Once More with Feeling Chapter 14: Both of you dance like you want to win 1, an evangelion fanfic

First, housekeeping.

This fanfic as I sort of said in the little disclaimer at the front, was partially an experiment, partially a fun fic, so I hadn't really been doing anything like as much editing and proof reading as I should have. I've always been a little lazy at it, but reading over some of the earlier chapters again, i can't help but wince every few lines. A lot of the errors are upload filters screwing things over, but a lot are not and it rather stands out for me now that I actually looked.

So I've chained Academia Nut to a table and engaged his services as a Beta writer, so I'm hoping you'll see a noticeable improvement away from all the little errors that pop up every few lines from now on. My thanks for his valuable time, extreme patience and suggestions that, I hope, make this a more enjoyable experience.

Now, new business.

This is WAFF territory here. Be warned ye that enter here. I think I might have somewhat overcompensated for the rather...heavy tone of the last chapter of my little trilogy, so I apologize if I've gone a little far, or rushed things a little too much -I think some fellow EVA writers are a bad influence, given how far THEY have moved along the Eva timeline while I'm still not that far from Asuka arriving, even if they started after me :(

This chapter in fact got so big I decided to split it into two sections, though they are really one big chapter. I've decided to give it a day or two between chapters rather then spamming everyone with close to 50,000 words at once (bloody hell, there are complete Eva fics of a solid quality that are 50,000 words on their own!) and destroying everyones minds. The next chapter should be up in a few days, after Academia finishes fixing the horrors I can see through it.

I've had some interesting comments from 'Rei fans' wondering when I'm going to get back to focusing on her. The answer is you'll see Rei intense chapters when Rei intense chapters are appropriate. Most of the first chapters for clear reasons were VERY heavy on Rei, while recently its been more -not totally- about Asuka. Its just the way things flow back and forth. Shinji is still very much the protagonist of this fanfic, so the other characters sort of come and go when needed.

On another note, I've managed to finally watch 'Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0' shorter after finishing the last chapters. WOW, I mean WOW. There are of course a few things I don't like, a few things that made me blink, but the effort and care that was put into 'rebuilding' this, was just amazing. And the DETAIL of the CGI, I mean even just the fire control computer when Shinji is lining up on Ramiel on his HUD...awesome, just AWESOME. I'm really waiting for the Australian DVD release and crossing my fingers that we'll see the original English dub cast come back for it as well. Cause Tiffiny Grant is just amazing as Asuka, she brought that character to life for me.

While generally I post on a couple of message boards and you can find any comments I might post there, to keep people informed and after a bit of nagging from some people, I'm going to probably start to use my author profile page to post short messages -dated- if I need to write something to da fans and let them know whats going on.

And on a small note, I'm gotten no end of messages telling me that the school classroom is NOT classroom 3-F. Thats mostly because when I wrote that first chapter, I was too lazy to pull out my Evangelion DVD's and look for the right classroom number, so feel free to pretend I've really written the correct classroom, I think its 2-D or something.

Well. I think thats about it...all thats left to say is enjoy. And if you find this too WAFFy, don't worry. The chapters after the dance are over will be filled with much in the way of giant robots and giant aliens slugging it out! And of course everything going to utter hell in a handbasket at some point in the next few chapters after that. But hey, its Evangelion...

EDIT

Sorry for the double posting of this chapter, damn import filters...

'Both of you dance, like you want to win'. Part I

Asuka Langley Soryu was shopping.

All things being equal, this would generally lead to a relatively happy Second Child. She had plenty of cash, she was getting an acceptably high number of interested looks from the boys in the area -which she then ignored- and she was shopping in the company of two of her friends.

But today all things were not equal.

She was behind the curve.

Asuka Langley Soryu hated being behind anything. It was just under two weeks till the so called Dance and she didn't have an exact idea what she was going to wear.

Problem the first; she couldn't wear anything that someone else was going to wear, that was a cardinal sin for a women. Hence the presence of the class rep who, besides being her best friend, as a matter of course knew everything there was to know about what people were wearing across the year. In ordinary times, Asuka would have done her own 'recon', but the synchronization training with Shinji and Rei had kept her away from school for so long that she simply didn't have the time, instead relying on Hikari to keep her safe.

Problem the second then reared its head; she couldn't just wear something unique, it had to be something bold,daring and brilliant. From what Hikari had told her, the year was more or less evenly divided between a traditional Japanese Kimono or Kimono inspired evening gown on one hand, or a more western look for the other half. The good news was that by in large, almost all the girls who had chosen a more western look were highly conservative Japanese girls who went for simple and rather plain designs compared to what she was looking for, which meant she didn't have to push too close to that thin line between 'slut' and 'superstar' to make a huge impact.

She wanted to be the center of attention for the right reasons after all, not the wrong reasons.

And problem the third, Rei was with them, needing her own dress.

The trio had been shopping for over two hours with only a quick drinks break to halt their momentum. Rei had surprisingly been the easiest to buy for, she had calmly walked into the second store the three had looked in, ignored everything on display and almost as if she had some kind of sixth sense to select a silvery white dress with light blue highlights that had been sitting at the back of the store. Asuka hadn't been entirely sure of the choice, but Rei had clearly fallen in love with it at first sight. Rei was a strange one for sure…but when she walked out of the change room with a surprisingly self conscious expression on her face…

She looked gorgeous. And damm her for it, she would have to work twice as hard now to ensure Rei didn't steal her thunder.

The dress was strapless and hugged her figure almost like a second skin in places, loosely billowing out ever so slightly from her knees where it was slit to show off a small tease of her legs, Asuka making a mental note to double check Rei's new, but limited shoe selection to make sure she had appropriate heels to go with the outfit…

"Perfect" Asuka managed to smile, actually feeling –grudgingly- impressed with Rei and the surprisingly elegant look she was pulling off, finding that she actually felt happy for the odd First Child, who had had far too little happiness in her life to this date.

