Doing It Right This Time [NGE]

[Jake]

Cross-posted from SB/SV by popular demand.

Shinji watched the train pull away, leaving him alone on a deserted station platform with his cello case and a bulky duffel bag that contained nearly all of his worldly possessions. "Well," he said aloud, "here I go again."

He swung the cello case over his shoulder and lifted the bag in one hand, pleased at how little effort it took. Three months of judo classes and some rather intensive fitness training to go with it had paid off.
He glanced at the LCD display of his SDAT player. Thirty minutes early, good; Captain Katsuragi would probably appreciate that. Now hopefully the payphones would be working...

A deafening wail echoed across Tokyo-3. "Damn," Shinji muttered. So much for that plan.
A man in railway company uniform ran out through a door marked 'Employees Only'. "Hey, kid! We need to report to the disaster shelters, quickly! This isn't a drill!"
And don't I know it. "I was supposed to meet someone here. Can I let them know where I am?"
"You can telephone from the shelter. Come on, we have to hurry!"

"Call for you on Line One, ma'am. It's the Commander's son."
"This soon? Okay, I'll take it here. Captain Katsuragi. You're a little early, Shinji."
"I thought I'd better err on the side of punctuality, Captain. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I'm in Shelter... 322B."
"Alright. Sit tight, kid, we'll have someone come pick you up once we've dealt with the current crisis. I gotta go." She hung up. "Status of the Angel?"
"It just made landfall. JASDF reports multiple missile impacts, no effect on target."
"Understood. Ritsuko, how're we doing?"
"Pre-launch checks will be complete any moment now. Synch rate at 65% and holding. We're about as ready as we'll ever be, Misato." Dr Akagi brushed a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. "I still don't like this."
"Me neither, but we haven't got time to prep Unit-01. Speaking of... Rei? You might be interested to know that the new kid just got here. He's in a shelter near the station."
"Understood, Captain. Thank you for letting me know."

Inside the entry plug, Rei smiled to herself. "And all proceeds according to the Scenario."

In a quiet corner of Shelter 322B, Shinji glanced at his watch and began to get seriously worried. They were running out of time, damn it! If Misato didn't get here soon then there was no way in hell they'd reach the cage before-
The whole shelter vibrated, and a few moments later a dull boom could be heard echoing across the city. "What the hell was that?" someone yelled, startled.
"The military must've hit the Angel with something big," a man in NERV uniform replied. "Either an N2 mine or a fuel-air explosive."
"Never works in the movies," a third voice muttered.
There was another, longer vibration. "And that," the NERV employee continued with a proud grin, "is the secret anti-kaiju weapon that will work!"
There was a general stampede towards the door to see what was happening. Shinji stared open-mouthed up at the familiar orange-and-white form of Unit-00 as it made its way towards the Angel. It turned to look down at the shelter entrance as everyone erupted in wild cheers, and he could have sworn that single eye was looking right at him.
"Rei...?" he whispered.

The Evangelion inclined its head slightly, as if in acknowledgement, and turned towards its target. The Angel turned towards Unit-00 and unleashed an impossibly crucifix-shaped blast of pink light, but the Eva was already dodging behind a building and drawing its Progressive Knife.
"Rei, there's a weapon locker a hundred metres to the north of your position," said Misato.
"Thank you for the thought, Captain, but that will not be necessary." The comms window wasn't particularly high-resolution, but Misato could still make out an unholy gleam in the blue-haired girl's eyes. "I would prefer to solve this problem in a more... hands-on fashion."
"Rei, I really don't think that's a good idea!"
"Excuse me, Captain, I have an Angel to kill." The picture disappeared.
Misato just sighed. "This is not going to end... Holy shit."
"I'm not wild about her methods," Ritsuko agreed, "but I can't argue with her results. I wonder if they even have reproductive organs there?"
"If they do, I'm actually feeling a little sorry for the Angel. And either way, it definitely has kneecaps. Well, one kneecap and thousands of tiny floating bones where the other one used to be, anyway... Oh for fucksake. Rei, that was someone's apartment you just redecorated with the Angel's face! If we get sued for that it's coming out of your pay! And what the hell are you-?" The whole Geofront shook. "Okay, now you're just showing off."
"I didn't know she was into professional wrestling," Maya added.
"Actually, I think she got that one from Final Fantasy. Rei, will you please put the Angel out of its misery now? Toying with it like this is really unprofessional and kind of creepy."
"Understood, Captain. My apologies. I may have been... excessively zealous in following Ritsuko-san's advice to take my feelings towards Commander Ikari out on the enemy." There was a horrible squelching noise, clearly audible even over the comms. "Angel neutralised."
Misato sighed. "I'm signing her up for anger-management classes."

Meanwhile, outside Shelter 322B, Shinji watched as Unit-00 wiped the blade of its Progressive Knife clean on the Angel's hide. "Well," he said to himself, "that... happened."

* * *​

Approximately three months earlier...

If this is Instrumentality, it's really not all it's cracked up to be.

Shinji stared up at the ceiling. It was as far from unfamiliar as a ceiling could possibly be, which would have been vaguely reassuring if it hadn't been the ceiling he had last seen shortly before getting That Letter and starting down the slow but inexorable path to... Well, whatever the hell had happened.
He was back in Uncle Tomoe's spare bedroom (he could never think of it as his own room) in one of the few intact suburbs of Tokyo-1. A very reluctant glance at the display of his SDAT player suggested that it was about three months before the Third Angel was due to arrive.

Shinji sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He didn't see any point in wondering whether or not this was real; considering he'd been at least partly responsible for shattering the very fabric of reality and/or turning the entire human race -less himself, a two hundred-foot naked copy of his sister(?) and Asuka- into LCL to experience some rather nebulous transhumanist paradise, skepticism about mere mental time travel seemed rather silly.

"So, what now?" he said aloud, staring at nothing.

Could he just ignore the letter and hope his alleged father decided to recruit someone else? Or he could simply disappear. He had a little money, enough for a room in a cheap motel for a few nights; he could lie about his age, pick up some work waiting tables or something and-
Yeah... no. Fuck that. Running had got him precisely nowhere the last time around. This time, he could...

Well, what exactly? Pickpocket Misato for her sidearm and blow Gendo's head off? Hmmm... Tempting, but probably impractical. Lay his cards on the table, tell his father everything and hope he decided to make a few last-minute adjustments to the Scenario? Rather a vain hope if he couldn't prove anything. Try to beat the man at his own game, subtly working behind the scenes to undo the Scenario one small gesture at a time? Yeah, right. No amount of foreknowledge was going to let him out-Gendo Gendo.

Shinji drew a sharp breath as the feeling of helplessness began to weigh down on him. What the hell was he meant to do differently when so much had been outside his control?
This must have been how Asuka felt towards the end, he reflected gloomily. Helpless, no longer in control of her own destiny, totally alone...

Because I was too afraid of rejection to reach out to her. Or to Rei. But I'm not scared anymore.
Shinji laughed at himself a little. Okay, that wasn't entirely accurate. But there was something perversely liberating about the certain knowledge that he had nothing left to lose. After all, how could he possibly fuck everything up worse than total human extinction?

I can't do anything about SEELE, or my father, or Third Impact. But I can try and be a better friend.

* * *​

Asuka awoke with a jolt, grabbing for the knife under her... pillow? That was weird. Pillows had not been a feature of her life recently, what with... Oh. Oh, yeah.
Memories came back to her in a flood. Running into Shinji at the beach. The shouting match, the brief and inconclusive scuffle while she tried to drive her knife into his heart, and the long and surprisingly civilised conversation that had followed. The moment they'd walked into the sea together... After that there was nothing but a jumble of blurred images and the faint impression of a familiar voice saying, "Good luck."
And now she was... back in Berlin. This was her old room. Judging from the concert ticket pinned to the noticeboard it was ten weeks before she was due to set off for Japan.
Asuka couldn't have articulated exactly what she'd been expecting to happen after she'd finally gone under, but this was definitely not it.
A desperate, slightly hysterical giggle bubbled out before she could stop it. "It's a do-over," she breathed. "It's a motherfucking do-over!" She fairly bounced out of bed and snatched up her dressing gown. "I'm gonna do it right this time," she muttered, throwing open the curtains. "I'm gonna have the best damn synch score ever now. Well... I can live with tied for first place with Shinji, I guess." She filled her electric kettle from the small wash-basin in one corner of her room. "Heh. I think I'll work on synchronising a little better with him too, after I beat the crap out of his asshole dad... Maybe I can defuse Commander Creepybeard's precious blue-haired tykebomb too? Well, she is kinda the baka's sister, wouldn't hurt to try being nice to her either way. In fact, screw it. If my life's going to turn into the biggest fanfiction cliche ever I'm just gonna roll with it and be the ultimate Mary-Sue, because I have earned some verdammt wish fulfilment in my life... And I really need to raise my blood sugar and blood caffeine levels because that sounded crazy even to myself."

* * *​

Rei awoke suddenly, feeling... strange. Everything seemed brighter and sharper, a mental sensation not unlike what she imagined it was like to see through a pair of glasses for the first time.
Glasses... She turned to the nightstand. There should be a pair of glasses there. The Commander's...
And then Rei remembered everything.
Her scream brought four Section 2 agents crashing through the door, guns drawn. "Miss Ayanami! Are you alright?"
"I... I'm fine," she replied shakily. "A nightmare. I am not hurt, just shaken."
"We can summon Doctor Akagi-"
"No!" she half-shouted, then took several deep breaths. "Forgive me. There is no need; I will speak to her before the synchronisation test today. Please, excuse me: I would like to get dressed."
"We'll be right outside," promised the senior agent, an older man who gave her a look of fatherly concern. Wordlessly, they withdrew.
Rei lay back in bed and waited for her heart to stop pounding. This made no sense. She had fulfilled her purpose. She had joined with Lilith, and then in a belated moment of independent thought had chosen what she thought was the lesser of two evils... far, far too late to actually help.
And then it was all something of a blur, but she definitely remembered seeing Kaworu. He'd said... something, she wasn't sure what, but it had felt reassuring. And now she was back in her apartment in Tokyo-3, as if Instrumentality had never happened.
Realisation dawned, and Rei leapt out of bed. She grabbed her school laptop and waited impatiently while it booted up, then stared at the time-and-date display at the bottom corner of the login screen.
For the first time in her life, Rei Ayanami resorted to a real swear-word. "Oh, shit." She clamped both hands over her mouth to stop herself from bursting out laughing-
And then she felt a sudden stab of fear at the sheer intensity of the emotion, which was like nothing she'd ever felt before. She glanced over at the untidy stack of pill bottles on the nightstand. They will keep you from becoming distracted, Commander Ikari's voice said in her memory. Apparently whoever was responsible for sending her back in time had decided she might benefit from getting a little distracted, because this was ten times worse -or better?- than when she finally said 'no' to Gendo Ikari for once after skipping her meds for a week.
This was going to be a problem. If the Commander even suspected she was considering rebellion then she'd be replaced, and who knew what he'd do to her memory before uploading it to a new clone. And if Dr Akagi realised she wasn't taking her prescribed medicine-
Then she remembered the... altercation in Terminal Dogma. Dr Akagi, Rei realised, might just be an important ally given the right encouragement.

* * *​

Kaworu Nagisa awoke slowly and peacefully, and smiled. "Oh, good," he said to himself, stifling a yawn. "I really wasn't certain that was going to work."

* * *​

Ryouji Kaji got out of his car and looked around. "Alright," he said conversationally. "You were smart enough to use an anonymous remailer, so that's a point in your favour, but the stroke of midnight in a parking garage? Really?"
"What can I say? I'm a born show-off." Asuka stepped out from behind a pillar. "We need to talk, Kaji."
"What the-?"
"I'm gonna come straight to the point, okay? I know what Misato's dad was really doing in Antarctica and I know what Gendo Ikari's really planning to do in Tokyo-3. I know all this because it already happened, but we apparently shattered the very fabric of reality so badly that God threw up His hands and restored from an old back-up, but for whatever reason I remember everything."
Kaji just stared at her.
"You think this is some harebrained roleplay thing? Fucksake, Kaji, I walked into your cabin on the boat carrying Unit-02 to Japan wearing nothing but a smile and you still turned me down. You're not over Misato yet, I get it. She's not over you yet either if that makes you feel better."
Kaji sat down heavily on the hood of his car. "This is crazy."
Asuka laughed, bitterly. "I know it is. But that doesn't mean it's not really happening. I guess I'd better start at the beginning..."

