One Week
By Ketheres Elyion

Fuyutski angrily slammed the receiver down. He had been trying to reach Ikari for nearly an hour now, and to no avail. The day before, when the salvage had failed, Gendo had disappeared. Knowing the layout of the complex, security wouldn't be able to find him if they tried. He could easily wander about undetected if he wished.

The doctor's concerns were many. He worried as to his colleague's state of mind. He also worried as to the immediate delay of the experiments that this would cause. Even more so, he was bothered by the thought that it might not be possible to continue on without Yui - both technically and emotionally. Add to all of this, he knew that Seele would want a full account of the event as soon as possible. Gehirn Central had been derelict in its filing of status reports, per Ikari's specific instructions. If the Old Men heard about what had happened from another source, there would be hell to pay.

Fuyutski stared out the window into the cavernous GeoSphere. He felt like a vampire down here. No sunlight yet reached the interior of the structure; he would have to wait until the ground construction crews had finished the filters.

Sipping his coffee, the professor looked at the styrofoam cup that he now used. After a couple more sips, he threw the rest away. It just wasn't the same now. Nothing was the same now.

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"Nothing is the same now. It can never go back to the way it was. We can only go forward. Only in the future do we find heaven, not in the past."

Yui had said these words long ago. It was only a short time after the Second Impact, during one of their many conversations. And she was right, nothing would ever return to the way it was.

But despite this, Gendo could only feel that he had to bring her back. He had to bring back what he had with her, somehow. There was a way, but there were many elements missing if he were to pursue that goal. Could he be able to carry out such a plan? Did he have the ability? Could he string along Seele? Lie to them long enough to get what he wanted out of it all? If they found him out, it would be his end. And for that matter, the end of humanity as well.

He had never though himself any sort of savior figure, but he knew that Yui was - she had the qualities for it. He still was unable to comprehend how she could have been so willing to place herself in such danger when she was the only person who had the ability to carry out the plan. Now the responsibility was his. And he felt far from worthy.

Standing in front of the caged Unit 01, Ikari regarded the creature that had taken his wife from him. All he could feel was rage. At her for leaving. At himself for allowing her to go. And at that thing for being the center of it all. He would have destroyed it if she had not been some part of it now. If such a thing as its destruction were possible.

The darkness of the cage was virtually total. After yesterday, it had been shut down temporarily. Only the most minimal lighting was present, casting strange-shaped shadows about the deck and observation area. What little light was shining was being amplified as it reflected of the polished armor of the EVA.

"Just shadows now...," he said to himself as he walked out. Perhaps if he had waited, or perhaps not, he would have seen the eyes of the EVA flicker a pale blue light inside the shaded eye hollows.

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Hours later, Ikari stumbled drunkenly into his room. The lights were still on and the door still unlocked, neither of which bothered him. In fact he was happy that the door was unlocked, for he was not in any shape to be doing anything that required coordination. But best of all, there was no one waiting for him. Nobody to bother him in his grief.

After dropping a bag onto the couch in the living area of his apartment, he staggered in the direction of the bathroom. Before he reached it though, he looked down the hall to the sleeping area, directly into his - theirs, but now only his - bedroom. Rather than stop in the bathroom as intended, he continued into the bedroom. He stopped at the side of his bed, where now only he would sleep. He stood, staring blankly at the thing for a few minutes. This was another place she would never be.

He quickly returned to the living area of the apartment, once again missing the stop at the bathroom. Rummaging through the bag he had brought in, he produced a number of liquor bottles. Without ceremony, he opened one and drank directly out of it.

Still standing in the middle of the room, his binge was interrupted by a strange scratching sound that his phone was making. There were a few more seconds of scratching, followed by a squeal that resembled a modem, followed by a human voice.

"Ikari? Are you there? If you are, respond."

It was Fuyutski. Ikari wondered how the professor had managed this trick. As if reading his mind, the man explained himself.

"I got one of the techs to patch me through to all communicating equipment in all the places we thought you could be. Please. Say something if you're there."

What the hell could he want? Gendo knew that his protectiveness of Yui was more than just professional or that of a simple friend. In a way, he was the man who knew most what Ikari was going through. But Ikari didn't care about such considerations.

Walking over to the wall, he gripped the cord and jerked the phone line out of the wall, bringing the jack along with it. While he knew that would ensure silence for a while, he also knew they could trace it. All they had to do was monitor which devices weren't giving feedback and they'd have him. He didn't want to be found by anyone, and knew that if he stayed here that they would soon come for him. But he still had to go to the bathroom before he left.

Out of habit, he closed the door behind him. She had always chided him on his modest behavior. His bravado, egoism, and hot headedness had always been a facade - a mask he wore to keep others away and avoid any sort of intimacy. Even after letting Yui into his life, he had still had problems with intimacy - and there was nothing more intimate than one's own body. It had seemed like an eternity to him before he had the ability to share his personal space with her, despite how much he loved her. And now? Now all of that effort had been wasted. He had finally opened up to another, only to have that other taken away. And now the only thing that shared his intimacy was a void.