Typically, it had taken her to set things right, not even the invincible Shinji had known about her situation, let alone done anything about it.

It had all started so oddly, with Asuka deciding that Rei should be her friend -for conveniences sake if nothing else- with a vague eye to teaming up the two female Eva pilots against Shinji at some point in the future. Rei had surprisingly agreed, although there hadn't been any more time to explore this 'friendship' before she and Shinji had been deployed against the 7th Angel.

It was probably just as well that Rei had stayed behind and avoided running afoul of her rather dark mood on the trip back, her humiliation fueling a storm of anger that Shinji had defused by quietly saying that when they worked together, they did great things. His quiet and sincere admission had shocked her, but it had succeeded in changing her mood around enough to not take it out on Rei, fortune smiling on them as Rei, in that utterly honest and clinical way, had commented that her tactics had been utterly appropriate based on the previous Angel patterns, followed by the agreement among the pilots that each of them had screwed up in battle more then once.

The expression of her feelings might have been a little crude…but the sentiment behind them was so honest it had actually struck deep into Asuka and quietly changed her initial 'freakazoid' thoughts of the First Child, a change of attitude compounded when she had later seen the conditions Rei lived in.

It had however slid slightly backwards when she had found out about the school dance from Rei, the First Child not having bothered to inform her about it in the days they had known each other. Hikari too for that matter, but she had been able to –eventually- forgive them.

Shinji she had only –just- forgiven, he lived with her and he had plenty of chances to tell her. Even if he had decided not to go.

At least until she had hinted she might take him and he had jumped at the chance. Predictable; he turned down –preemptively- every other Girl in the year, even setting Rei up with one of the stooges, but the second she was on the scene, bang, he was begging at her feet to accompany…

Ah hell…

She couldn't lie that much to herself.

She had volunteered him. When you really got down to it, she had asked him out.

In the end though, the simple fact was that he had rejected everyone but her preemptively, without a thought. Then, when she had put herself in the running, he had been hers without hesitation. The boy no-one else could get...and damm it to hell, the only guy she knew over here she actually trusted to take her to the dance.

So.

She had an acceptable partner. She had the looks. She had the well established social status…all in all, while she was slightly behind the curve she was well on her way to getting back in front. She was even now shopping for a dress to wear that would utterly destroy every other girl in her year. She had the money to get the aforementioned dress, 'spies' to inform her on the current strategic situation across the year and she even had a date…a date?

It's just a convenient term, nothing more or less she thought asthe 'D' word again flashed across her mind, walking into the 12th store of the day. This chain according to Hikari was a European importer, which actually gave her some hope; she had not exactly been impressed by the local offerings.

Well with the exception of the dress Rei had snatched before she could, damm her.

Hikari however, was starting to look a little tired and Asuka mentally decided that if they couldn't find anything in this store, she would call it a day and come back alone. Honestly, Japanese fashion this season was nothing but the same damm boring cut in different colors again and again and-

Hold that thought.

She slowly walked to a display at the rear of the store, where a lower light level created a much more…sensual mood; approaching a mannequin dressed in a shimmering scarlet evening dress of the exact same tone as her Unit Two that caught her attention like an AT field drew Angels, to the slight alarm of the ultra conservative Class Rep behind her.

"Uh…Asuka…isn't that a little…adult?" Hikari asked as she followed her deeper into the store, suddenly looking like she was carefully picking her way through a minefield from the hesitant way she walked…

"No, it's a lot adult" she replied without taking her gaze off the dress as she slowly walked around the mannequin, her eyes missing nothing as her hopes steadily rose.

"Can I help you?" a polite sales assistant asked, moving up towards them and clearly noting the boxes Rei was carrying from a competitor, correctly guessing it meant these girls were actually shopping today and not just looking.

"This dress" Asuka said slowly, still not taking her eyes of it. "Does it come in any other sizes?"

"It comes in all sizes" he assured her. "It just hit the store yesterday; technically it's not in this month's catalogue, it was supposed to be a release for next month in fact, three weeks from now."

Asuka smiled…and Hikari and Rei both shivered slightly at the sight.

Step-twirl, step, step, pause, pivot step and down, left foot, right foot, jump and-

"Yes!" Asuka cried, punching her fist in the air as the final sequence was performed flawlessly, a 100 readout blinking next to the dance mat as Shinji took a deep breath and pulled his headphones off, walking behind her to stretch his muscles slightly.

"Well I'm impressed" Misato said from the table across from them, as Toji, Kensuke, Hikari and even Pen-Pen broke into applause. They had finally done it, both able to anticipate the others moves to the music so perfectly that they could improvise, perfectly 'harmonious' moves while keeping in time with the music and each other, without needing the have the pads illuminated.

Asuka still thought the whole thing was a waste of time compared to the real combat training. But it didn't stop her from striving to be the best of course. And now, she had done it.

"As well you should be Misato" Asuka smirked as she ripped off her own headset with a flourish. "It's not easy synchronizing to a slower, less efficient pilot like the Baka here" she pointed out, placing her hands on her hips and raising her chin, proudly, looking down at an amused Misato, before calmly lecturing her in the most superior tone she had.

"Of course as Shinji has proven, with enough training and encouragement even the most inept pilot can be trained to follow my superior example, irrespective of their complete lack of hand/eye coordination. But with my example to follow, we did it in only a fraction of the…"

Asuka let her voice trail off as she belatedly realized that the two stooges were desperately trying not to laugh at her, Hikari was looking both shocked and amused at the same time and Misato was going red from the effort expanded to hold back her own explosion of laughter with her hands in front her mouth.

What on Earth she wondered…then a glimpse of motion caught her eye behind her audience, in the reflective surface of a glass cabinet

Shinji was standing directly behind her.

She had a sudden suspicion and decided to test a theory, brushing her hair back, as she kept talking about her superior skills, the motion duplicated in an exaggerated fashion by Shinji as he mimed her movements and talk.