* * *​

"I got a report from Section 2 this morning, Rei. Are you alright?"
"I believe so, Doctor Akagi. It was simply a nightmare."
"Hmmm." Ritsuko gave her a curious look. "Do you remember what it was about?"
"Not in detail. But I do recall something else." Rei hesitated. "It brought to mind something I overheard your mother saying. I hesitate to ask this, Doctor, but could you carry out a comparative DNA test on myself?"
Ritsuko blinked. "Whatever for?"
"I want to know who my biological mother was. I suspect it may not have been Yui Ikari, as the Commander believes."
"O... kay." Ritsuko rummaged in the cabinet above her desk. "I'll need to take a swab. Does the Commander know about this?"
"No. I would prefer it if this remained confidential until you can obtain the result."
"Very well."
After Rei had left, Ritsuko placed the sample in an envelope and filled out the necessary paperwork for the test, then sat for a long moment staring at nothing. Whose eggs would Mom even be able to switch out for Yui's? she wondered. And more importantly, why? A practical joke seemed like a bit of a stretch, even accounting for Naoko's... idiosyncratic sense of humour. Some blackmail and/or revenge scheme over a real or imagined slight by Gendo, Yui or the third party the egg actually belonged to? Well, maybe, but the consequences if Gendo found out the only thing left of his beloved wife was-
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
Ritsuko scribbled the word "URGENT" on the envelope. She needed these results ten minutes ago.
Three hours later, there was a knock at the door. "Sempai?"
"Come in, Maya."
"Sempai, the medical lab asked me to bring these results. They wouldn't tell me what the matter was but I could tell it's bad. What's going on?"
"I'll tell you in a moment." Ritsuko accepted the sealed envelope, and opened it with shaking hands.
The slip of paper fell from her nerveless fingers as Ritsuko fell to her knees. "Sempai! Sempai, what's wrong?"
"I have a sister," Ritsuko almost whispered. "I have a sister, and I'm helping Gendo turn her into... Oh, God." She burst into tears.
"I don't understand."
"Look!" Ritsuko grabbed the printout and thrust it towards the younger girl. "Read the results. They still had Mom's DNA profile in the records. She must've had an egg left over from the MAGI, and... Oh, fucking hell. She was sleeping with him. She must have been. Why else would she do this? She was trying to baby trap Gendo. Who was cheating on me. With my own mother!" she screamed. "I am going to murder him! Mother of God, I've dated some really lousy men over the years but this is a goddamn record. I give up. I really do. You wanna be my torrid lesbian rebound fling?"
"Yes!" Maya squeaked, before she could stop herself, then clapped both hands over her mouth in horror.
This had the effect of shocking Ritsuko out of her steadily increasing hysteria. "Uh... We never had that conversation, okay? And on a totally unrelated note, meet me after your shift finishes and we'll go for a completely platonic drink somewhere, because I could really use some company." She stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and have a talk with Rei."
Maya stared after her boss and formerly-secret crush as she disappeared down the corridor. "What the hell just happened?"

* * *​

Finding a church that was unlocked outside of services was pretty hard these days, but Asuka knew of at least one. It was an old turn of the 20th century building, dilapidated in a homey sort of way, tucked into a back-street not far from the park where her mother had taken her to run around. One of her few clear memories of Mama before the Accident was of ducking in here to get out of a sudden rain shower.
I'm sure God won't mind, as long as you behave yourself, she'd said fondly, taking Asuka's sodden pullover to hang over a radiator to dry off. And Asuka had sat next to her mother and chattered about everyday things until the sun came out again.
And then three weeks later her mother had come out of the prototype Entry Plug all empty-eyed and broken and wrong, and Asuka had thought that this must mean God did mind after all. She hadn't set foot in a church since... until today.
The place was empty, as she'd expected it to be on a beautiful spring afternoon in mid-week. She sat on one of the pews near the front and stared up at the plain wooden cross affixed to the back wall.
"So," she said slowly. "Our father, who art in heaven, yada yada yada. I know, we haven't spoken in a long time; I kinda stopped believing in you for a while, truth be told. I mean, no God was better than a God that let that happen to Mama. I was pretty mad at you for that at the time, but now that I'm in possession of all the facts... Well, actually I'm still mad at you. Second Impact, the Angels, whatever the hell happened to the planet after Wondergirl decided to hand Shinji phenomenal cosmic power the same day he finally got around to having that psychotic break he'd been procrastinating about since the clusterfuck with Toji and the Angel of Gundamjacking: I'm pretty sure at least half of that was your fault. Jeez, I appreciate a hands-off management style as much as anyone, but there's limits..."
She sighed. "But apparently you hit the reset button, so I have a shot at making things less of a cataclysmic shitshow this time around. Low bar to clear, I know, but hey. So... Thanks for that, I guess. We have a long way to go before we rebuild our relationship still, but it's a big step in the right direction. Just... If I have some great divinely-mandated destiny and you're not just doing this out of morbid curiosity, please give me the occasional nudge in the direction of not fucking it all up? Surely you owe me that much. Oh, and please don't get all judgemental if I trade in some purity points to make Shinji less emo, that kid needs all the help he can get." She blew out a long breath. "Amen, I guess."
"Feel better?" Kaji asked her, when she left the church about half an hour later.
"A little, actually."
"Good. Though you'll be glad to know some more mundane protective measures have been arranged. The custom work you wanted is gonna take a couple of weeks though."
"No big deal. I don't know when we're leaving yet."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"The UN trusts me with the keys to a biomechanical mecha the size of a small tower block which can reliably solo an entire armoured division and you're worried about me carrying a pocket pistol?"
"It's not you I'm worried about."

* * *​

"You know about the test results." It wasn't a question.
"Very little goes on within Headquarters that I do not know about, Doctor," Gendo replied.
"Including the fact that my mother pulled the oldest trick in the book to make you commit to someone who isn't legally dead?" Ritsuko said coldly. "Or maybe this was your doing. You already traded Mom in for the new model, why not me too in another five years? If you're planning to wait that long!"
Gendo had the good grace to at least look a little guilty. "My relationship with your mother lasted approximately four months, and was broken off by mutual agreement after the third violent quarrel in as many weeks. She insisted that we behave as if it never happened. This took place two years before Rei was 'born'." He sighed. "I didn't know about any of this. I don't know why she substituted her own genetic material for Yui's, or why she didn't tell me, but I sincerely doubt it was because she was jealous of you or because she'd fallen in love with me."
"Did she know you and I were seeing one another?"
"Yes. I left it up to her whether to inform you about her prior... liaison, with me. I suppose she felt you were better off not knowing."
"Did you love her?"
"Ritsuko, I have only ever truly loved one woman. Naoko understood that better than anyone. But I did care about her, and I do care about you."
"And about your son?"
Gendo looked up, startled. Rei was standing in the doorway, her expression uncharacteristically hard. "Forgive me for interrupting, nee-san," she said calmly. "May I speak with the Commander in private?"
"Of course." Ritsuko stood up. "Gendo... I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't act out of malice, but I want the key to my apartment back until I've had time to process all this. Rei, I'll see you after work."

Gendo stood up. "Rei..." he began.

She didn't look it, but between her Nephillim biology and regular physical training for her role as a pilot, Rei was remarkably strong. Her slap had enough force behind it to send Gendo sprawling, his glasses flying off into a distant corner.
"That," she said coldly, "was for Shinji."
"How do you even know his name?" he demanded, too stunned to be angry.
"Because I have seen the Scenario play out to the end." Rei's eyes began to glow faintly. "And you failed."

* * *
​

Now...

"Welcome to Tokyo-3, Shinji! I'm Captain Katsuragi, senior operations officer for NERV. Your father asked me to bring you to headquarters."
"A pleasure," Shinji replied sincerely. "I take it you had some part in the giant robot beating up the kaiju?"
"Got it in one. Hop in, we'll talk on the way."

Shinji was mildly pleased with himself for only needing to grab the Jesus-handle twice for the whole ride, and managed an admiring whistle as they descended to the Geofront. "I've heard the stories, but they really don't do it justice," he said.
"You ain't seen nothing yet, kid!"

Dr Akagi was wearing ordinary clothing under her labcoat this time, and looking noticeably less frazzled. "Right on time, Misato. And this would be our new Pilot candidate, I take it?"
"Indeed. Shinji, meet Dr Ritsuko Akagi, head of Project E and senior repair and maintenance officer for the Evangelion Project. Rits, meet Shinji Ikari, prospective Third Child and pilot of Evangelion Unit-01."
"Ikari..." Ritsuko scowled. "I will warn you now, boy. Your family name will not entitle you to any preferential treatment whatsoever. If your performance is less than exemplary then I can and will overrule the Commander and have you discharged."
Shinji blinked. Trouble in paradise already? "I neither expect preferential treatment nor desire it, Doctor Akagi," he replied with a calm he didn't really feel. "I wish only to prove myself worthy of my mother's name, and her sacrifice."
Well, she certainly hadn't been expecting that. Ritsuko gave Shinji a long, calculating look. "Your mother, not your father?" she said thoughtfully.
He laughed, bitterly. "You've met my father."
She granted him a small smile. "Maybe you'll do after all. Misato, give the rookie the ten-cent tour and then meet me in the test chamber in thirty minutes."
"Alright. C'mon, Shinji."

"She doesn't like the Commander much, does she?"
"Good question," Misato replied, after a moment's thought. "They... Well, they're not on good terms just now, but it's not my place to talk about why."
"Then I'll put it down to my father being my father," Shinji decided. At least for now, he added mentally. Dr Akagi was high up on the list of people he wanted on his side. "By the way, when do I get to meet the pilot who took down the Angel?"
"Rei? She's still getting debriefed at the moment. But that reminds me, there's someone else I need to introduce you to."

Asuka ejected the empty magazine, set down her pistol and pressed the button to reel in the targets. Three neat holes had been punched in each, two in the centre of mass and one in the head.
"You know, you're actually getting pretty good," Misato remarked. "Shinji, this is Asuka Langley-Soryu, pilot of Evangelion Unit-02. She's assigned to our Berlin branch, but volunteered to fly out here to carry out some joint training with us. Asuka, this is Shinji Ikari, who'll hopefully be taking Unit-01."
Shinji managed to sketch a brief, formal bow. "H...hi," he stammered out, hoping like hell that they'd take his astonishment for shyness. The Great Asuka Soryu here, already, and apparently voluntarily training a potential rival for Best Pilot Ever? Events hadn't just gone off the rails, they'd careered down an embankment and ploughed into the Twilight Zone.
Asuka smirked. "Awfully skinny for an Eva pilot. So, when do I get to start breaking him in?"
"Soon as we get him fitted for a plugsuit and test his synch rate." Misato's phone went off. "Damn. Sorry, I gotta take this one," she said, glancing at the screen. "I'll let you two get to know each other, 'kay?" She stepped out into the corridor.
"Okay, if Kaji's as good as his word, we've got five minutes before anyone notices the camera feed just glitched out." Asuka took a deep breath. "What I'm about to tell you is probably gonna sound crazy, but..."
"You remember." Shinji sagged onto a nearby bench as everything he'd planned, everything he'd allowed himself to hope for, came down around his ears.
"Yep. Including what you thought I was unconscious for, and yes, you really are fucked up."
"Oh." Shinji glanced at the handgun on the ledge behind her and sighed. Most people would be totally undone by the sudden onset of crushing, irredeemable failure, a small detached part of him reflected; what did it say about him that the only emotional response he could muster this time was exasperation? "I don't suppose 'sorry' really covers that, does it. Oh, fuck it all. Just pass the gun over here, there's no point in leaving Rei to do everything by herself. Tell them I had a dreadful firearm-safety lapse."
Asuka stared at him open-mouthed.
"Honestly, I don't even know why I'm surprised," he continued. "I mean, why would I be reliving this if not because God didn't think I'd suffered enough going through it the first time? So of course I've failed before I've even begun when it comes to being a better friend this time around, that was the one thing I could do by way of damage control for the utterly mental shit we're going to be put through over the next nine months before the world ends. Well, screw that. I'm going to do us both a huge favour and leave early to avoid the rush." He stood up abruptly and crossed the distance between them in two quick strides. "I know I've no right to ask anything of you," he said sadly, "but I'd be grateful if you'd try and reach out to Rei." He reached for the gun.
"Shinji no!" Asuka grabbed his wrist and forcibly interposed herself between him and the pistol. "Jesus Christ, baka, will you listen to me for a minute? I did not spend sixteen hours crammed into an economy-class seat just so I could blow you away, let alone guilt-trip you into doing it yourself! C'mon, I know I can be a vindictive bitch but at least credit me with being smart enough to pick a better time and place than this!"
"I thought this was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing," he replied.
"Trying to stab you when we ran into each other by Misato's memorial was spur of the moment. I've had three months to plan this meet-up. Besides," she said with a sour little smile, "you masturbating over my comatose body was far from the worst thing to happen to me that week. At least it proved you were too dumb to know when you're being hit on instead of just gay."
Shinji blinked a couple of times. "What," he said at last.
Asuka raised her eyes heavenwards. "Listen up, Third Child. This is what we're gonna do. You're gonna get your Synch Rate tested, and then you and Wondergirl are gonna get a crash course in Eva piloting from the best-trained pilot in the business. And after that, we are gonna work together to stomp on every last Angel until it can be mailed, and in between Angels we're going to figure out what the hell to do about those twisted fucks your dad works for. And if you promise to try not to be a wet blanket who apologises for his very existence, I promise I'll try to use less tsun and more dere this time, because I want to be a better friend too. Now, let's write everything that happened before off as all just a prophetic dream or something; you can even imagine me muttering about it in the shower after the opening credits have finished if that helps."
"Huh?"
She snorted. "Never mind. And Shinji?" Asuka pulled him into a fierce hug. "Don't you ever fucking scare me like that again, okay?"

