuka's Eva.  Arashio's disembodied voice echoed slightly in the plug around him.
     "Shinji?  This is your first time piloting Unit-02, right?"
     He blinked.  "Well...not really..."
     He wasn't too worried, although the last time he had been placed in someone else's Eva, he'd woken up in a hospital with no recollection of the event.  Misato had reassured him that it wasn't his fault, that the Eva had had some sort of malfunction.  He'd believed it, though.
     There was a different smell too, in this entry plug.  Before he set about trying to identify it, he wondered for a moment why he never noticed anything in Unit-01's plug other than the bloody smell that always seem to pervade him when he sat there.
     This smell was different...pleasant.  Extremely pleasant.  And very familiar.  Like...like...
     Of course.  Shinji gasped in agony, something heavy crushing his chest again.  "Asuka..."
     Like she was hugging him.  Like his head was suddenly thrust into that vague cloud of red that trailed behind her everywhere she went, as if he was suddenly enfolded in her gentle yet fiery embrace.
     Incredible.  He closed his eyes, letting the feeling sweep over him like a soft breeze, reveling in the unseeming complexity and flavour of the remembrance.  At the same time, the vice closed tighter around him, squeezing, cracking his ribs.
     As he sat there, he could only think of the dozens of instances he had been lucky enough to experience this.  Everything from rising in the morning to discover her considerably closer than the night before, to some of the more painful episodes they had recently lived through, flooded back to him.  He noted, though, that in most of them, there was very little, if any malaise; rather, just...the two of them.
     Horrible and shameless, as Hikari put it.  Or, without shame..?
     That being the case, it made this strangely glorious feeling all the more intense and fascinating.  And agonizing.  Shinji breathed once, twice, deeply...  Everything else was discarded from his mind for the instant.
     In here, like this, he completely forgot -- or simply didn't notice -- the bloody smell of the LCL he disliked, that bothered him.  It seemed completely overridden by the one Asuka had left here.
     He'd only visited this entry plug once before.  At Asuka's invitation, he had become an unwilling participant in her first-ever battle with a real Angel.  At first, her domineering and overwhelming persona had made it a very hard day for him; being forced into a plugsuit not designed for his body hadn't made it much easier.
     Shortly after she had moved into Misato's apartment, though, he had begun to see the life and vitality that fueled her drive.  It was so very different to his own meagre energy that he couldn't help admiring it, even loving it.
     Frustrated at himself, he noted he felt more at ease here, with her mere memory than with her actual person.  He didn't want to love a memory; that was what widowers and orphans did, what he and his his father had done for ten years...and she wasn't even dead.  Again, he cringed, casting that last image away from him forcefully.  He almost cried out again, but could only partially stifle the urge in his lungs.
     "What was that, Shinji?"
     His eyes burst open, dissolving the immersive state.
     "Shinji?"
     He blinked.  It was Lieutenant Arashio, although he was sure Dr. Robertson would be the next to speak if he didn't.  He hadn't quite caught the query, but he was fairly sure he knew how to answer.  "I'm...fine.  Why?"

     Arashio pushed down on the comm button to reply.  "Nothing.  I just thought you said something."
     "Oh.  Sorry."
     She looked up momentarily, at Dr. Robertson and Shigeru.  Both were leaning over the readout appearing on one of Yamashita's monitors.
     "Incredible," muttered Dr. Robertson.  "Absolutely incredible."
     Arashio listened a while longer, but was unable to detect the source of their amazement.  "What is it?"
     Shigeru turned around, although his eyes lingered a while longer on the screen.  "We're reading a synch ratio of over sixty percent..."

     Arashio hadn't said anything for quite some time, so Shinji had stopped waiting for further instructions.
     Eventually, because he couldn't shake Asuka from his mind, it dawned on him that he was missing her again.  The separation was wretched anguish, but a part of him felt it was right, and therefore, had to be endured.
     He wasn't sure what had changed, as if overnight, that should make him want to maintain some kind of painful distance between his sullied self and the pristine essence that formed her soul.  But then, he still wanted to love her, because that was what she wanted in return...wasn't it?
     The painful rending he had first felt upon waking returned in full force.  Worse still, it was amplified by her memory, and her familiar scent.