She stopped and smiled.

"Shinji?"

Her 'audience' dropped their laughter in an instant.

"Uh…yes Asuka?"

"I can see you in the reflection of the glass behind them, you know".

There was a moment of silence. A terrible pause in the universe itself as the meaning of the statement permeated everyone's brains.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to day to say farewell to our good friend, Shinji Ikari," Toji muttered as Asuka slowly turned around to face an at-first sheepish, then rather nervous looking Shinji.

With her back turned to everyone else in the house, Asuka actually favored him with a rare real smile. It was a funny joke after all; she might well have done the same if he was getting too full of himself.

Not that it meant he didn't get retribution for it of course.

"I hear you and the stooges have said that playing with me is like playing with fire, Ikari" Asuka said to him as she closed, in a terrifyingly level and polite voice that would have had Shinji running…if not for the fact that he was trapped against the living room wall, with the only exit behind Asuka.

He also knew that protesting would do little good…but as he had little to loose anyway…

"I never said that," he retorted in a smooth, steady voice.

Well he tried to retort in a smooth steady voice. It came out as more of squeaking nervous tone. But to his credit, he did manage to resist the urge to step away from her as she closed.

Asuka just broadened her smile at his defiance.

"Really? Then perhaps you should listen to them more often," she suggested as she stopped bare centimeters away, Shinji trying not to shake at the presence she projected like a blazing bonfire…or focus too much on the way the way the sweat glistened on her skin, across the top of her breasts, visible in the low cut tank top she was wearing. A situation made worse as her chest heaved, Asuka still clearly recovering from her physical exertion on the dance mat...

He realized he had probably focusing a little too much on her perfect body and not where her limbs were about the time he felt her foot hook under his, then sweep forward, sending him sprawling with a yelp to the dance floor on his face as Asuka pounced, her body straddling snug against his in a way that he wouldn't dare to dream about-

"Feel the burn" she whispered in his ear…then his head exploded in fire as she proceeded to noogie him with an expert, aggressive, technique that Shinji had never had turned against him until this moment.

"AHHH! I didn't mean it!" he screamed in protest, Asuka just laughing at his efforts to break free, having expertly locked him in place with an iron grip, her body flush on top of his, trapping him in a curious world of pleasure and pain as his head fried and her ample chest pressed into him…

Pleasure with pain.

That was the truth of living with Asuka Langley Soryu.

Man, she must have a lot of rage left over from after I beat up on her in the simulator today he thought, stretching the truth only slightly in his mind as it burned.

"Mean what?" she asked in an all too innocent and casual tone in reply to his screams, trying to ignore the treacherous excitement she felt as she struggled to hold Shinji down, the taller Third actually putting up rather impressive resistance even as he begged for mercy…

I am NOT enjoying this in THAT way dammit! Asuka shouted mentally to clear her mind, hanging on as Shinji started to really try to throw her off.

"Shouldn't we be trying to break them up?" Kensuke asked in confusion as utterly no-one moved to help the Third Child, who was half screaming for mercy, half promising death to all redheads in the room, not three meters away.

"Nah, they'll work it out of their systems pretty quickly" Misato shrugged, looking down in annoyance at her empty can of apple juice and starting hunting for another as Asuka whopped, thumping Shinji's head into the floor. "Shinji's fine".

"Yeah, I don't get it" Toji said, in a voice loud enough to reach across the room. "Is she trying to kill him, or make out with him? I can't tell," he asked Hikari in a confused tone, causing his de-facto Girlfriend to giggle in a way she never would have a month ago, Misato also chuckling as Kensuke tried not to grin.

Asuka, several meters away froze at the statement, mostly because she had quietly started to ask herself the same question, as she realized she was actually finding this activity quite enjoyable, in a way quite different from simply beating up on the Third Child should make her feel.

Unable to answer the question however, she did the next best thing and released her right arm from its noogie duties long enough to scoop up Shinji's abandoned headphones and send them flying at Toji who, anticipating such a move, neatly batted them aside. Her two second move however was more then enough of a window for Shinji, who used his suddenly free arm to push off the floor, shift his legs around hers and in a tumble of motion; suddenly it was Asuka who was pinned under him with a surprised yelp, her wrists held above her head, his legs across hers, the front of his body pressing into the front of hers…

Time froze.

Shinji swallowed as he saw her deep sapphire eyes focus in on him, in surprise at the sudden reversal…

Their noses only millimeters apart…

Their panting breath on each others faces…

His mouth so close to hers he unconsciously flashed back to that 'almost' kiss, on this very floor, so long ago-

Asuka felt the wind slightly knocked out of her as she crashed onto her back, cursing her impulsive attack at Toji and the opening he had no doubt planed on it creating for Shinji, while at the same time strangely pleased that Shinji hadn't hesitated to use it.

He must have a lot of rage left over after I kicked his ass in the simulations today she thought, only slightly distorting the truth.

Still, it was quite the reversal to find herself suddenly on her back, her arms pinned above her and his weight crushing into her…his nose only millimeters from hers, his mouth only centimeters away…as she realized that Shinji could, right now, do anything he wanted to her and in her current state, she couldn't stop him!

No-one had ever had her in such a position.

All he would have to do would be to lean down ever so slightly…

Could he…would he…will he?

No. He won't…the Baka would NEVER dare –and she ignored the disappointed sigh she felt in the back of her mind at that conclusion- but just in case-

Asuka's wrists twisted impossibly up-and-over his and broke his grip effortlessly, allowing her hands to fly up and strike his shoulders with surprising strength, sending him flying backwards off her. Then in an utterly confusing blur of limbs and body, Shinji found himself again face down on the cheap plastic of the dance matt, this time with his right arm held behind his back at an angle a humans shoulders had not quite evolved to naturally be held at.

Damm.