Shinji was too shellshocked to do much more than nod mutely. But all the same, he had to admit he felt a little bit better.

Maybe things were looking up.

* * *
​

His good mood lasted about ten minutes. "Is it absolutely necessary to pilot an Evangelion wearing skin-tight neoprene?" Shinji grumbled. He'd always hated plugsuits, but then he'd always hated damn near everything about this job so he'd never bothered to make an issue of it. But now he knew what was coming, he really thought he ought to take a stand.

Nobody, he reasoned, should have to confront Armageddon in a gimp suit.

"It's not actually neoprene, but yes. It's this or go in buck naked; LCL will ruin any other fabric. And cheer up, it's not like Rei or Asuka can tease you," Misato pointed out. "They have to wear the exact same thing."
"Yeah, except I make 'em look good!" Asuka added.
"And don't you know it," he sighed, refusing to spoil the effect by admiring just how well the suit showed off her curves. Asuka stuck her tongue out at him.
And then the three of them entered the hangar, and Shinji saw his father standing on the gantry leading to Unit-00's cage. He forced himself to unclench his fists and tried, not very successfully, to keep his expression neutral.
No more running, he told himself. Not this time.

And then Gendo turned around, and Shinji saw the dark smudges under his father's eyes, and the faded but still noticeable bruise on his cheek. What the...?
"Shinji," he said as neutrally as he could.
"Father," Shinji replied, pleased with himself for keeping his voice even. "It's been a long time."
"Yes. Too long." Gendo looked like he was struggling to think of something to say. "You are ready for the synch-test?"
"As much as I ever will be." Shinji felt a sudden surge of wild courage. "Is there a reason I'm piloting the one that ate Mother?"
This didn't get the reaction he was hoping for. "Yes, there is," Gendo replied calmly. "But this is not the time or the place to discuss it. I must go."

And before Shinji could open his mouth to say anything further, he was attempting some sort of speed record for the 300 Metre Nonchalant Walk in the direction of the exit.

"Well, that was a touching family reunion," Asuka remarked, breaking the awkward silence.
"Could've been worse. He could've forced me into the Eva to go fight the Angel with absolutely no training whatsoever because the only other pilot got put in hospital in a botched synch-test or something," Shinji replied.
Misato gave him a long and very thoughtful look, then shook her head. "Well, anyway. Ritsuko must be around here somewhere, she's probably the person Commander Ikari was avoiding."

"Actually, Captain, I suspect he may have been avoiding me."

Shinji's head shot upwards at the familiar voice. Perched casually on Unit-00's shoulder, Rei met his gaze and smiled that little Mona Lisa smile that had made him harbour thoughts he was somewhat embarrassed about now he knew about the whole 'clone of his dead mother' thing. Before he could form any terribly advanced conclusions, she stood up and leapt from the Evangelion, landing on the catwalk in a practiced crouch.
"Pilots Ikari and Soryu, I presume?" she said casually, as she stood up. "I am Rei Akagi, Pilot of Evangelion Unit-00, and Ritsuko's half-sister."

Shinji gave up on maintaining his cover as his jaw hung open and several key parts of his brain fused together. A muffled exclamation in German from Asuka suggested she felt the same way.

"My apologies," Rei continued, with no outward sign of mental gear-clashing. "I should have informed you sooner, but I have been neglecting our correspondence; the last few weeks have been... hectic. It is good to finally meet you in person."
"Likewise," Shinji replied weakly. Asuka just stared.
"I will explain everything once we are in private," Rei promised. "Good luck with the synch test, Shinji."
"Uh... thanks," Shinji said vaguely. Suddenly, and for the first time in his life, he was actually looking forward to climbing into the Entry Plug. Maybe things would be a bit less complicated in there.

"All comfortable in there, Ikari?"
"As much as I ever will be. Freud would have had a field day with this user interface, do you know that?"
"I am painfully aware of it," Ritsuko replied. "Okay, readings look good so far. Lowering plug to test depth. Core psychograph stable. Pilot psychograph... stable." She exchanged worried looks with Maya. "Synchro-start in three, two, one... mark. Synchronisation achieved! Holding steady at... Wait, that can't be right. Sixty-eight percent? That's only five or six points behind Asuka!"
"Wow. Hear that, Shinji? You're a natural!" Misato called out. "Are you sure you've never done this before?"

In the entry plug, Shinji fought down the urge to break out in hysterical laughter. "Maybe in a past life," he replied. Making very sure he'd released the transmit key, he added, "I wonder what she'd have done if I said yes?"

Listening on the secondary pickup mic that Shinji really should have expected the entry plug to have, Ritsuko sighed. "Called it," she muttered.

* * *
​

The three of them had been sent off to get lunch, with a proper training exercise scheduled for some time that afternoon, and Rei had casually mentioned a nearby cafe that was "superior to the canteen". This was not a high bar to clear, but it was small and crowded and had a stereo system blasting a local Top 40 station loudly enough that they were probably safe against any surveillence the Commander could arrange on short notice.
"So, then..." Asuka began.
Rei took a sip of tea. "During or shortly after Instrumentality, I relived something of which I had had no conscious memory before. Naoko Akagi, moments before..." She hestitated. "Before becoming very angry at something I said, admonishing me not to speak to my mother in that fashion. When I... returned, I asked Ritsuko to investigate further. It transpired that Naoko had switched Yui Ikari's genetic material with her own. The Commander claims he does not know why, and that this is unrelated to the sexual relationship he shared with Naoko that neither of them saw fit to tell Ritsuko about."
"Well, that certainly explains why she's mad at him," Shinji sighed. "Is Naoko inside Unit-00's Core?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"Figures. How much did you actually tell my father, anyway?"
"Few details. Only that everything he had worked towards and everything he had put myself and his only son through had been for nothing, and that he would die alone and unmourned, rejected by the only person he had ever truly loved." Asuka's mouth opened and closed a couple of times with no sound coming out. "It was... cathartic," Rei added, looking rather pleased with herself.
For the first time in... Well, now Asuka came to think of it, the first time ever since she'd known him... Shinji almost fell over as he was incapacitated with helpless, uncontrollable laughter. "Oh, I wish I could have seen that!" he gasped. "The look on my father's face must have been amazing."
"It was. I believe the memory of it improved my synch score considerably. Mother and I hate Commander Ikari far, far more than we hate each other, and as a result we have... reached an accommodation."
"O... kay," Asuka muttered to herself. "Nice to know you're as much of a seething cauldron of angst and parent issues as everyone else around here under that emotionless facade, Wondergirl. Uh, I'm gonna regret asking this, but did what Shinji was talking about down at the cages actually happen the first time around?"
"Yes. Shinji omitted the fact that Commander Ikari had me brought to Unit-01 on a stretcher and threatened to force me to pilot with multiple broken bones and a head injury if he refused to take my place. He agreed, despite the fact he had never seen an Evangelion before."
"Well, that's not quite true," Shinji added, with a brittle little laugh. "It's just that I'd repressed the memory as thoroughly as possible because I saw my mother die horribly when she tried to synch with it and succeeded a bit too well. Or so everyone thought; if I didn't hallucinate everything between seeing you go down to the Mass-Production Evas and waking up on the beach, she actually did it on purpose so that Unit-01 could become an eternal monument to mankind's existence... or something. I don't know all the details and I'm not sure I want to, especially why she found it necessary to make me watch."
"Oh," Asuka said softly.
"So, yeah," Shinji continued breezily. "That's the woman my father is planning to cause total human extinction to reunite with. No accounting for taste, I suppose."
"Guess not," Asuka muttered. "Now, fascinating as it is to compare childhood traumas, we need a plan of action."
"I thought yours was fine as it was," Shinji replied. "Do better at beating the Angels and try to have a normal life in the meantime."
"I'm aiming a little higher than that, Third. But first, we need to work out how to tell Misato what really happened before she decides we're all crazy."
"I fail to see how what really happened and all three of us being insane are mutually exclusive," said Rei, which set Shinji into another fit of hysterical laughter. "Hysterical" being the operative word, Asuka reflected gloomily; she'd heard saner-sounding laughs from her mother's neighbours.

Mein Gott, she thought to herself. Things have come to a pretty pass when I'm the most stable Pilot on the team.

* * *
​

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but going by the psychograph figures alone, the most stable Pilot we have right now is Asuka." Ritsuko took a deep drag on her cigarette. "And stop looking at me like that. I'll think about quitting when this time-bomb is somebody else's problem. When was the last time Shinji had a psych-evaluation?"
"About six months ago, sempai. There's a copy in your inbox, but I already skimmed it. He wasn't exactly a happy kid, although given what we know about his upbringing since his mother's death I'd be more worried if he was, but there's nothing in there that'd explain why his mental state deteriorated so far so fast."
"Didn't think there would be." Ritsuko massaged her temples with thumb and forefinger. "Just like we had no warning that Rei would be so much her mother's daughter."
"Yeah..." Maya paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. "There was one minor anomaly in Pilot Ikari's file, thinking about it. A note from Section-2 saying that he'd been seen enrolling in judo classes. It's out of character for him according to previous evaluations, but a teenage boy suddenly taking an interest in martial arts isn't especially weird... except for the timing. He signed up on the exact same day Rei asked you to take that DNA test. Odd coincidence, don't you think?"
"Mhmmm," Ritsuko said vaguely.

"... I am sick of relationships based on deception. I wish to be as honest with you as I would wish you to be with myself. Besides, you would suspect something amiss in the end..."

"Maya, are you free this evening after work? There's something we need to talk about, in a place we're safe from being overheard."
Maya almost made a joke about the soundproofing qualities of her apartment, but Ritsuko's expression brought her up short. "Of course, sempai."

* * *
​

"This is the Steyr AUG automatic rifle. Thirty-round magazine as standard, bullpup configuration -meaning the trigger's in front of the magazine- and a two-stage trigger; squeeze it lightly for single shot, harder for full auto. It handles as close to identically to an Evangelion pallet-rifle as we can manage at this scale." Misato set the rifle down in front of Shinji. "Now, gun safety has three basic rules. Rule Number One: All guns are loaded until proven otherwise. Does this gun look unloaded to you?"
"No magazine, but there might be a round in the chamber," Shinji replied.
"Good answer. Many guns have a mechanism that holds the bolt open after the last round fires so you can see at a glance when it's unloaded, but you shouldn't rely on that. Only way to be sure is to pull back on the charging handle; that's this part here. Alright, now for Rule Two. Never, ever aim that barrel at something you don't intend to shoot at. Keep it pointed down at the ground until and unless you're taking aim at a target."
"Understood," Shinji replied.
"Good. Now, keeping that in mind, pick the gun up and see how it feels. See that little white dot? That means the safety's on, but be careful anyway."
Warily, Shinji did so, finding that it weighed less than he'd expected. Keeping it pointed downwards, he felt for the bolt and pulled it back slightly. His eyes widened as he saw a glint of brass. "It's loaded!"
Misato nodded. "Blank round. Would've scared the hell out of you if you'd been careless. Now, Rule Three it seems you already figured out. Finger away from the trigger until you're ready to pull it. Get into the habit of that, safety or no safety. Alright, put it back down and we'll get you some eye and ear protection."