     "Sixty-three-point-seven percent?!"  Kensuke goggled at Shinji as he drifted, now barely dripping, into the change rooms near the testing facilities.  "In Unit-02?!"  This was followed by incoherent babbling and a series of strange gestures.
     "I...guess so..," Shinji replied as he opened the locker and unsealed his plug suit.  Somewhere behind him, there was a wet thud as Touji's own set of neoprene landed in the collection bin, undoubtably the result of another master throw.  Reaching in, Shinji unstacked his folded clothes and placed them on the bench.  His mind was still too occupied to fully follow his friend's conversation.
     Kensuke sunk down next to them, shoulders slumping in obvious dismay.  "I mean...how do you guys do it?  There's got to be something I'm not doing right!"
     Touji finished tying his shoes, and looked up, puzzled.  "Say what?"
     Kensuke took off his glasses, wiping them against his shirt, squinting.  "What's the secret, guys?  C'mon, you've got to tell me something!  How do you do so well in your Evas?"
     "Aaii dunno..," started Touji, thinking hard, "I jus' do what it says in the manual...y'know..."  He picked up his bag, shouldering it.
     "...Yeah...but I do that stuff too!  What's the difference?"  Kensuke put his glasses back on, turning to Shinji.  "You've got to know something, Shinji!  Look, you can get a fully operational synch ratio in an Eva that wasn't even yours!"
     Shinji blinked, barely registering Kensuke's pleas amid those of his aching mind. With some difficulty, he was able to turn his mind away.
     He was sure there was more to the Evas than any simple manual could attest to, and he wanted to help Kensuke...only he didn't know of anything that he could say to help his friend.  There was mother, granted...but he couldn't be sure that that actually changed anything.
     "I...well..."
     Kensuke brightened.  "What is it?"
     Already, it was too easy to tell that Kensuke was going to be heavily disappointed with what little he had to say, but Shinji didn't want to lie to him either.  The truth was so much easier.
     "I don't really know, either..."  He quickly tried to lighten his tone, as he went on.  "I think it's all subconscious, anyway.  I'm pretty sure that's what Misato said..."
     He watched as Kensuke collapsed anyway.
     Touji patted his friend on the back.  "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it eventually, right, Shinji?"
     "I guess so."  Shinji continued to watch ambivalently as Touji invited them to come get dinner with him on the way home.  He was sure there was more he might be able to tell Kensuke, if only he understood...but the Evas were still so much of a mystery to them all.  Even him.
     Touji's invitation had to be declined because of Asuka, although he did help convince Kensuke to give up NERV's cafeteria food, at least for tonight.

     It had been with some trepidation that Shinji arrived at the threshold of the apartment, keycard in hand.  And over dinner, the atmosphere of silence that had manifested itself at noon had become thicker, nearly manifesting itself as a kind of dense, asphyxiating fog.  This time, there was no phone to relieve the silence, to bring conversation.
     He looked up from his near-empty glass to the mirror as he pushed his toothbrush back into the rack.  The mirror yielded a reflection, a reversed, but picture-perfect, image of himself.  It didn't lie, couldn't.  It was a mindless mirror, with the task of reflecting truth.
     Shinji looked hard at himself, evaluating, judging.  What was he?  What was he to do now?
     Due to the fact she had no homework left, Asuka had stood here, in the washroom,  more than half an hour ago before proceeded onwards to bed.  More important, and pressing on his mind was the fact that she had persisted in heading to his room.  He knew this because he'd seen her go in.
     Again, indirect forgiveness.  And why couldn't he accept it, recognize it, and move on?  It had come to him on the way home, listening to the cicadas, that by this, she still wanted him to keep her closer than he was currently allowing...  That she still accepted him.
     Something in the mirror caught his eye, and he stared hard, looking for it.  He found his eyes in his reflection, staring back at him.  And in those pupils he saw the child, berating him, guiding and punishing him.  The child he wasn't supposed to be, and yet was.  The child who despised it when he ran, who had once despised him for hating himself.  The child he sought to suppress for antagonizing him with truth while he ran to his lies and illusions.
     The child whispered harshly from the inky depths of his pupils, glaring back at him through the mirror.  Why torture yourself any longer? it asked, You know she forgives you.  You know she loves you and wants your love.
     Shinji's eyes began to tremble.  In reflex, his irises constricted, closing a gate in front of the child.  He shut his eyes, retreating to darkness, and collapsed against the wall.
     At first, he had to refuse it, telling himself he was wrong, that he could no longer risk bringing any more harm to her...  She'd suffered too much already, and, to his mind, much more than he had.
     As he finished crumpling into a sitting position against the wall, his eyes began to open in increments again.  He looked up, saw the light above him, and winced under its glare.
     Slowly, he acceded to the heretic within; yes, he knew of her forgiveness, her love.  For a fraction of second, he felt a waning urge to question that, too, and ask himself whether she only did it in fear.
     You just never forgave yourself, did you?
     That last urge never had the chance to develop itself fully; this other question surfaced in his mind, one that finally put all his self-inflicted pain and discomfort around her into a fuller perspective.  A question that would both heal these open wounds, and tear new ones deeper within him.
     Shinji already knew he didn't have to hate himself.  By not living thus, he could seek the forgiveness of others.  And yet, of what use was her forgiveness if he wouldn't allow himself the same mercy?
     The revelation was more sudden and specific than any other he'd had before.  Freed of his shackles, he realized not to what extent he might have transgressed, but more what he had neglected during his self-centred and precariously short-sighted bout of self-recrimination.  Memories of Asuka from the last week effectively erased any notion of possible alienation on her part; silently cajoling him to return her touch, frowning in incomprehension and partial disbelief when he fell silent or imposed the distance he had felt necessary.
     He felt a different sort of pain as he realized he had ignored all this...although this one would be easier rectified.  He vowed he'd do better.  Wasn't that what Misato had told him?  Once you forgive yourself, you can only improve?
     Grimacing, he lifted himself off the floor.  This time, the mirror reflected an adolescent, not yet a man, but no longer a child.
     Things would be different, he resolved, turning off the light.  They would have to be.