He really should have risked kissing her, then running like hell for the door. Sure she might have hurt him greatly, but as it appeared she was about to do that anyway…

"Would you like to try that again, Baka?" she whispered in his left ear, her hair dangling down past his face and veiling them off from the world, trapped with Asuka and no-one else…

He could think of worse ways to die.

"Yes," he gasped out honestly; suddenly morbidly curious about what her reaction would be…

There was a moment of stunned silence as she actually stopped breathing, providing just enough time for Shinji to brace for the pain that was no doubt about to be delivered as her grip tightened-

"Alright, you can let him go Asuka, I think you've made your point," Misato's voice came from somewhere behind him, calling an end to the nights entertainment.

Shinji felt his housemate hesitate, but finally relax her grip as she returned his shoulder joint to a more normal configuration. Then to his surprise, she leaned in even closer to his ear and whispered a rather ambiguous "Too bad," before she got to her feet, leaving Shinji lying rather pathetically on the floor as she happily strutted back to the table, ignoring the slightly reproachful look from her guardian as Misato walked over to help the Third Child up.

As a women 'of the world' so to speak, Misato had noticed the hesitation and, dare she say it, even anticipation in both of her charges for the few seconds they had been literally face to face on the floor.

Annoyingly, she realized she had not really thought through the logical conclusion of having two unrelated teenagers –both going through puberty- living under the same roof when she had impulsively taken Shinji, then Asuka in. And she was not so blind as to miss the sexual tension that had been building with the two 'eating, breathing and sleeping' together in their training.

She would have to give them 'The Talk' sooner then anticipated. Assuming they didn't kill each other in the meantime of course.

"Shinji, you have nerves of steel," she smiled as she reached the slowly recovering Third Child and helped him back to his feet, "but your joints are made of cartilage. Remember that please; I'd rather not have Asuka beating up on you becoming habit forming…not that she wasn't slightly out of line there" Misato's voice became somewhat more serious, even if she was still striving for a light tone as Shinji made his way back to the table and crashed into a seat as far away from her as possible.

"Oh Misato, that was just a game" Asuka smirked at Shinji. "No blood, no report and all that" she tried to dismiss everything with an airy, dismissive tone that hid the very real feelings of apprehension she was starting to feel at Misato's not exactly pleased look, realizing she might have taken things a tad too far, for Shinji just lightly teasing her…

"If that's her idea of fun play, I'm starting to understand why the Third Branch was so glad to get rid of her," Kensuke put in, in a sotto voice.

"Oh that's nothing" Shinji smirked slightly, saluting Asuka with his can of apple juice before she could cut back with a snappy retort. "Remind me to tell you the story of both of us in the playpen at two years old some day; this is just old school stuff for us".

Asuka's blinked, then her brittle smirk softened, becoming much more genuine as she recognized that Shinji was subtly making the equivalent of a 'no hard feelings' gesture at her rather…aggressive response to his teasing, in a way Misato in her rather disapproving mood could pick up on.

But the electronic chime of the apartment's doorbell, causing everyone to blink, and then turn to stare at Misato in confusion, threw off any further thoughts on the subject. Everyone who should be here was here after all…

"Oh, that must be Rei," Misato said, fiddling with her juice can's ring-pull. "I asked her to pop over for a while. Asuka, be a dear and get the door?"

"Oh fine" Asuka sighed, getting back to her feet and heading for the door. As soon as she was out of sight, Misato turned back to Shinji.

"Are you okay Shinji?" she asked, now with some real concern in her face. "She was a little out of line there".

"I'm fine, Misato-san, really" Shinji smiled at her concern, as he recalled Kaji's advice; that this whole deal was the Asuka equivalent of a playful slap on the back of the head, or blowing a raspberry in his direction. Asuka played rough, but it was still play…after a fashion.

If she had really wanted to hurt him, he would probably be coughing up blood and screaming for morphine about now. But that hesitation, the surprise and…what, he had felt from her, when he had managed to get on top of her…

So much of her was still such a mystery to him, despite everything…

"Oh Hikari, do you want another drink?" Toji fumbled his way into the conversation, as he noticed her drink was empty.

Hikari blinked as she noticed the same, and then glanced at Pen-Pen, who offered her an unapologetic 'Wark!' then clambered out of her lap leaving a suspiciously empty can of apple juice behind as he headed for his fridge.

"Yes, thank you Toji," she smiled back at her de-facto boyfriend, who almost unconsciously returned her smile, while Kensuke made a choking face across the table that Misato managed not to snicker at.

It was almost crazy how much time Toji and Hikari were starting to spend with each other now. Kensuke's faces were mostly an honest expression of his frustration with the whole situation. As Shinji had been told by his friend in more then one rant over the phone, Kensuke had become little more then a bulwark during lunch hours for the 'far too happy couple' to avoid the scandal of sitting alone while Shinji, Rei and Asuka were away on NERV business, meaning he was dragged along as they chatted and laughed, but more or less ignored the whole time.

His friend was almost at his wits end, but apparently had taken heart from the fact that the three pilots would be back at school tomorrow, Shinji's Father apparently satisfied enough with their progress to let them get back to their 'normal' lives with just 'after school' sessions scheduled now.

"Hey, Rei's here!" Asuka cheerfully broke into his thoughts with a high decibel level announcement that was completely unnecessary, as the Second Child led the First into the room.

"Hello," Rei confirmed her presence, albeit in a softer and less explosive voice, an increasingly common –if still very slight- smile on her face as she looked across everyone present, as always her deep eyes lingering on him, that strange, almost telepathic connection he shared with her pulsing for a second as they stared at each other, before her gaze traced across to Kensuke, as Toji returned.

"Hello Kensuke," she said, with a slightly broader smile, Rei looking graceful and gorgeous in a fashionable light blue dress that hung loosely to halfway down her shins, her hair as always now a work of art that reduced Kensuke to mostly single syllable words.