Two magazines later, Misato called a halt. "Not bad for a beginner, but be gentler with that trigger; we'll work up to burst fire later."
"It's a little loose," he replied. "Is there a way to adjust the... pull, I think it's called?"
"Sure. Which leads us right on to the next lesson: How to clean and maintain your weapon."
"That sentence would sound really wrong out of context."
Misato snorted. "If you need help cleaning and maintaining that you're on your own."

"... get through this, and you can have the rest. Now go!"

"Hey, you alright?"
Shinji shook himself mentally. "Yes. Just distracted."
"You did good today, you know," Misato replied. "I think you'll make a pretty good pilot."
"I hope you're right." But I know it won't be enough.

Misato followed up the brief introduction to firearms with a simulator session. "It's crude," she admitted, "but it'll let you get used to the controls. Now, when you see the Angel appear, centre the target in your HUD and pull the switch on the handlebars. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, it is and it isn't, because what you'll actually be doing is mentally controlling the Eva; the switch is mostly there to give your physical hands something to do. Give it a try."
Shinji obliged her, finding to his mixed relief and annoyance that he didn't have to work very hard to make it look clumsy. He'd got more out of practice than he'd expected; or did his muscle-memory not make the transition back in time? Not that he'd been a particularly good shot to begin with; in fact, by any reasonable measure on paper, Asuka should have made him entirely redundant from the day she arrived.

That he'd got a higher kill-count than her by sheer dumb luck, sending her into a downward spiral by knocking the scabs off her deep-seated insecurities, struck Shinji as deeply and profoundly unfair with the benefit of hindsight.

"The rookie did good," Misato declared. "In fact I think he did better than your first time, Asuka."
"My first time was at the age of seven," Asuka retorted. "Besides, it's all just point and squirt; you'd expect a boy to be capable of that by his age." Then she thought about what she'd just said. "Ugh! Please don't ever quote that out of context. Or at all, in fact."
"Yeah..." Misato shuddered. "Moving on. I know you two need to unpack, so we'll call it a day now and try basic unarmed combat in the morning. Shinji, if you have any issues with hitting a girl, now's the time to say so."
"This is a trap, isn't it."
"Huh. You're smarter than you look," Asuka replied. "Well, here's the deal, Third. I'm gonna try as hard as I can to hit you in the dojo tomorrow, so if you don't try as hard as you can to hit back you're gonna have a bad time. But that's honourable single combat with safety gear and a referee. Can you live with that?"
"I think so. I'm a bit worried about what happens if I screw up and you get hurt badly enough to be off the piloting roster though."
"Don't be. I'm not on the roster until and unless Unit-02 gets shipped out to Japan."
"Okay," Shinji replied, not quite succeeding in hiding his surprise.
"Attagirl," Misato added. "Now, I have a bunch of paperwork to do, so why don't you two go find Rei and get her to show you the sights?"

"You're awfully calm about not being a pilot right now," Shinji remarked, as they sat on a bench in a little park not far from a pedestrian entrance to the Geofront.
"The way I'm rationalising it to my ego is, if you or Rei get a kill then it's 'cause I taught you everything you know," she replied.
Shinji laughed. "That's no rationalisation. Do you have any idea how badly I sucked when I started out? The damn great prism thing with the Wave-Motion Gun was the first Angel I legitimately killed myself; the first two ended up wailing on me until Mom took over. Which was probably all part of my father's grand plan. Maybe crippling social isolation and mental trauma make your AT-field stronger or something?"
"Makes as much sense as anything else I ever heard about metaphysical biology." Asuka sighed. "Do you think we can salvage anything from this clusterfuck, Shinji?"
"Do you really want to know the answer to that?"
"Guess that's a no, then."
"It's all out of our hands, Asuka. SEELE want Third Impact to go their way, my father wants it to go his, and by the time Kaji figured out what was really going down it was too late. And if he paid for that information with his life when the ball was already rolling, what the hell would happen to us if we tried to blow the whistle early?"
"Point." Asuka looked thoughtful. "We should talk to Rei. I think she's the only other person besides himself who knows what your dad really wanted. Maybe we could work something out?"
Shinji thought about it. "Well, I guess the worst he can do is say no. C'mon, I heard Rei say she had to go back to her place."

"This is her place?"
"So far as I remember." They'd come via surface bus instead of the subway, giving Shinji a better appreciation of the quality of the neighbourhood -or lack thereof- this time. "I think NERV must own the building, use it for worker accommodation or something."
"We spend hundreds of millions of dollars a week keeping the Evas running and they couldn't spring for the rent in a nicer part of Tokyo-3 than this?"
"That's the Japanese housing market for you," Shinji replied, with a bitter smile. "Seriously, though, I'd put it down to my father being my father."
Asuka muttered something in German that Shinji suspected was very uncomplimentary indeed about his father.

The lift was broken, so they used the stairs. "Well, this is it," Shinji declared, gesturing to the door. He made to knock, but Asuka stopped him. "The lock's broken!" she hissed urgently.
"What?"
"Stay back." Asuka reached under the light denim jacket she was wearing and drew out a small pistol.
"Are you kidding me-?"
Asuka kicked open the door. "Nobody move!" she yelled. "Do you dumb sons of bitches know who you're burglinnnnng oh what the actual fuck she lives here?"
"Yes, I do." Rei gave Asuka a sidelong look as she closed the bathroom door behind her. "How did you acquire a sidearm?"
"Kaji got it for me. I have two more for the both of you in my suitcase. Rei, is this where Gendo made you live?"
"Yes."
"Did... Oh, mein Gott. Shinji, did you know about this?" She pulled him inside. "Look at this fucking dump!"
Shinji looked, taking in features like the pattern of mould covering one entire wall, and the grubby window without shades or curtains. "Oh God..."
"You knew her address! How the fuck could you not see any of this!"
"I was only here once, for a few seconds!" he protested. "I came by to drop off her new ID card, she didn't answer the door so I tried to push the card under it but the door swung open; I thought it just hadn't latched properly. And Rei..."
"I was getting out of the shower," she interjected. "We walked right into one another, and we fell and landed with me on top of him. I was wearing nothing but a towel, around my neck. He was too shocked and embarrassed to notice the apartment's condition, and he never had cause to return." She held up a cardboard box. "I did not understand his reaction, thanks to these. Here. You may recognise some of these medications."
Asuka looked in the box. "Diazepam? Midazolam?"
"I've heard of diazepam, but what's this middle-stuff?" Shinji asked, confused.
"It's a tranquiliser, a mood-stabiliser. It numbs emotional reactions," Asuka ground out. "It's used on mental patients who have manic episodes. They tried it on Mama, or the wrapper she came in, after she attacked me when I visited her in hospital. On someone with a normal emotional range, it... Oh, Rei!"
"Rei Ayanami never dreamed. She never thought about what she wanted to do when she was older, or what it might be like to kiss a boy. She barely had enough sense of self to wish for death... a wish she was denied twice. Once after Naoko Akagi strangled her to death in a fit of rage, then threw herself off the catwalk in the Eva cages in remorse and became Unit-00's Core when the Commander used it to dispose of her body. A second time when she self-destructed Unit-00 to kill the Sixteenth Angel. Each time she was forced back into a new clone body, one of dozens of spares watched over by Ritsuko Akagi, who was carefully manipulated into hating and resenting Pilot Ayanami because the Commander desired her sexually." A single tear ran down Rei's cheek, and her voice hitched. "And even then, the Commander loved Rei Ayanami more than his own true son."
With uncanny synchronicity, Shinji and Asuka both launched themselves forward and pulled Rei into a fierce three-way hug. "I'm sorry," Asuka murmured. "I'm so, so sorry. I was too selfish to see it..."
"You were not meant to see it. Commander Ikari used your self-doubt to isolate the three of us, just as he used Shinji's desperate desire for his father's approval. But in the end... something within her understood that what he was doing was wrong."
"Well, he can keep his fucking approval," Shinji snarled. "This is what he does to his favourite? His last link to his dead wife, and the key to his one tiny chance of seeing her again? By all the Kami-sama above, I thought lying to Ritsuko about screwing her mother was low but this...! I want to fucking kill him- No, no, I can do better than that. I'm going to do my damndest to give him exactly what he wants, just to watch it all come crashing down when Mom slaps his face and goes looking for a divorce lawyer! Oh, yes, that's a reason not to run away alright..." He trailed off, fighting back tears, and Rei and Asuka both tightened their arms around him.

"Rei Ayanami is dead," Rei continued. "It was what she wanted, the only thing she could want, and I hope she is at peace. I am not her. I am Rei Akagi, Ritsuko's little sister. I am not sure what I want to do when I grow up, but I would like to find out what it is like to kiss a boy. I think I would like to find out what it is like to kiss a girl, as well; Ritsuko said it was similar in most ways, but intriguingly different in others." She paused. "Please do not tell her I told you about that."

There was a moment of stunned silence, then all three of them burst out laughing.
"That was way more about your sister's sex life than I wanted to know," Asuka added, once she'd got her breath back. "And why hasn't Dr Malpractice got you out of here yet, anyway?"
"My sister is committed to a lease on a studio apartment no larger than this one, and has been working sixteen-hour days for the last two months getting the Evangelions combat-worthy. There has not been time to make other arrangements. And don't call her names; she does her best."
"Well, get everything you wanna take together, there's room for two futons in Misato's spare room. Sorry, Shinji, looks like you get the boxroom again."
"No problem. It's in a good cause."
"Thanks. Now let's get out of here."

* * *
​

Misato let herself in, only mildly surprised to see a pair of slightly scuffed girl's dress shoes next to Asuka's ballet flats and a pair of trainers she suspected were Shinji's by the door, and hung up her coat.

She followed the sound of German swearwords to Asuka's room, and was a lot more than mildly surprised to see her peering in resentful perplexity at the assembly instructions for an Ikea single bed. "Goddamn passive-aggressive Scandanavians and their engineering puzzles... Oh, hi Misato. Rei's moving in with us, hope you don't mind."
"Uh...?"
"If you do mind, go check out her old address. You won't need a key, the lock on her door's been broken for months."
"What?"
"The building's falling apart and her apartment looked like a Russian prison cell!" Asuka snapped, then forced herself to calm down. "Misato, Rei can not go back there. I wouldn't keep a dog in that place, and that's before we get into our illustrious Commander Ikari's plan for better parenting through chemistry. Oh, and remind me to register with a doctor's office outside of NERV, I don't think I want my pap smear handled by a woman who gets jealous when her boyfriend hints he wants to get his lolicon all over his underage stepdaughter."
Misato went very cold. "Run that by me again?"
"In the interests of being scrupulously fair," Rei interjected from the doorway, "I must point out that we do not know for the certain that the Commander actually intended to abuse me sexually. It may have simply been a convenient way to manipulate my sister into keeping me heavily sedated. Oh, and Shinji asked me to inform you that dinner is nearly ready."
Misato sighed, heavily. "How about you start telling me what the hell's going on, huh? Emailing back and forth with Rei on the quiet I could almost believe, but flying out to Japan like this to train with her? I know you too well for that, Asuka. You're not doing this out of a sudden generous impulse. What's really going on here?"
Asuka smiled sadly. "Knew you'd figure it out sooner or later. You might wanna grab a beer for this."

"So," Misato said slowly. "You're all time-travellers."
"Yep." Asuka nodded.
"From a future where everything got totally fucked up."
"To put it mildly."
"It was kind of my fault," Shinji added.
"And you came back, somehow, in order to fix it."
"Pretty much," Asuka replied, giving Shinji a quelling look before he could say something else.
Misato tossed back the whiskey she'd poured herself after realising beer just wasn't going to cut it tonight. "Is it bad that this actually explains a lot? Rei suddenly developing a normal human emotional range, you flying out here and actually being nice to her..."
"Nothing like the end of the world to make you rethink your life choices," Asuka replied. "Though I honestly didn't plan on that part, at least not above and beyond experimenting with alternative coping mechanisms for my abandonment issues, 'cause pushing everyone away so I didn't have to worry about them leaving me was kinda counterproductive in hindsight." She smiled brightly. "But we get to be probably the first three people in history to make hindsight useful."
Everything about Shinji except his voice said, If you say so.

And on that note, the meeting broke up.