     Asuka paced her eighty-third circle around the confines of Shinji's miniscule quarters.  Her feet were beginning to ache with the incessant worry, but she couldn't stop.  Nearly an hour had passed, and she still couldn't bring herself to touch the bed, let alone sleep in it.
     Shinji was just so...distant.  Worse still, she couldn't think of a way to rectify that distance, that pain that seemed to have infected him.
     While he had so gracefully and thoroughly excised that cancer she had carried for six years, she was lost.  She'd tried everything that she could think of to close that distance.  At the moment, she felt worse than when she had ever been rejected by those she'd always looked up to.  Shinji was an equal, but he was special, more so than anyone else.
     For a moment, she stopped pacing.  Whenever that had been, it was so far behind.  The world of a blind girl, too far entrenched in herself to see over the lip of the pit.  And she wondered why it was the same now.  Why the hell couldn't she see what was going on inside him, inside Shinji?
     She knew she could read him; both her and Misato had been more than capable of that after less than a few weeks of living with him.  And she had read him, easily, for months.
     She felt blind again, her eyes gouged out by some foul demon.  And a blind person inherently cannot navigate new territory without a guide and expect to get somewhere.  She was lost in a forest of pain, going around in circles, unseeing.  She knew there was an exit, one that would restore them, but lost, she couldn't find it.
     She could hear the cicadas outside, and for some reason, the buzzing tore at her.
     Maybe...just maybe...it would be best if she left him alone.  If only for tonight.  If that was what he needed, she wasn't averse to letting him have it.  After all...with time, it was possible she would be able to read him again, as long as she didn't aggravate the problem...whatever it was.
     A familiar stammer broke her line of thought, and she turned to face the door, now open a few inches.  "Y...you're still awake?" Shinji asked, blushing slightly.
     Asuka frowned, both startled and stunned.  These words...they sounded considerably different from anything Shinji had said all day, on the few occasions he had.  And yet, she felt she wanted to encourage this.  This felt more like the Shinji from before the Angel, the one that had helped her overcome herself with a simple, caring question.
     She nodded, eventually, having reminded herself she had yet to answer his question.
     The surprises didn't end there, either...she recognized something in his expression, too, in his meek eyes and hinted smile.  And, he didn't seem to be tied in knots, either...he very nearly seemed relaxed, although a touch guilty...
     The gradually building awkwardness she felt was augmented by the fact that she realized that she was consciously reading him again, too.
     She found the strength to smile back at him.  "Of course not, baka..," she finally replied with light sarcasm, as Shinji took a tentative step into the confines of the room.  One step, half-halting over the threshold, followed by the next.  He looked like a puppy taking its first steps into the world, stepping away from the warm darkness with newly opened eyes.  At the same time, his eyes were those of an older dog attempting to ingratiate itself, trying to reaffirm loyalty and beg acceptance.
     It wasn't until he took her hand that she realized there was no longer any need to leave.  Thus far, he hadn't said anything new, but the way in which he had focused his entire attention on her face, then her eyes, spoke for him.  The fugitive had disappeared, replaced by another.
     Shinji, still trying not to think too hard, continued to stare at Asuka.  Not unlike himself, she watched his every motion and expression for even the smallest detail, perhaps confused.  He didn't blame her, this was his fault to rectify.  Her dumfounded and perplexed silence neither encouraged nor impeded him, although he was certain he wasn't going to shy away from it.  It finally felt right.
     He took a moment to fix his mind on his left hand...he wasn't gripping her hand as a vice might, but the shape was there.  Nevertheless, he wasn't about to let her go, either, and there was a little force being used.  Not enough to force her fingers into each other, just enough to keep them in his palm, against his own.  Not quite enough to start hurting.
     With a gentle twist of her wrist, Asuka moved questioningly, brushing against the inside of his knuckle.  The feather-touch against the still-fresh scar sent a quick plume of warmth up as far as his wrist, but no further.
     Finally, she worked up the courage to ask what she'd been trying to figure out all day: "Why?"
     Shinji remained reticent several seconds longer, but there was no reason to deny it much longer; she had a right to know, and he wasn't going to disguise it for her.  "...I couldn't forgive myself...it hurt, didn't it?"
     Asuka thought back for a moment, to rebirthing her past, to being cradled...not knowing how, she understood him.  Almost empathically, she could see what had drawn him away.  She could only scold him for his idiocy, for his insensitivity, but it didn't come out quite right, other concerns clouding her capacity for scorn.
     And, in the space of a few seconds, she found she could finally relax as well.  It was no longer a burden to be cheerful, although it never should have been.  She didn't care how or why, but she could almost feel an invisible wall crumbling into a heap of rubble on the floor.  Another one fallen.
     "...Dummkopf.  You can't hurt me like that.  You'll kiss me, right?"
     Shinji nodded, having already begun to understand his foolish shame by himself; nevertheless, this lesson once taught to him could only be properly learned with her.
     He took a breath, finally freed, leaving his prison, as he found himself leaning towards her for what was the first time in too long.