"Hi Rei," was his first effort as he smiled hopelessly back at Rei, as she moved to sit next to him, his attention locked on the flawless Ayanami who returned his smile gently…as Toji, off to the side made a gagging gesture identical to that Kensuke had made at him, that caused Asuka to actually smirk in approval for once at him, both the Second and 'Forth' sitting on either side of the class Rep.

"Well, now that we're all here, I have some news," Misato called to 'meeting' to order, her 'Captains' voice suddenly coming to the foreground. "First, I've talked to all of your parents," Misato started, getting a surprised look from the visitors. "They've agreed that the logistics of getting everyone to the dance will be simplified greatly if everyone meets up here, gets picked up and driven to the dance, then returned here afterwards, getting picked up again."

"There is no way the three of us can get ready with all of these guys hanging around" Asuka lodged her protest at once.

"Which is why you three girls will get ready across at Rei's" Misato calmly replied. "The boys will head over here and get ready, and then we'll get together and head to the Dance."

"We can't all fit in your car," Asuka pointed out the next problem on her list.

"Which is why we're taking a Limo" Misato grinned, getting a surprised series of gasps and smiles from the children around her.

Even Rei smiled slightly at the news and if that wasn't a major accomplishment, then someone was setting their standards way too high.

"Now because this dance has all three pilots attending, Commander Ikari has stipulated certain conditions and precautions" Misato continued. "There will be a Section Two detail at the venue and you'll have to leave by ten, the Commander doesn't want you all sleep deprived if an Angel attacks the next morning."

"Let's just hope one doesn't attack in the middle of the dance" Asuka sniffed under her breath, her eyes suddenly becoming dangerous at the thought. "If it does, it's so going to pay for it."

Shinji's mind at once flashed to the image of Asuka, alone in the street, fighting with her bare hands against Zeruel, Bardiel and Armisael simultaneously; in a rage at them for daring to interrupt her dance…
And winning.

"Oh, in that case," Misato expanded on Asuka's promise of extreme retribution for Shinji and Rei's benefit, "there is a Geofront access building two hundred meters North with an elevator link down to a car that will be waiting for us, just in case."

"Well…I guess you covered everything" Asuka shrugged.

"Well…not quite" Misato said, suddenly looking a little sheepish. "You might recall how the school was looking for a half dozen parents to volunteer to chaperone the dance? As helpers and to make sure nothing…inappropriate went on?"

Asuka's eyes narrowed and Shinji blinked as he finally realized why Misato had been using the inclusive group pronouns 'we're' and 'we'll'.

"Go on".

"And the Commander was going to have to pay overtime to each of the Section 2 agents…and as I am technically the guardian to two of the pilots…and the school wanted several 'parents' to watch over things-"

"You," Asuka said incredulous expression on her face.

"Ja. Me" Misato said with a not very apologetic shrug.

"Oh come on Asuka, its not that bad," Shinji defended Misato, getting a mummer of agreement from everyone else around the table and a distant 'Wark!' from a nearby avian. "Think about it this way; you can be sure I won't put any moves on you with Misato on overwatch".

That statement, Shinji knew, could be taken two ways. Either that he would be too busy putting the moves on Misato to bother with her, or, that he wouldn't try to make a move on the amazing Asuka, under the threat of sanction and punishment from the NERV Captain.

Asuka noted the ambiguity with an internal frown, but smoothly stepped up to the plate so everyone 'knew' what Shinji had meant.

"You think I'm worried about handling you? Your short term memory appears to be faulty, Third Child" she sighed, cracking her knuckles ominously with a growing smile on her face. "But if you need another twirl on the dance matt…"

"Ah yes, the Tango-el-Asuka" Toji rolled his eyes. "Step, step, duck, knife thrust-"

Hikari poked him hard in the side and he yelped, falling back away at her irritated look.

"That's enough Suzuhara" she warned him.

"Sorry" he apologized contritely, earning a smile from the class Rep.

"It's okay, just stay out of Shinji and Asuka's marital disputes," she extorted him, causing Toji, Kensuke and Misato to burst out laughing and Shinji to work his jaw several times, not daring to speak as Asuka's betrayed expression at her friend turned from shocked, to sly.

"Thanks for the advice. I'm guess you two are becoming increasingly experienced in playing the married couple, I mean what I heard happened behind the school gym-"

"Asuka!" Hikari hissed in embarrassment, her face flushing furiously as Misato, Rei, Kensuke and Shinji suddenly perked up in interest.

Asuka actually had it on good advice they had done nothing more then kiss, but Hikari flushed as if Asuka had accused her of filming hardcore pornography videos, her conservative nature once again coming to the front.

"Toji, you sly devil" Kensuke smirked across the table. "So that's where you vanished to when-"

"What precisely would they be doing behind the Gym, Asuka?" Rei asked in an all too innocent tone, with a perfectly curious expression on her face…

"Well um…you know…stuff" Asuka lamely replied, suddenly flushing asRei put her on the spot, to a general snickering.

"Stuff…" Rei echoed as Shinji took a sip of his apple juice, Rei turning to face Kensuke. "Should we also partake in this…stuff?"

Apple juice shot from Shinji's nose.

"Is something wrong, Ikari?" Rei asked, glancing across at him with that all too innocent tone as Shinji started coughing furiously, Toji and Hikari stared at her in amazement, Asuka's jaw just dropped and Kensuke looked like he was about to faint…

"No…" he coughed, working to clear his throat and stop coughing as two parts of his mind simultaneously tried to laugh and swallow.

"Let me go and get you a towel," Misato put in, the Captain getting up and walking out of the room, at which point gales of laughter came back from the hallway, along with the 'thump' of Misato sliding down the wall onto the floor, desperately gasping for air as she wondered how the hell she had ever survived without these kids in her life…

The Diet building in Tokyo-2, smelled new, Shigeru Ishiba decided.

He hated it.