"I've got a spare nightdress if you want one."
"Thank you, but I am more comfortable sleeping naked."
"Yes, but are you comfortable getting up in the night to go to the bathroom and finding Shinji still awake naked?"
"You have a point," Rei admitted. "Although I do not think Shinji would really mind."
Asuka snorted. "Let's try not to kill him before he even sees an Angel, huh? Now get some sleep, because tomorrow we are going shopping!"
In his own room, Shinji briefly wondered where the sudden feeling of inescapable doom was coming from, before putting it down to his inescapable doom and turning over to go to sleep.

 

[Jake]

And now for Chapter 2:

"Asuka?"
"Wstfgl."
"Asuka."
"Mrrrrph. Time izzit?"
"Asuka, I'm bleeding!"
"Whuh?" Asuka sat up. "What? Where?" Rei gestured downwards. "Oh. Oh! Uh, gimme a second. Do you use pads or tampons?"
"Neither! This has never happened before. It shouldn't be happening at all!" Rei fought down a rising tide of panic. "I have a vestigal S2 organ where my uterus is meant to be!"

* * *​

"Was it by any chance Commander Ikari who told you that?" Ritsuko enquired archly, scrutinising the ultrasound image.
"Actually, I believe it was Mother." Rei clutched the hot-water bottle tighter to her midriff. "Though she may only have been referring to the body I inhabited before the... incident."
"That figures. Rei, as far as I can tell without exploratory surgery, your reproductive organs are perfectly typical for a teenage girl. You're starting menstruation a little late, which suggests you're probably still going through the early stages of puberty thanks to the hormonal birth control you were on until recently, but otherwise you're totally normal."
Rei pondered this for a long moment. "Ritsuko... Do you think it is possible that I can have children?"
"I can't say for certain what effect a 75/25 split of human and Angel DNA would have as opposed to a 50/50, but yes, it's certainly possible."
"Oh..."

Rei imagined herself holding her newborn child for the first time. Nursing them at her breast. Comforting them when they were afraid or sad, teaching them right from wrong, raising them to be happy and healthy...
On some level the idea frightened her; how could she, who barely understood how to be a normal human being, care for someone so helpless? And yet she was startled to realise that the mental picture of herself as a mother felt very, very good.

Ritsuko watched her sister's eyes light up, and suppressed a nervous laugh. "Can we not test that theory until you're out of school, please?"
Rei was startled out of her reverie by the worry in her tone. "Yes. Yes, of course."
Ritsuko couldn't help but smile. "I guess we need to have a talk about boys..."

* * *​

"You are entirely too cheerful for someone who just got nailed with the biggest drawback to being a girl," Asuka remarked.
Rei shrugged. "The day I asked my mother where babies come from, I was told I was barren."
Asuka winced. She was almost positive she didn't ever want kids of her own, but to have the choice yanked away from her so young would have been horrible. "We always want what we can't have, huh?" she mused.
"You are talking to a recovering suicidal nihilist with at least forty backup clones in storage," Rei pointed out dryly. "But yes, you are right. And now it seems that I can have it." She smiled.
Asuka had only ever seen that smile once, directed at Shinji after Ritsuko -or Misato- finally got him back out of Unit-01. Now she wasn't continually seeing red and green both at once, she had to admit it was quite a nice smile. Rather cute, in fact.
Then Asuka had to fight down a sudden stab of fear, anger and jealousy. Was it possible that Rei's feelings for Shinji were...?
Arrrrgh. No, bad brain. No hedgehog impressions; that was where it all went wrong the first time round. Rei Ayanami had deserved better than that, much less Rei Akagi.

And it was surprisingly easy to think of them as separate individuals, Asuka mused, watching as the slightly shorter girl rummaged through a borrowed rucksack for her keycard. In a way she couldn't quite define, this Rei was more alive, even when standing still with no particular expression on her face. She wondered how much was down to the absence of all those drugs and how much to her own shifted perception.
Well, whichever it was, Asuka reckoned it was a definite improvement.

Shinji was waiting outside the main entrance to Tokyo-3's largest shopping mall, looking only mildly apprehensive. "Everything alright?" he asked politely.
"Nothing to worry about, just girl stuff," Asuka replied meaningfully.
Shinji wisely took the hint and changed the subject. "So, want something to eat first or shall we head straight in?"
"Why put it off? C'mon, you two, it's retail therapy time!"
"I'll go get a shopping cart," Shinji sighed. "And don't give me that look, I've seen how this sort of thing goes in movies. You might be able to guilt me into carrying everything but I'll be damned if I'm going to throw my back out doing it."
"I wasn't planning to buy that much," Asuka pointed out, a touch defensively.
"We will all carry our own shopping," Rei said firmly, forestalling an argument. "If nothing else, it will discourage reckless spending."
"I can live with that. Shinji, did you get your ID card yet?"
"Uh, I think so. Why?"
"Well, unless you asked for your pilot's salary to go somewhere else, it..." She saw his expression and facepalmed internally.
"We get paid?"
Asuka facepalmed externally for good measure. "Yes, Shinji, we get paid. Quite well, in fact. Did you think the only thing you were getting out of this gig was empty promises of basic parental affection?"
"Actually... yeah."
Asuka pondered this information for a long moment. "Well, that explains a lot," she concluded. "C'mon, Shinji, let's go spend your dad's money!"

* * *​

"I think that would be an excessive outlay," Rei protested, as Asuka gamely towed her towards a lingerie store. "And I am not certain this establishment even sells to minors."
"Oh, c'mon. Life's too short to wear boring underwear!"
"And under what conceivable set of circumstances is anyone else going to see them in the short to medium term?"
"You never know your luck. Besides, you need to at least get a proper fitting."
"Fitting...?"
"If you two need me, I'll be over here," Shinji remarked. "Trying very hard to think about something else."

He bought a coffee from a nearby stall, as much to give his hands something to do as anything else, and perched on the low wall around a decorative planter to wait while Rei and Asuka... did whatever it was they were doing in there, which he was not going to think about in detail, at least not while in public.
And at some point he was going to have to deal with the fact that Rei was not actually his sister, and how Asuka might -or might not- feel about that. Hell, he wasn't really sure how he felt about it, or even if it made the fact he'd once accidentally copped a feel better or worse.

On the plus side, Operation Not Fuck Everything Up This Time was going better than he'd dared hope for so far, not that he could claim much of the credit. They'd probably even succeeded in killing the first Angel without anyone accidentally stepping on Toji's little sister... What was her name again?

"Sakura! Sakura, where are you going?"

Oh, yeah. Sakura, that was... Waaaait a minute.

"It's her! It's the girl who drives the giant robot!"
"Sakura! That's supposed to be a secret!"​

* * *​

"That was an extraordinary amount of money for something I will only ever wear under my clothes," Rei remarked. "But I have to admit it is a great deal more comfortable."
"Told you so," Asuka replied. "Now, for the rest of your new wardrobe, I know this great little boutique around here that-"

"Hey, giant robot lady! Can I have your autograph?"
Asuka turned around, unable to resist a smug grin... then realised the girl was talking to Rei. The anger and jealousy came flooding back in full force, and it took a supreme effort of will to keep her expression neutral.

Then she saw how utterly, comically dumbstruck Rei looked right now, and had to struggle keep her expression neutral for another reason entirely.

"Um... If you like?" Rei said, after a long moment.
"Awesome!" The girl held up her forearm, which was in a plaster cast. "I got this when you suplexed the monster!" she explained. "My brother Toji was trying to pull me away so we'd get back to the shelter but I wanted to see and it was so cool and when it hit the ground it was like an earthquake and I broke my wrist but it was totally worth it and Toji got mad at you so I hit him in the ochinchin and..." She ran out of breath.
"And she refuses to shut up about that part," Toji added grumpily. Then, as Rei bent down to take the pen from Sakura, he saw who was standing behind her.

They stared at each other for a long and very uncomfortable moment. "I have several questions," Toji said at last.

Asuka's smile was more than a little forced. "Hi, Toji. You're in the Do-Over Club too, huh?"
"Yep."
"Good. I think." She sighed. "Look, I know we didn't exactly get along before..."
"By which you mean your bitch-switch had two settings, On and Turbo."
To Toji's obvious surprise, Asuka just laughed bitterly. "I can't really argue with that assessment. For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Toji's mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried and failed to form a response to that. "I did a lot of thinking these last three months," she continued. "About things I should have done and didn't, and about things I shouldn't have done but did. Can we start over?"
"Three months?" Toji exclaimed.
"You didn't get back at the same time?"
"No. It's been less than a week and a half. That's..." Toji realised what he was saying and shook his head in wry amusement. "Aw, hell, what part of this isn't weird?"
"The time travel, or me not being a bitch?"
"Yes."

Sakura held up her cast proudly and smiled. "Thank you, Miss... huh? I thought your name was Ayanami."
"It was. But that is a very long story." Rei smiled. "I think you should get the other Evangelion pilots to sign your cast as well, so that they do not get jealous."
"Am I really that transparent?" Asuka complained, good-naturedly.
"Yes!" Rei, Toji and even Shinji declared in near-perfect sync.

Then Shinji remembered he'd been trying to hide behind a decorative planter. "Uh... hi," he said, lamely. "I... Toji, I'm sorry. I tried-"
"I know. The comms never stopped working. I heard your father... I heard you, too." Toji crossed the distance between them and pulled Shinji into an awkward man-hug. "It's good to see you again, buddy."
"Yeah. You too," Shinji replied, smiling a little. "So, uh, did your sister... You know, come back?"
"No, thank God. She knows most of it, though. I kinda suck at thinking before I open my mouth when I first wake up, y'know?"
"You're not that great at it the rest of the time," Sakura added cheerfully.
"Sometimes I wonder why I got so mad at Shinji for stepping on you the first time around," Toji sighed.
"Because I'm your favourite little sister and you love me?"
"It annoys me how true that is," he replied, affectionately ruffling her hair.
Shinji felt a sudden twinge of envy. He might have enjoyed having a little sister. Even if Rei was...

He pulled the emergency brake handle on that train of thought.

At a discreet distance behind the five children, an androgynous figure in a baggy sweater with a cap pulled low over their eyes glanced at their wristwatch. Any moment now...

They stopped outside a video arcade. "Okay, sis. Got your phone? Got your allowance?"
"Of course I do," Sakura replied, giving Toji her best I'm-not-dumb look.
"Good. Now, I'll be in this cafe over here, 'kay? If you need me, call. If there's boys hanging around who look like trouble, walk over to me, and bring your friend with you. If-"
"Toji, I will be fine. Go on, you'll be late."
He sighed. "Alright. You two have fun in there."
"Meeting somebody?" Shinji inquired.
"Yeah, 'bout that..." Toji looked slightly uncomfortable. "She should be here any-"

There was a shocked gasp from Asuka. "It's you. It's really you..."

It took Shinji a moment to realise who he was looking at. She was wearing her hair loose in ringlets instead of her usual pigtails, along with artfully-applied makeup that made her look a few years older. It was also the first time he'd seen Hikari out of her school uniform, and the rather adventurously-cut sundress and court heels were not the kind of thing he'd imagined the famously straitlaced Class Representative wearing at weekends. And now he thought about it, Toji was awfully smartly dressed for... Oh.

The two girls stared at one another for a long moment, neither knowing what to say, but then something broke in both of them at once.

Simultaneous mutual glomping is a hazardous activity even for professional anime characters on a closed screen, but somehow Asuka and Hikari managed not to hurt themselves. "I'm sorry," Hikari mumbled wetly. "I'm so, so sorry. I was trying to help and I said everything wrong and then..."
"But you tried. That's what matters." Asuka giggled. "You're ruining your makeup."
That set Hikari off laughing as well. "Drat. That took ages."

"She works way too hard to impress my brother," Sakura remarked. "C'mon Nozomi, we got high scores to beat!"

"So, just when did you two quit dancing around each other?" Asuka demanded.
"It was a few days before everything got weird and explody and... Well, you'd know more about that than me, I suppose. I was in a really bad way; not many job openings for a one-armed, one-legged wannabe basketball player with mediocre grades, y'know?" Toji explained, as the five of them crowded into a small booth in the cafe where he and Hikari had been intending to have a lunch-date.
"So I got Sakura to let me in while their parents were at work, and..." Hikari hesitated, looking simultaneously embarrassed and very, very pleased with herself. "I gave him something to live for. Something I never would have been brave enough to do if I hadn't come so close to losing him."
Asuka's eyes widened. "Oh, you didn't!"
"I'm not getting into specifics," she replied firmly, "but I'll tell you this much. It was wonderful."
"And totally worth it," Toji added with a smug grin.
"That may have been the first good deed Commander Ikari has ever performed in his life," Rei quipped.
Toji snorted. "Oh, I doubt your dad did it on-"
Rei's coffee cup landed on the table with some force. "The Commander is not my father," she said harshly. "Not genetically or by his actions." She forced her anger back under control. "Forgive me. It is a... sensitive subject."
"Either way," Shinji interjected smoothly, sensing correctly that Rei would rather not talk about this right now, "I'm glad some good came of that fiasco. Congratulations, both of you."