Stopping to wash his hands, he looked up into the mirror. The same dead eyes that he had seen earlier stared back at him, the only change being that they were now bloodshot. He suddenly felt the anger again, all for this face in the mirror. After drying his hands, he still stood motionless in front of the image.

Without warning, he lashed out at the image. With the same speed and ferocity, the image fought back. Their fists met in a crunch of glass and bone. Withdrawing the hand, he stared at the now spider-webbed reflection. A word escaped his mouth, so soft it was barely audible.

"Dammit."

His left hand, the one he had struck with, twitched as a small rivulet of blood flowed from knuckle to nail. Again the word.

"Dammit."

His hand twitched again, the fingers curling inward.

"Dammit."

The hand twitched a final time, the fingers forming a tight fist. His voice was now even and hateful.

"Damn you to hell."

He lashed out again and again. Each attack punctuated with the same curse - never louder than normal speech. It was the mantra he spoke as his slowly destroyed his own image.

"Dammit."

*CRACK*

"Dammit."

*CRACK*

"Dammit."

*CRACK*

"Dammit."

*CRACK*

"Dammit."

*CRACK*

"Dammit."

*CRACK*

Suddenly, something cracked in the man himself. Both hands flew to opposing edges of the mirror frame as he shouted a summons for something higher than his worthless self.

"God dammit!"

The mirror ripped free of the wall and crashed to the floor in an explosion of shards. Gendo Ikari exploded as well. Storming down the hall into his bedroom, he gripped the bed from underneath and upended it. Thrashing about the room, he quickly decimated it. The lamp was broken against the wall. The nightstand overturned. The bi-fold door on the closet torn from its track. Finished with one room, he proceeded to his son's nursery and did the same, but only with more vigor. Worked into a frenzy, he reentered the living area.

Looking around the room, his gaze alighted on the phone. Wielding the bottle he had been drinking from earlier like a club he approached the offending device - leaving a wet trail of liquor behind him as the bottle drained itself. Bringing the weapon to bear on the phone, he shattered them both in one crushing blow.

Leaving the broken neck of the bottle by the remains of the phone, he walked over to the table. Looking at the pictures, he made a choice. Running back to the couch, he retrieved the rest of the liquor bottles and began emptying them about the apartment. Too aid what was to come, he flung about piles of papers from the filing cabinet and books from the shelf. He finally stopped to recover himself.

In an instant he had regained his senses, and was for more sober than he had ever been in his life. Drawing out a pack of matches from the drawer, he lit one and gazed into the flame for a second before dropping it on the largest pile of papers.

The reaction was almost immediate. Flames grew and spread around the room. He threw on his jacket and took one last look through the inferno to the life he once had before leaving.

Minutes later, Fuyutski and a fire suppression team arrived. As the men quickly dealt with the blaze, Fuyutski could only stand back in awe. He had never expected something like this to happen. He had been concerned beforehand, but now he was absolutely terrified at his colleague. Fortunately, Shinji had been left in the elder man's care the day before. But what could his father have been thinking to do this?

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Several hours later, Gendo was sitting near the edge of the excavated area of the GeoSphere. Staring out over the black cavern, he was reminded of the descriptions of Hell that he had read in classical literature. But there was something missing here. He had provided some flames of his own, and there was a resident demon on the premises, but still something was not right for him to be able to consider this place a hell.

He wanted to think of it as such. He wanted this place to be a hell. What else could it be now? He was forgetting something. Thinking, he recalled a line from a famous poem.

There was no longer hope here. She had died. Hope had gone away, swallowed into the belly of a beast. A beast he had helped to create. No light of day was even seen here. No ray of sunshine, no ray of hope.

To Ikari's surprise, he heard a loud mechanical whirring. Looking up, he saw something else that he had forgotten. Being in charge of the experiments, he often forgot about other projects that were taking place at Gehirn Central. He suddenly remembered what was happening today.

The whirring sound continued as the ground crew opened the solar filters into the GeoSphere. They followed an expanding pattern, the central-most opening first and spreading out from there. The effect was amazing.

A singular shaft of light penetrated the gloom of the GeoSphere, illuminating the headquarters building inside itself. It slowly spread as more filters opened until the whole of the GeoSphere was bathed in the orange, dusk sunlight. Gendo laid back on the ground, staring up through the filters into the reddening sky. In the warmth of the light, he grew drowsy. Before falling asleep, he recalled another phrase that he had heard said. He repeated it like a child saying his prayers before going to bed. Hoping that saying it, he could make it true.

"Anywhere can be heaven."

The line "Abandon hope..." is from Dante's Inferno. It's the inscription that is carved into the main gate of Hell.

"Anywhere can be heaven" is Yui Ikari's most famous (and almost only) quote.

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