The old Diet building had been over sixty years old when Second Impact had hit, having come through the Second World War without being vaporized by Curtis LeMay, then amazingly, it had been in the part of Old Tokyo not to be flooded after the South Pole vanished.

Six months later however it along with what little of the once glorious city that remained above the waterline was vaporized by a rogue nuclear device from Chinese Islamic dissidents, in retaliation for the JSSDF involvement in China.

When the Diet had reconvened in Matsumoto -soon renamed Tokyo-2- the Federal Government had taken over a half dozen prefecture Government buildings until a brand new, dedicated building could be built. Two years ago, with the frantic pace of post Second Impact reconstruction slowing enough that the Government could put tenders out -without massive protests over building for itself while others went waiting, they had finally done it. It was a triumph –apparently- of modern architecture, a glittering series of steel and glass buildings sitting in the middle of the city, surrounded by reflecting ponds and Japanese gardens…

But it just couldn't replace the original, in Ishiba's mind. Too much history was being lost in the frantic expansion and rebuilding of Japans surviving cities, with ancient neighborhoods leveled and mass produced apartments thrown up.

On the other hand, he could admit it was not as if they had much of a choice either. In the final analysis, providing somewhere for millions of people to live after countless coastal communities had been flooded was the highest priority, safeguarding ancient neighborhoods less so. And Tokyo-2's birth hadn't transformed Matsumoto in quite the same extreme way Tokyo-3 had bulldozed Hakone.

Still. It was hardly as if everything new was bad of course, far from it. Take for instance Subbasement Level-Six inside the new glittering building…

The 'Dark Room' sat on the lowest level of the new complex, designed systematically from the ground up by the best engineers and technicians in Japan to be utterly isolated from the outside world. No bug could get in, nor transmit out. No electronic emissions could be detected outside, the only data line was a single fiber optic cable up to the Diet's own network, on the good side of a dedicated 7th Generation computer it would take something like a MAGI system to brute force a hack into…and could be stopped by the simple expedient of pulling the network cable. Even so, most critical information was stored on stand-alone servers without even that level of network connection, then deleted after briefings or presentations were finished.

And suffice to say, there were no man sized air vents for intruders to rappel down.

Ishiba exited the secured elevator on the sublevel and exited into the brightly lit hallway, the fact that he was a minute late for a briefing he had called not helping his current mood. The walls were a smooth teak and the floor polished black marble like the rest of the Diet, but the hallway itself was rather featureless compared to offices upstairs. No doors lined its walls; no windows looked out across Tokyo-2…

There was just the steel door and guard station at the end of the hallway which he reached in a brisk not quite run, balancing his dignity against the need for haste as he unclipped his photo-ID 'smart' badge, thrusting it through the tiny slot in the guard booth to the unsmiling guard inside, then placed his hand on the high resolution hand scanner.

The scanner flashed white, and then green as it compared his palm-print to the record on file for Major General Shigeru Ishiba, the guard then slotting his badge into a reader, causing the keypad next to the scanner to go active. Ishiba forced himself to slowly and correctly enter his eight digit code, which also flashed green as the computer double checked the ID embedded in the badge against the month's access codes in the database.

Now with both the computers and human guard convinced hewas who he claimed to be, the guard bowed, handed back the badge and opened the door for him, Ishiba stepping through into the antechamber outside the 'Dark Room' proper, reattaching his badge as it shut. There was a delay of a few seconds as the electronic countermeasure seal was re-established and checked before finally, a second door opened and allowed him access to the most secure location in the Japanese Government.

The 'Dark Room' was actually a complex of many rooms under the Diet, though 90 percent of the people to come down to this level, only ever visited one room in particular. He hurried past the lounge / reception area outside the primary entrance and turned left, along a short passage filled with complete, but empty offices, there to be used by the Prime Minister and his staff as a secure working location during an emergency situation, turning up another passage past a pair of fully armed JSSDF soldiers –thankfully in the black of the 1st division rather then the purple of the 3rd- whose salutes he returned as he entered the conference room.

It was an oval shaped, low ceiling room. A dozen communications and computer consoles sat around the perimeter, usually manned by very senior –and fanatically loyal- interior ministry staffers, who were screened by counterintelligence officers on a bi-weekly basis.

The fact that they were not here for this meeting really said a great deal of how serious it was.

A massive circular oak table set precisely in the center of the room with ten seats around it. Nine of them were already filled and he hurried to the remaining empty place, stopping behind it to bow deeply from the waist at the head of the table.

"Susimasen, Kyuma-San. I apologize for my delay".

Prime Minister Fumio Kyuma bowed back from his seated position, though it would be more accurate to describe the action as an abbreviated nod, raising a hand with minimal effort to gesture at Ishiba's seat, next to the Minister of the Interior.

Obediently, and rapidly, he sat.

"Shikata ga-nai, General" the Prime Minister replied, stating that his tardiness was of no consequence. "Please, begin when you're ready."

Shigeru nodded as he took a few seconds to gather his thoughts. The PM and the Interior Minister had both been briefed yesterday, five days after Shinji's debriefing had taken place –in this very room in fact- with choice highlights from Shinji's video played for both of them.

To say the PM was enraged would have been a gross disservice to the look of molten rage in his eyes, even as he commendably kept his face stony, stoically listening to Shinji's near mental breakdown as he relayed the slaughter that had taken place as the Third JSSDF Division breached Central Dogma.

It was bad enough that SEELE had apparently tricked him into unleashing the dogs of war onto so many innocents, Japanese citizens almost to a person whom he had sworn an oath on his ancestors to serve and protect. That SEELE had done so as a necessary precursor to starting their own private Third Impact, was just beyond any easy ability to get ones head around, the PM sitting for a good ten minutes without saying a sound after the video had ended.

After he had calmed down however, Kyuma –a former district court judge- had pointed out the major problem with Shinji's evidence. Although accepting Shigeru's word that it could be taken as the truth, it was a far cry from something legal enough to put in court.