A little later, the five of them were stood before the department store that took up most of one wing of the mall. "So, what does she need?" Hikari asked.
"Everything," Asuka replied, before Rei could open her mouth. "Clothes, shoes, makeup; the works."
"Alright. What's the budget?"
Asuka named a figure that made Hikari's eyes widen. "It's on NERV's dime," she added with a shrug. "And once we're finished with Rei, it's Shinji's turn! Seriously, do you actually own any clothes besides plain white dress shirts and black slacks?"
"I have a look that works," Shinji replied, a touch defensively.
"Well, you can diversify a little, 'kay?" Asuka cracked her knuckles theatrically. "Now let's do this!"
Shinji and Toji exchanged haunted looks. "We're doomed," they chorused.

"I'm thinking earth tones and blues for the colour palette. Any preference for skirt or slacks?"
"Not particularly. I would prefer not to be too daring with hemlines for the former, at least not yet."
"Knee-length or below, then? Okay." Asuka began rummaging through the rails. "Do you know your measurements?"
"My school uniform is 'medium' according to the label. Beyond that I am not sure."
"We'll figure it out. Hikari, can you grab some t-shirts? We'll get to the dressy stuff after we sort out the basics."
"The odds of me having any occasion to wear anything 'dressy' are-"
"A lot higher than they used to be," Asuka pointed out. "C'mon. This'll be fun!"
Rei sighed theatrically. "I suppose going along with this is the least I can do after spending so long triggering your crippling doll phobia," she remarked dryly.
Asuka froze in place, her mouth opening and closing a few times.
"I'm sorry," Rei said hastily. "I did not mean to startle you like that."
"How did you know...?"
"Given what happened to your mother it was not hard to guess. And as for how I know about that, I made the mistake of asking Naoko Akagi what she was laughing about."
Asuka snorted. "Your mom was one crazy bitch, you know that?"
"Better than almost anyone."
"Hah! Ain't that the truth." Asuka picked out a likely-looking pair of navy-blue slacks. "C'mon Barbie, let's go find a changing room!"
Rei raised her eyes heavenwards, but didn't make an issue of it.

A few minutes later, Asuka decided they had the basics down. Rei had some semi-formal slacks, a couple of pairs of jeans for everyday wear and a modest denim skirt, as well as a decent selection of t-shirts in various solid colours. "Phase 1 complete," she declared. "So what next, make-up or something fancy to wear for special occasions?"
Rei gave her a weary look. "That can probably wait until I have someone specific I wish to beautify myself for," she pointed out.
"It's not just about attracting a boy, you know," Hikari replied. "Or a girl if that's what you're into. Sometimes it's just about feeling good about yourself."
"I will keep that in mind," Rei allowed. "But for now, I suggest we concentrate on clothing. I at least know how to use that."
"Alright. We can get cosmetics any time. So... Time for something fancy. Hikari, would you take over for a sec? I gotta go powder my nose."

As she made her way to the bathrooms, Asuka caught a sudden glimpse of ashen hair in the crowd. Her eyes narrowed. Why did that remind her of something... no, someone? White hair... Red eyes, and an enigmatic little smirk. It was naggingly familiar, and somehow she felt it was important, yet she couldn't for the life of her recall why.

Asuka shook herself mentally, and put it down to a fragment of a dream.

"... sell hair dye here, if you wanted to get some," Hikari remarked to Rei, who was behind the changing room curtain as Asuka rejoined them.
"I would rather not," she replied. "No matter how much unwanted attention it may attract, it is part of what makes me who I am."
"Yeah, I know. But sometimes being who you are is really hard work, and you need to take a vacation from it. That's why I ditched my pigtails today."
"That is something to consider," Rei admitted. "But for now, I have not really been Rei Akagi long enough to need a vacation from it. And I hope I never will. Now..." With a theatrical flourish that Asuka was surprised had even occured to her, Rei threw back the curtain and stepped out.

Asuka couldn't quite hold back a gasp. The dress was a deep blue that set off Rei's eyes and complexion wonderfully, and while it was technically quite modest -it only showed about as much actual skin as her school uniform- it followed and flattered the curves of her body almost as closely as a swimsuit. A pair of strappy sandals with four-inch heels completed the ensemble, doing wonderful things to the shape of her calves and...

Asuka realised she was staring. She could feel her face getting hot and significant parts of her brain fusing together, but she couldn't look away.

"I think that's a unanimous yes-vote, then," Hikari declared.
The spell broke. Asuka released a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. "Absolutely!" she replied, trying not to sound flustered and almost succeeding. Then she noticed that Shinji had looked up from whatever he'd been talking about with Toji and was staring at Rei like...

Hands off! Asuka screamed internally... then she realised she wasn't sure if she was referring to Rei about Shinji, or to Shinji about Rei.

"Asuka? Are you alright?" Hikari looked at her, rather worried.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just..." Just had a moment of extreme sexual confusion. "Just lost in thought."
Hikari looked rather skeptical, but left it at that.

Asuka didn't have the mental energy to offer much more than the occasional noncommital comment as Shinji was coaxed into picking out some nicer shirts in various shades of grey and green, along with a caramel leather car-coat that made him look mature and sophisticated and generally yummy and damn it hormones make your mind up this is not remotely fair...!

He got the sales clerk to take the tags off so he could put the jacket on straight away. Asuka was afraid (and, a small treacherous part of her had to admit, sort of hoping) that Rei was going to do the same with That Dress, but instead she went for one of the t-shirts they'd picked out and her denim skirt with the strappy heels. The distinct wiggle they added to her gait was still distracting.

And the fact that Shinji wasn't quite managing to hide the effect it was having on him wasn't helping. He wasn't being rude or blatant about it, but Asuka could see where his eyes were being drawn nonetheless. And however hypocritical it was, she was just a bit irritated about that.

I really have elevated self-sabotage to the level of a fine art, haven't I? she reflected wryly.

It was something of a relief when they reached the Geofront. Harmonics tests and then some hand-to-hand training would be something... well, 'normal' was probably the wrong word, but something familiar to do. Something she was used to, and knew how to cope with.

"Wow, you three have been busy!" Misato declared, as they walked into her office.
"What can I say?" Asuka quipped, falling back on her old default defence mechanism of feigning brash arrogance. "I want my comrades to look as fabulous as I do. Bad for unit cohesion to be showing them up all the time, right?"
"Whatever the reason, I am glad I agreed to this," Rei replied, flashing her that little smile again. "I know I joked about it earlier, but I have never felt less like a doll than I do now."

Despite the rising heat in her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose, Asuka couldn't help but smile back. I made her happy... Doing something nice for someone else felt good, she decided. Especially when it was someone you liked... And couldn't stop sneaking glances at 'cause oh wow those legs went all the way up and... Arrrgh.

"So, you ready for this, Shinji?" Misato continued, apparently not noticing anything amiss.
"As much as I ever will be to get beaten up by two attractive women in plugsuits," he replied, before he could stop himself.
"Some men pay considerable amounts of money for that," Misato pointed out dryly, at which point Asuka's nerves got the better of her and she cracked up laughing, while Rei merely looked confused.
"Okay, I'm just going to shut up now," Shinji muttered.
"Good idea. Alright, go get changed you three, Ritsuko'll be here any minute."

Asuka suddenly froze in mid-giggle as the implications hit her. She was going to have to share a locker-room... Hell, a bedroom... with a girl she-!

"Excuse me," she squeaked, and bolted from the room.

"What was that all about?" Misato wondered.
"More of that 'girl stuff' you two were all cryptic about this morning?" Shinji suggested.
"Something like that," Rei said hastily, looking slightly peturbed.

Asuka ducked into a washroom, found an empty cubicle, locked the door and sat down heavily. "Fuck," she said, with feeling. This was a hell of a way to find out with absolute certainty that you were... She stumbled over the word even inside her head.

She'd had the general concept explained to her when a dear friend of Papa's and her girlfriend had come to dinner. Some girls will like other girls that way, and some boys can like other boys. Some people even even find they like both, or neither, her stepmother had explained carefully, and Asuka -being only six years old at the time- had assimilated that without really understanding it.
Misato's more detailed explanation of the fundamentals when she'd woken up to blood on her bedsheets had been somewhat earthier, but equally free of judgement. When asked if she thought she had a preference, Asuka had merely shrugged. Maybe if the right girl comes along, she'd replied rather flippantly.
Well, now it seemed that the right girl had come along. Except there was also a boy she liked...

She liked Shinji. A lot. However hard she'd tried to tell herself otherwise after that kiss, which with the benefit of bitter hindsight she knew she'd botched just as badly as he had. He was patient and loyal and brave and selfless and all the things she should have said but couldn't because she was scared of rejection, a rejection that had never happened. Not even at the very end.

So why was the idea of getting Rei alone and asking her if she really wanted to find out what it was like to kiss a girl so damn tempting?

You know why, she thought bitterly. You're just scared to admit it. Same way you're scared to admit you... like Shinji.

"I... I like both of them," she whispered. "I... I'm... I... Oh, fuck it all." Asuka took several deep breaths, then stood up and left the cubicle. She stared at herself in the mirror, a small part of herself absently noticing that maybe she'd overdone the eyeshadow today. Just say it, Soryu, she told herself sternly.

And she did. "I'm bisexual," Asuka said aloud. "I like boys, and I like girls."

Someone cleared their throat from one of the other cubicles. "Congratulations," a woman's voice remarked dryly.
Asuka banged her head gently on the rim of the sink and swore under her breath in German. "How much did you hear?" she said at last, looking up to see Lt. Ibuki calmly washing her hands.
"Enough to figure you could use someone to talk to." Maya stuck her hands under the dryer for a few moments, then turned to face her. "Soryu... Can I call you Asuka?" Asuka nodded mutely. "Asuka, I was about your age when I figured out that I was a lesbian. It's scary as hell at first, and some people will give you crap for it, but it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just part of what makes you who you are."
Asuka snorted. "That's... not exactly the problem."
"Uh-huh. Lemme guess. Rei looks really nice in that new outfit, doesn't she?"
Asuka had a sneaking suspicion that Maya was enjoying this. "Yes," she ground out. "And if she finds out we had this conversation I'll tell Ritsuko you were checking out her sister."
"Not a word, I promise." Maya glanced at her watch. "Look, we've both got work to do. Meet me in the canteen after training and we'll talk then, okay?"
Asuka reluctantly nodded. This wasn't exactly something she could talk over with Misato, was it? "Alright. And... thanks, I guess."
"You can thank me if you feel better," Maya suggested. "Go on, sempai gets cranky if you keep her waiting."
With a supreme effort of will, Asuka resisted the urge to tell Maya exactly what she thought of her sempai.

"Sorry," she muttered a few minutes later, arriving at a jog just as Rei was climbing into the test plug. "Had to use the bathroom."
"You're forgiven this once," Ritsuko replied, with a strained smile. "I really appreciate you helping Rei like that, Asuka. I should have done it myself, but..."
"Saving the world takes priority, I know. Rei said the same thing." Asuka scowled. Rei had been quite spirited in her defence of her sister last night, and God knew Asuka herself was hardly in a position to pass judgement on someone who'd had her insecurities weaponised against her, but it would be a long time before she was ready to like or trust Ritsuko. "Alright," she declared, "the sooner we get this done, the sooner I get to break in the new guy."

Asuka made herself comfortable as best she could and waited for the LCL to fill the plug. I was a lot more comfortable with this before I knew how they made it...
She forced herself to relax. At least it was quiet in here, and somewhat private. Nobody here to notice if her mind strayed back to those gorgeous legs, or a certain adorably clueless boy and how well he filled that fancy jacket... or a combination of the two...

Asuka was pretty sure her face matched her hair at this point. All this blushing cannot possibly be good for the skin, she reflected irrelevantly.