     In a room darker than night, more silent than death, a series of red numerals began to glow in the gloom.  One by one, the pale, diffused light of the projected petered out into the cold air, only to fade away in the darkness mere inches from its source.  It seemed only hatred could only stiffen the air more, and that could be found in abundance here.
     Even when all the members of the council had arrived, if that was what the illumination of their pillars could be called, the silence continued for many long, hardened moments.
     "Why," began precipitously one of the seething members, "is it that that lieutenant in Fuyutsuki's command still lives?  NERV intelligence was reported as having destroyed her."
     "Obviously, this was a falsehood.  We had received confirmation from both Moses and Aaron that she was disposed of and buried.  They now report that she is back on full duty, claiming a sabbatical.  How can this be?"
     Silence.  "Perhaps we must call the loyalty of the Brothers into question?  Have they turned coat on us, their directors?"
     Silence, again.  From the cold and frosted light emanating from the monoliths, one would have thought the holograms were breathing pure loathing into the cold air.  The silence lingered, like that that follows a death knell.
     "No.  This was not their fault...at least not directly."  Kihl spoke, his tones cutting, his voice harsh.  "Fuyutsuki is indeed cunning," here he spoke NERV's commander's name with particular abhorrence and an intonation that dripped of pestilence, curses, and overwhelming disgust, "to have identified our ploy.  Interesting that he chose to take the matter of this...Arashio into his own hands, rather than let his men dispose of her as we had wished."
     None of his councilors spoke in the darkness, still writhing in frustration as they grappled with the implications.  Finally, the eighth spoke their collective minds.  "Then, how much is he aware of?  What is he up to?"
     Had Fuyutsuki played this game with the sole intent of discovering the Brothers?  If that was the case, how much closer to them was he?
     Kihl answered the questions before they were asked, as coldly as ever.  "Fuyutsuki remains unaware of their identities.  Nothing is yet lost.  He only released Arashio because the Brothers have ensured that they have done nothing to arouse his suspicions or those of anyone else.  He, too, may be frustrated by this game of cat-and-mouse."
     "How is it possible, then, that our Brothers have not yet been able to find what we seek within Terminal Dogma?"
     "The caution with which they go about their task sickens us all, I believe; but haste would have Fuyutsuki at our throats with a long knife.  Ikari was wise to watch him so carefully."
     "Then, they must coordinate themselves.  That must be their first priority."
     "It has been, and must remain so.  They both know the secrets."  Once Aaron and Moses became one unified unit, there would be no stopping their infiltration.  Kihl knew this well, as he knew each of them.
     "We have just received the report of Fuyutsuki's arrival in Riyadh.  He will then proceed to Jerusalem, under heavy escort."
     Kihl glared, out into the holographic room, at his fellows.
     What are you doing there, Professor?

     "Shinji?  I forgot to ask...how did Unit-02 react to you?"
     Shinji opened his eyes, still incapable of anything more than a sheepish glance at her.  But he couldn't feel any pain any more.  There was none of that left in him, none at all.
     He found himself capable of a tiny smirk as he remembered how very important Asuka's Eva had been to her -- and still was.  "It worked, I guess...  It smells like you..."
     Asuka smiled, a soft smile that rapidly grew into a beaming grin.  He pulled her closer as she shut her eyes.  She was still smiling...even hours later.
     Shinji watched the whole time as she slept.  Now he could smile, too.