After all, technically most if it hadn't actually happened.

Yet.

Of course, there was always the 'dirty' solution of having Ikari –the elder one- and as many of SEELE as they could get their hands on taken out. SEELE was powerful, but their cloak of secrecy was their protection. Once removed, they were far from bulletproof and the Prime Minister had commented that despite his long service to the rule of law, he was everso tempted to order the Third Division to send some of its Special Operations people after SEELE, in an attempt somehow to balance the grand universal scales.

But ultimately, all three men agreed that more critical then just stopping SEELE, was tearing down their veil of secrecy and exposing them. The 20th Centuries greatest villains were gifted amateurs next to Keel and his merry men. Hitler, Stalin, Mao; they might have been responsible for one, two hundred million lives, tops, on all sides of their various wars, purges and other activities.

Collectively.

In contrast with the three thousand million lives SEELE took in the Second Impact however, they looked rather pathetic. Let alone the fact that they were looking to take down the other half of humanity in aThird Impact, deciding the fate of billions of people on their own whims.

No. They had to answer for their crimes. Even if they were all shot at the end of their trials, history needed to record this. To that end, the PM had given the green light for a half dozen operations JDA-Intel had furiously worked up or extended from existing plans, all based off Shinji's testimony. With what they had learned from Agent Balcony, they now knew whereto look for the proof they needed.

It was just a matter of going out and collecting it. And then…oh yes, and then the fun would begin.

But for the present however… Shigeru reached to a series of controls in front of his seat, inserted a flash drive and quickly tapped a series of buttons.

Hung from the low ceiling at six points equally around the table, six plasma displays activated with bright red 'CLASIFIED' warnings, as Shigeru marshaled his thoughts. The Generals and Ministers around the table would not be told the wholetruth; they didn't have a need to know. But as they would be critical in the contingency planning against either Ikari or Lorenz trying to end the world, it was time to start filling them in. To a point.

"All of the people in this room are aware of the existence of NERV and their role as the UN's frontline agency for dealing with the threat of the Angels," he started, cutting right to the point. "I also suspect that all of you are aware that the JDA -for close to a decade now- has been running a series of investigations into NERV and its predecessor agency GEHIRN, to determine if they had any hidden motives or agendas. The investigation was scaled down dramatically last year, after it concluded that NERV was dedicated to the anti-Angel Evangelion project with no discernable motives beyond that, wild stories of a secret controlling branch known as SEELE having no basis in verifiable fact".

He paused to take a sip from a glass of icy cold water, letting the people around the table share uneasy looks at each other, all of them sensing the Evangelion sized shoe that was about to drop…

"As of this moment, every person in this room has been given codeword level clearance for a compartment known as 'Wallpaper', excepting the Prime Minister and Interior Minister, who have both been in this compartment for over a year now. 'Wallpaper's' goal has been a second tier systematic investigation into NERV and its very real secret controlling organization known as SEELE, while JDA-Intel maintained the 'public' fiction of our other investigations to keep it hidden from view. This unprecedented level of secrecy and security was a necessary precaution, after it was discovered that SEELE had compromised JDA-Intel completely, from the former Director on down, including key personnel in the NERV Investigation unit".

There was an excited and rather alarmed buzz from the people around the table at that bombshell, before a quiet tap of the Prime Minister's pen against the desk quickly restored order.

"Continue, General," he ordered softly.

"All the people at this table have been triple screened for any possible connections to NERV or SEELE and have been cleared, as have their immediate family members. All information at this briefing is classified Special Access - Eyes Only. Any leak of this information will be considered High Treason, punishable by life imprisonment or execution"

That statement stopped all fidgeting in the room cold.

"Yesterday, I briefed the Prime Minister on the outcomes of a breakthrough in our investigation unit from a new source, codenamed 'Balcony', graded as level Alpha-Two". Tapping a button in front of him the plasma displays flickered, switching from the classification warning as the lights dimmed, to the unsmiling, visored face of Keel Lorenz.

"Baka, where the hell is my lunch?"

The demanding sharp voice slammed into Shinji at point blank range as he carefully stacked his books inside his locker, causing his arm to jump as if he had touched a live power cable, the entire neat row of books at once crashing down into a mess around his feet, a pathetic counterpoint of knickknacks slowly falling one after the other to join the mess, as two dozen students around him in the locker room broke out into applause and cheers at him.

He sighed, but managed a wry smile as he mockingly bowed to his audience, stepping out ever so carefully from the entangling mess at his feet as he turned, staring directly into the ever brilliant sapphire eyes of Asuka Langley Soryu.

"Hikari is making us all lunch today," he told her in a carefully neutral tone to his roommate, wondering if she really had forgotten that Hikari had offered to cook lunch today as a 'welcome back to school' deal for the trio of Eva pilots…or if she had just jumped at the opportunity to see if he would jump.

"Ah. Right" Asuka muttered, glancing down at the mess around her feet and shrugging. "Sorry," she actually apologized before stepping around him to her own locker, ten meters away.

Okay, so she had forgotten…and she had actually apologized?

Hmm…how far he could push this?

"Uh, a little help?"

"Oh don't be a wuss Ikari" she snorted as she stepped up to her locker, dropping her bag on the floor with a sigh as he started to gather up the debris that had come loose.

Not that far apparently.

Asuka's delicate fingers danced across her combination lock. "I have complete faith that as a highly trained Evangelion pilot, you'll be able to manage the arduous task of picking up-"

Asuka's locker exploded.

There was no other way to describe it in Shinji's mind. As the lock disengaged, a wave of paper poured out, flooding down to the ground, countless dozens of envelopes skidding across the polished school floor in all directions like a waterfall that slowly petered out to only a dribble falling to the floor, Asuka's face flushing as she stared aghast at the countless love letters around her that had built up after her enforced week long absence from school.