Maya glanced at the biofeedback monitors describing Asuka's emotional state, and barely repressed the urge to giggle.​

* * *​

"Okay, we've got a few minutes while Maya handles the harmonics test," Misato remarked, closing the door to Ritsuko's office behind her. "Rei told me everything."
Ritsuko perched on the edge of her desk. "I thought she might."
"I found the prescription forms in her apartment. And have you seen that place?"
"No, but I can guess. And yes, I wrote the scrips. They were what I talked the Commander down to, I might add. If he'd had his way she'd be developing serious liver damage by the time she was in her twenties."
Misato took several deep breaths, forcing down the urge to yell. "Rei told me some of what was going on between you and Commander Ikari. She made me swear not to be mad at you. But... For the love of God, Rits, why?"
"Because he was all I had in my life that isn't work!" she half-yelled. "I am thirty-two years old and Gendo was the first romantic partner I could keep longer than three months, because I have spent my whole life trying to be something more than Naoko Akagi's daughter..." She sagged. "And he doesn't love me. Said as much to my face, in fact. I did everything he asked, I did things that violated every principle I thought I believed in, and he still wouldn't leave his wife for me. Which I could deal with if she hadn't been dead for ten years."
Misato sat down by her old friend and awkwardly wrapped one arm around her. "I'm sorry," she said lamely, at which point Ritsuko broke down and cried.
They stayed like that for a long while, neither of them saying a word. "You're not doing bad, you know," Misato pointed out. "Medical degree and a Bachelors in engineering by 25, most of the way to a Masters in Metaphysical Biology -which would probably be a doctorate if it'd been a recognised field long enough- and you're basically the senior scientist in this branch of NERV; everyone who outranks you is more like an administrator who understands WTF the backroom boys and girls are saying than a real scientist. How close to doing all that was your mom at your age?"
"She took time off for a husband and a kid," Ritsuko pointed out miserably.
"Both of whom she drove off by basically ignoring them 'cause her job was more important to her," Misato replied. "Which is worse, never marrying or having babies 'cause you're too busy with work, or getting a divorce before your fifth anniversary and only bothering to talk to your kid about once a week 'cause you're too busy with work?"
"That... is a very good question," Ritsuko admitted.
"Damn right. Rits, I'm the last woman on the goddamn planet who should be giving you relationship advice, but feeling like you're not trying hard enough if you don't have your career and a man and a couple of babies is a lousy reason to be sleeping with someone. Especially when he treats you the way Commander Ikari has. You two are definitely over, right?"
Ritsuko managed a weak laugh. "I could not be more done with Gendo if I'd gotten a crew-cut and a biker jacket."

Misato was still trying to think of a response to that when Maya poked her head round the office door. "Sempai, you are not going to believe these res...ults... Am I interrupting something?"
"Just my nineteenth nervous breakdown," Ritsuko quipped, feeling a little better now.
"We needed to talk some things out," Misato added. "Anyway, are the kids out of the test plugs now?"
"I sent them to get cleaned up and report to the gym, Captain."
"Alright, thanks Maya. See you two after hand-to-hand training."​

* * *​

If Rei had noticed Asuka's sudden reluctance to get changed in the same room, she kept her own counsel about it. Note to self: Interrogate Kaji about the best way to ogle covertly. Even if he didn't have any helpful suggestions, the look on his face ought to be entertaining.

Not exactly sure what they'd be doing, she'd opted for a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a tank top, while Rei was wearing her school sports uniform; she didn't have anything else suitable and there hadn't been time to get something fancier at the mall. That was probably for the best, Asuka mused; anything more flattering would be... awkward, at best.

When they got to the gymnasium, Misato and Shinji were laying out a large mat. Shinji was wearing a dark blue gi with a white belt, and an actual hachimaki keeping his hair out of his face. It should have made him look like he was either cosplaying as some shonen anime character or just trying too hard, but somehow it didn't.

"Alright," said Misato, in businesslike tones. "I want you three to go through some warm-up exercises, and then I want to see what you two are capable of." She pointed to Shinji and Asuka. "Since she already proved herself at hand-to-hand yesterday, Rei can take turns pummelling you after we get a feel for what level you're already at."

They went through some stretches and performed a quick jog around the gym, then Shinji and Asuka donned padded gloves and helmets and faced each other across the mat. This shouldn't be too hard, her competitive side murmured, as Shinji bowed formally and assumed a fighting stance. He's a white-belt, you've been training for this your whole life.
"Begin," Misato called out. Asuka moved in, throwing a right hook that would probably...

... Backfire horribly. There was a complicated couple of seconds and a brief weightless sensation, then the next thing she knew she was hitting the mat somewhere behind him.
"Good throw," Misato declared. "You okay, Asuka?"
"I thought he was a damn whitebelt," she muttered.
"I am," Shinji replied, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice. "I graduated to fifth kyu just before leaving for Tokyo-3, and my sensei said he thought I'd make fourth in another couple of months if I kept up my training."
"We use a different colour-code than Europe," Misato added. "Complete rookies get a light blue belt; white is the first one you graduate to."
"Well, that'll teach me to get cocky," Asuka allowed. Shinji, she decided, was looking entirely too pleased with himself about getting one over her. "Wanna see if that was just luck, Third?" she challenged, getting to her feet.
Shinji snorted. "When do I ever get lucky?"
"Less trash-talk and more sparring, you two!" Misato ordered.
Shinji obliged her by moving in to grapple, but Asuka was a bit quicker this time and feinted with a punch before going for a leg-sweep. It almost worked; Shinji dodged fast enough not to go over but left himself wide open for a jab to the solar plexus. He doubled over, wheezing, but didn't fall to the mat. Asuka approached him cautiously, thinking she might have accidentally done some real damage, at which point Shinji proved he wasn't quite as winded as he looked by lunging forwards to tackle her... which also backfired horribly when Asuka kneed him in the groin.
"That round goes to me, I think," she declared.
"Foul!" Shinji protested, once he could form coherent words instead of pitiful, agonised mewling.
"If this were a tournament, yes," Misato replied. "But the Angels won't be playing by tournament rules, so get used to this kind of thing, because when you're in an Eva I want you fighting dirty. On the other hand, don't expect that to work on an Angel, Asuka; Rei already tried it."
"I got better results from attacking its knees and other joints," Rei added. "However, practicing some of the techniques involved upon each other might result in lasting injury."
"I'll see if I can get some volunteers from the Security Department," Misato replied. "Anyway, you two did pretty good. The fakeout when she punched the wind out of you was a good one, Shinji, remember that one for next time. You ready to go again?"
"Would it make a difference if I said no?"
"What do you think," she replied, with a cheeky grin. "Cheer up, by the time we're done the Angels ought to be easy."
Shinji buried his face in the mat. "Have I mentioned I really, really hate this job?" he groaned.​

* * *​

Fuyutsuki gave Gendo his best "stern teacher disappointed in an errant pupil" look. He was proud of it, and practiced it often, and it was unfortunate that Gendo was almost entirely immune to it. "You're avoiding the issue," he pointed out.
"Yes," Gendo replied flatly. "I am avoiding the issue, and I am going to continue to avoid the issue until I have a plan to confront it. Much as I'd like to simply have Security frog-march the Children in here so I can interrogate them, I doubt that would achieve anything except make them even more hostile, possibly violently so. A lot of good it would do the Scenario if I had to put down an outright mutiny, much less explain it to the Old Men."
Fuyutsuki's eyes narrowed. "Which Scenario? The one where Yui's sacrifice enables us to prevent SEELE from destroying human individuality for the sake of not getting old, or the one where you end up more or less single-handedly accomplishing SEELE's objectives for them in a failed attempt to bring her back and ensure she died for nothing?"
"Yui isn't dead!" Gendo snapped. "And I am going to get her back, and I'm going to do it without wiping out all human life, because the Children can tell me where it all went wrong so I know what not to do. That is the Scenario I'm pursuing. And the first step is gaining a firmer understanding of how the Children think so I can prevent them outright working against me."
Kouzo's growing annoyance subsided somewhat. Gendo had a point there, he admitted; establishing a working relationship with the pilots wasn't going to be a fast or easy process. "Very well," he allowed. "But the sooner you have the discussion you've been putting off, the sooner you can start avoiding those mistakes."
"I know, I know," Gendo replied. "But I have always believed that 'Do not ask the question unless you are certain you can cope with the answer,' is an aphorism to live by, and I am most assuredly not certain I can cope with some of the answers I'm likely to get out of the Children."
"What could be worse than what Rei already told you?" Kouzo retorted.
"Proof she wasn't exaggerating."​

* * *​

Asuka stared into her coffee. "I don't even know how to start explaining it."
"Never crushed on a girl before?" Maya prompted gently.
"No... Maybe. I asked Hi- a girl I was friends with if she wanted to practice kissing once, but she wasn't interested. Saving it for a boy she liked, apparently. I was kinda put out, but not jealous or anything."
"I see. So today was the first time you saw a girl and thought, hot damn I wanna tap that, then?"
"Not quite how I would have put it, but yeah, pretty much."
"Yeah, it's scary the first time. So... gonna ask her out?"
Asuka sighed. "If only it was that easy. I mean, if it was just me developing a raging gay-crush on her it wouldn't be such a big deal; she all but came out as bi when we were in that shithole of an apartment she was living in. But...There's someone else. A boy. And I like him too, a lot..."
"Shinji?"
Asuka just nodded.
"So you're not sure which one you like more."
"No. And I'm almost certain he likes me too, but... Gah. I just feel so goddamn conflicted right now."
"You're not committed to anything with him, right? Sempai mentioned you two... knew each other before you arrived in Japan a couple of days ago."
Asuka caught the subtle implication and nodded fractionally. "No, we're not dating," she replied. "Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part. He was blown away by how good she looked as well."
Maya couldn't quite hold back a laugh. "There's your answer, then. Threesome!"
And again with the blushing, Asuka berated herself inwardly, but then she started giggling as well.
"Seriously, though," Maya continued, once they'd both recovered their composure, "you're all three of you pretty young to be making lifelong commitments. In five years you might be wondering what on Earth you saw in each other. But for now, start by getting to know them both a little better. Go out to dinner and a movie with Shinji a couple of times if he asks, and do the same with Rei if she wants to; don't feel you've got to start shopping for a wedding dress or anything yet, just hang out and do normal teenager stuff together. And hey, if you decide you want to take them both out to dinner and a movie sometime... Well, let's just say I've known people who made it work."
"Like... two girls liked a boy so much that they agreed to share?"
"Not exactly. Asuka, you're probably nowhere near ready to even consider embarking on something like that, but I'm going to tell you the same thing one of those friends told me when I asked her a similar question: Love isn't a zero-sum game. You don't have, like, a finite supply of it that only stretches far enough for one person. You have to be a very strong and emotionally mature person, you'll have to unlearn a lot of social norms and you'll have to spend a lot of time and effort communicating with the other people involved and making sure nobody feels left out, but if you want it badly enough then it's totally possible."
Asuka took a moment to absorb this. "That's... a lot to think about," she admitted.
"I bet. Anyway, if you wanna do some further reading then the term you're looking for is 'polyamory'; don't do an Internet search for 'threesome' or 'harem', the results might be entertaining but they won't offer much practical advice."
"Hah! I'll keep that in mind." Asuka smiled. "Thanks, Maya."

Maya stayed seated, finishing her coffee. Sempai should be wrapping things up just about...

Ritsuko sank into the seat Asuka had been occupying. "You would not believe the conversation I just had with Rei," she groaned. "One minute she's getting dewey-eyed at the thought of having a baby, now she comes out and asks me how you know if another girl is attracted to you! Of all the women in the world she could ask... What? What's so funny?"
"I'll tell you about it on the way home."​

* * *​

"The swelling's gone down a lot now," Misato declared. "Leave the ice on 'til it melts, then I'll order some takeout. D'you have a preference?"
"Not particularly." Shinji adjusted the bag of ice he was pressing to his left eye. "I think I'm going to take a bath, if that's alright; it feels like my bruises have bruises."
"Go ahead. You might have to chase Pen-Pen out of there first though."
As if on cue, the penguin in question emerged from the bathroom, gave Shinji a long look and then walked into the kitchen. Shinji couldn't quite shake the feeling Pen-Pen was judging him silently, and wondered -not for the first time- if adaptation to a warmer climate was the only genetic modification he'd undergone. Genetically engineered super-intelligent penguins... It sounded like something out of a particularly ridiculous shonen series, but then Shinji was a teenager who piloted a humongous mecha and fought kaiju, so who the hell was he to question what was and wasn't plausible?
Be nice if I could have the harem of adoring female characters who fall for me despite -or because of- my being a bland audience surrogate, though, he mused, carefully locking the bathroom door and turning on the hot tap. Then he remembered Asuka's shapely figure in a plugsuit, and the wonderful things those heels had done to Rei's legs, and banged his head gently on the nearest handy wall. "Nope. Not going there. No way."

Some hours later, he emerged from the bathroom to find Rei and Asuka in front of the TV, playing a fighting game he didn't recognise on an old Super Famicom.
"How are you so good at this?" Asuka complained, as Rei's character performed a complex special move that knocked off a quarter of its opponent's health bar.
"The television aerial socket in my old quarters was non-functional, and the local neighbourhood was somewhat lacking in places to buy books or manga. I did not have very much else to do," replied Rei.
"I didn't really see you as the beat-em-up type," Shinji added.
"It is not something I would have chosen, but the console and games were a gift from Maya. I am told she played this one competitively when she was in college."
"You know, speaking of Maya..." Misato interjected.
"That is something you must ask my sister directly, Captain- oh, drat!"
"Gotcha!" Asuka proclaimed triumphantly. "Best of three, Wondergirl?"
Rei flashed her an uncharacteristically cocky smile. "It is on."

Best of three turned into best of five, then best of seven, with Asuka alternating between incoherent fury and savage glee depending who had the upper hand while Rei never once lost her cool. The catfight Shinji was expecting it to explode into when Misato called a halt for dinner with Rei in the lead failed to materialise, and indeed Asuka's pout seemed to be mostly an act. Maybe she was actually serious about using less 'tsun and more dere', something Shinji'd been harbouring doubts about after the hand-to-hand session.

Misato's cooking might be infamously uninspired in some aspects and fighteningly adventurous in others, but she did know where to get the best takeout in Tokyo-3. Even Asuka was impressed with the pizza, and Rei was curious enough to give the Double Pepperoni a try.
"You know, I always did wonder how you got to be a vegetarian," Asuka remarked.
"A formative early experience when I witnessed one of the unsuccessful Evangelion prototypes being disposed of," she replied. "It left a considerable impression. This, however, is processed enough that it does not... Mmmm!"
"We'll make an omnivore of you yet," Asuka quipped.

By unspoken mutual consent, all three Children turned in early. It had been something of an exhausting day. Asuka changed into some nice sensible pyjamas in the bathroom and slipped into bed, determined not to sneak a look at Rei as she... donned a large t-shirt to wear to bed.
Okay, apparently I really was that obvious,, she sighed internally, half relieved and half disappointed.
"Goodnight, Asuka. And..." Rei hesitated, then pulled her into a fierce hug. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Asuka replied. Was it just her imagination, or was Rei a little reluctant to let go?​

* * *​

Misato's eyes fluttered open. "What the fuck-?" She sat up, grabbing for the handgun that should have been lying on the cold tile floor of...
Her bedroom?
She was wearing a ratty tank-top and panties. Her sidearm was lying on the nightstand with a magazine inserted, not carefully hidden on top of the wardrobe unloaded like she'd started doing after it became obvious that neither Shinji nor Asuka were... Oh dear God where the hell were they? Had they made it to their Evas before-?

Misato sank back onto her bed as two sets of contradictory memories slammed into her head. She remembered every Angel. Remembered Ritsuko and those horrible empty-eyed clone bodies, floating there with no souls. Remembered promising the only thing she had left to give to stop Shinji from just shutting down and waiting to die, a promise she knew she couldn't keep...

And then an Angel appeared. And then three months of her life happened all over again, except with her best friend suddenly gaining a baby sister and-

"Son of a bitch," she muttered. "Prettyboy really wasn't kidding about a risk of mis-drops, was he?" She took a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh. "Alright. Alright, I can work with this."​

 

[Jake]

Wanted this to be longer, but I'm trying to get back into the groove and you guys are always good for that. Oh, and I'm not sure if I should put a content warning on this or not, but Shinji has a rather skewed idea of what less traumatised people are comfortable with one being flippant about...

---

"I always hated these stupid pinafores," Asuka grumbled, dragging a brush through her hair. "At least with a proper seifuku I could pretend I was a magical girl." She took her A-10 clips out of their carry-case, then hesitated as she remembered something Hikari had said yesterday.

"...sometimes, being who you are is really hard work, and you need to take a vacation from it."

She'd worn the nerve clips as barettes almost every day since they'd been issued to her, intending them to symbolise her devotion to her career as an Evangelion pilot, but now they seemed to symbolise the flipside of that as well: How little else she'd had in her life except piloting. No hobbies, no other ambitions to speak of, no truly close friends until she'd arrived in Tokyo-3...

Her mind made up, Asuka firmly placed the clips back in the box and began rummaging through her suitcase. Surely she had at least one ordinary hair-tie in here somewhere...?

* * *

Rei Akagi had discovered a lot of things about herself in the last three months. One of them was that she was most definitely not a morning person.
She listened with half an ear as Shinji grumbled good-naturedly about how training Misato out of living on ramen and takeout had been enough of a hassle the first time round, taking occasional sips from a cup of very strong black coffee containing a probably unhealthy amount of sugar. Apparently this was some sort of family trait; Ritsuko took hers much the same way, as had their late mother.
Rei had actually attempted drinking her coffee with much less sugar and some cream in it as a half-hearted form of rebellion after Ritsuko had pointed this out, lasting two weeks before giving it up as a bad job. She still hadn't fully come to terms with the fact she might have traits in common with the biological mother who strangled her in a fit of rage, though it had to be said that Naoko had suffered far worse lasting consequences... and that had been a rather hurtful thing to say, and... Well, there was a reason she was feeling a bit conflicted.
This was probably how Shinji would feel if she pointed out the similarities between Commander Ikari's cherished Scenario and what had apparently happened with Asuka...

And she was feeling more than a bit conflicted about that as well. It had been easier to be jealous of Asuka before she'd made such an effort to help her pick out some nice clothes, and before the look on her face when-

Rei's private musings were interrupted when Misato entered the kitchen, looking wide awake and more than a little nervous. "All this has happened before, and will happen again," she said, as if it were some kind of code-phrase.

"Huh?" Shinji replied, eloquently.
"Kensuke's idea for a recognition password. You were supposed to say 'Not if I can help it'. Asuka got mad 'cause I was the only other one of us who knew it was from the Bible not Battlestar Galactica, and then Kaworu said we might wanna lay off quoting the guy who coined that anyway 'cause he was a nihilist before nihilism was cool; he'd know I guess..." Misato realised she was babbling and changed tack. "Shinji... I remember everything."

Before either of them even realised it, Misato had pulled Shinji into a rib-cracking hug, mumbling tearful apologies. The coffee cup he'd been holding shattered on the floor unheeded.

Asuka came running into the kitchen at the sound of the crash, and before she could even form the thought Misato had dragged her into the embrace as well.

"Welcome back, Captain," Rei said dryly, over the rim of her coffee cup. "I think you should be aware that Shinji appears to be suffocating."

Whether it was genetic or a learned behaviour and/or coping mechanism was a matter for opinion, but something else she had in common with Naoko Akagi was an innate gift for snark.

* * *

"Kaworu?" Shinji exclaimed. "That's impossible. He died long before Third Impact!"
"According to the boy himself, 'Only by a very limited and specific definition of dead, which is why I let you win'," Misato replied.
Shinji banged his head gently on the kitchen table. "Well he could've said!" he cried plaintively. "Did I slug him for that? Please say I slugged him for that."
"Oh, yes. He did apologise though. Abjectly, in fact, which was kinda impressive; I didn't think a smarmy son of a bitch like him could do abject."
"So the do-over is down to Gay Bishounen Space Jesus feeling guilty for abusing your raging boy-crush on him and calling in a favour with the eldrich alien thing nailed to the wall in your asshole dad's basement, who may or may not be the Abrahamaic God." Asuka sighed. "You know, I could swear there was a time in my life where everything made some kind of sense."
"Growing up sucks," Misato quipped.
"And I did not have a crush on Kaworu," Shinji added mutinously. "Even if he was girly enough to be kind of cute. He was a friend, at a time when I really needed one, up until he turned out to be an Angel and went all 'I cannot self-terminate' on me. If he wants me to be his kaishakunin again he can damn well observe the formalities and commit proper seppuku first; I never worked up the courage to actually ask, but I'm almost positive the Commander keeps a pair of swords and a washable tatami handy."
"Not funny!" Misato and Asuka both chorused, then shared a slightly startled look.
"What, you think I'm joking?"
Everyone else at the table performed a perfectly synchronised facepalm. "Go get ready for school, you three," Misato sighed. "We are not remotely done talking about this, but we're all running late."

 

[Jake]

Okay, bit shorter than I'd hoped (there's a... significant anniversary I'm not looking forward to coming up, which has been bad for my productivity), but I'm quite proud of this bit and it makes a nice contrast to all the crap Ritsuko's going through in A&T.

---

It was a twenty-minute drive to NERV headquarters even when traffic was light, which it rarely was, but for once Misato wished it could be longer so she'd have more time to straighten her head out. She had no idea what the hell she was going to say to Ritsuko yet, much less the Commander. And then there was Shinji...
None of them were in a good place mentally, she knew that. Who would be after all they'd been through? But Shinji worried her the most. Asuka was probably going to come down from the initial OMG-we're-alive high at some point, but at least she seemed hopeful. Rei she didn't really know well to get a read on, but the mere fact she was showing something like a normal human emotional range was encouraging. But Shinji... She'd seen eyes like that back in Central America as a young lieutenant, in the faces of soldiers -and some civilians- who'd seen so much horror and faced death so often that some sort of emergency shutdown mechanism kicked in and sent them into a kind of autopilot. Not everyone came back out of it, and a lot of those who did were very changed people, not usually for the better.

And you'd know about that, wouldn't you? Misato reflected, reaching up to touch the crucifix under her uniform blouse.

Well, it was going to be different now. The first thing she was doing after getting done with the worst of the paperwork (some of which was Rei's fault, because NERV really were getting sued over the mess she'd made of that building with the Third Angel's face) was sitting down with Ritsuko and working out which department's budget should cover hiring the best paediatric psychiatrist in Japan at whatever salary they cared to ask for. And maybe one for the adults as well: Justify it as leading by example if anyone was reluctant to air their dirty psychological laundry in public. Maybe then they could add a Designated Sane Person to the organisational chart and have them attend important meetings...
Emphasis on "designated", of course. She was thinking of buying a coffee mug or novelty Post-It note holder or whatever with "On second thoughts, you do have to be mad to work here" on it to brighten her desk up a bit. Someone must have thought to sell stuff with that slogan on it by now, right?

The break room was mostly empty at this hour, but Ritsuko had beaten her to the coffee machine. She was also smiling brightly and humming along to the irritating bubblegum-pop that the local radio station inexplicably thought was appropriate for this early in the morning. The contrast between the last time Misato had seen her (or one of them, and good Lord that was going to be confusing...) was quite startling.
"Morning, Misato!" Ritsuko greeted her.
"Hi... Uh, you have, uh-" Misato gave up trying to speak coherently and just pointed.
"Oh?" Ritsuko looked in the mirror over the handwash sink, half-heartedly pretending she wasn't well aware of the huge love-bite at the base of her throat. "Huh. So I do." She shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance and went back to her coffee.
"So that's why you're so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning," Misato said half to herself, hunting for a clean mug. "Dare I ask who the lucky... individual is?"
Before she could answer, Ritsuko's gaze was drawn towards the door and her smile cranked up a few notches. Misato turned to see Maya stroll in with a huge smile. "Morning, sempai," she said casually, crossing the room and giving Ritsuko a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Well, that answers that... question... oh my Lord is that a collar?"

It was. The collar was crushed velvet, in a deep burgundy that went well with her complexion, with her name picked out in rhinestones... No, not rhinestones; Misato was no jewellery expert but those looked like real diamonds to her. And the buckle, fitting and... hoo boy... the little bell at her throat looked as if they might actually be real silver.

Maya pondered how best to summarise that "totally platonic" drink they'd shared three months ago, and then the long and serious talk that had followed (the gist of which was: "torrid lesbian rebound fling" < "girlfriend"), and the series of steadily less and less platonic meet-ups for coffee or a movie or karaoke and then the totally un-platonic nights of blissful togetherness and experimentation and discovery... After a long moment, she went with, "Sempai noticed me, nyaa!"

Misato suddenly wished she hadn't promised Shinji she'd stop drinking beer with her breakfast.