The corridor again resounded with cheers and applause from the students, even heavier this time as the two Evangelion pilots, roommates and classmates stood next to each other, up to their ankles in debris from their lockers.

Rei Ayanami, predictably, chose that moment to walk down the corridor. The First Child did not stop, did not alter her usual cool expression except to raise an eyebrow, commenting that 'Synchronization training can be taken too far' as she turned into the classroom.

No-one in the hallway but the three pilots really knew what Rei was talking about…but the fact that Ikari and Soryu had just been 'ice burned' by Ayanami, the Ice Queen of all people caused the hallway to utterly explode with laughter, causing Asuka and Shinji to both crash their heads into a closed locker door next to their own, again in perfect synchronization that only amplified the laughter to a whole new level, with students grabbing onto fixtures and walls to hold themselves up.

Fortunately the laughter cut off roughly ten seconds later as Hikari's head popped out of their classroom, studied the situation and snapped out commands in a tone that wouldbe obeyed. Those who had business here hurried to their lockers, those who did not retreated into their classrooms, the Class Rep recognizing the dangerous look on Asuka's face and clearing the area around her in a hurry as she walked up to her.

"You okay?" Hikari asked as she stepped carefully through the floor of letters, being careful not to touch any of them.

"Why wouldn't I be" Asuka replied, her 'look' smoothing into a frown as she reached in and swept the last of the letters out of her locker, before selecting first period books and locking back up.

"You looked like you were about to rip someone's skull from their spine and hold it up as a trophy," Hikari answered in a dry tone, actually worried a little for her friend.

"So what if I did?" she said, waving in a dismissive gesture at the floor of envelopes and folded pieces of paper littering the corridor around her. "Plenty more where they came from".

Behind her unconcerned mask however, Asuka found herself feeling acutely embarrassed, standing ankle deep in the pile of infatuation, right next to Shinji.

It was rather strange actually; all the little children who had written these letters always said the same things. That they would die for her if she gave the command, that they would be her slaves, that they would never leave her…

They were all hopeless idiots.

Spineless wimps who could never earn her respect because they would neverstand up for themselves. She didn't want some stupid puppy following her around with wide eyes, apologizing for everything that he thought might have upset her, regardless of if it was their fault or not. What she wanted was a man…and almost against her will, she again thought back to last night, when for those few seconds Shinji had forced her to the floor, holding her down helplessly with a surprising strength, his body on top of hers…

No-one had ever had her in anything like that kind of position before. And she was honest enough with herself to know that if it been anyone but Shinji –excepting Kaji naturally- who had put her init, she would have ensured he would never have been able to have children from that day forward.

But the uneasy truth was that Shinji Ikari, a boy she had known for just over two weeks was starting to drive her nuts in a way no other person her age had come close to. She hadn't retaliated to his actions last night because, as confusing as it was to her, she had actually enjoyed the tumble around the matt. She had felt both comfortable enough around him and comfortable enough with him to throw and be thrown around, letting him touch her and hold her-

Enough!

Okay, it had been fun.

Okay, Shinji was far closer to her concept of a 'real' man then any other person her age she had met –probably from all the time he had spent with Kaji recently- and she could have done far worse for wingmen then he and Rei against the Angels.

And yes, he was the only person in this whole damm city she trusted enough to have escorting her to the upcoming dance, knowing he wouldn't try to feel her up or take her 'out the back' of the dance hall…unless she askedhim of course-

Stop that!

They were…so alike in so many ways…but every time she wondered if they might become something more then friends, pilots, housemates…she pulled back.

Shinji, despite knowing her for only a matter of hours, had opened up to her. He had shared with her in a low, level voice, his memories of his Mothers death. His pain and horror, his rage, compounded by his Fathers prompt desertion of him leaving him little more then a tool to be used, only to be called back when it came time to find a pilot for Unit One…

That day, on Over the Rainbow, she had come so close to sharing back with him. Her own history, her own terrors…but he had stopped her, misunderstanding the look on her face…

And the window had been lost.

Since then, she had tried, oh Gott how she had tried to open up to him in the same way he had opened up to her…but she just couldn't. Every time she had thought the time might be right, every time she had opened her mouth to try and say something, a steel clamp had come down on her vocal cords and she had started trembling, shaking more and more until she had run away to make it stop. Every time she had reached out to open the locked door where she had shoved her memories away, a terrified four year old Asuka had clutched onto her arm and pulled, screaming and wailing as she forced her away from that door as fast as possible.

It was hopeless…and until she could (if she could) let Shinji see that part of her, until she could find the strength, from somewhere to open that door and let the monsters, the terror and the loneliness out for him to see in all their dark glory and accept who she really was…he could never love her.

No-one could.

How could he care about her, if he didn't know who she was? She didn't know who Asuka Langley Soryu was half the time! If she let him get close, he would only end up getting hurt, and hurting her, and she quietly admitted that she valued his friendship…as that was what it was she thought about it, the first guy outside of Kaji she could actually respect, far too much to risk it.

It's better this way for both of us, she decided again. He was a good friend…and a decent enough Evangelion pilot.

Even if his Eva is a hunk of junk she thought with a slight smirk as she turned back to her locker, mere seconds having passed.

"I don't suppose you have a box or something I can put all this junk in?" she asked Hikari as she shut her locker.

"Here you go" a new voice broke in from behind her. Turning, she found the track suited Second Stooge holding a box –well more of a tray, but it would do- and handing it to her.

Asuka blinked at that. Toji Suzuhara, her enemy, her negative, her, well, semi-nemesis for lack of a better word, was handing her a box.

"Thank you, Suzuhara," Hikari smiled a dazzling smile at her boyfriend –not that the couple had gotten around to using that word in public yet- as Asuka took the box from him slowly, warily.

"Oh I got the fun out of the system watching the locker explode," he shrugged with a smile at Hikari as he knelt down next to Asuka, starting to gather up all the letters into a largish pile. "So I thought the least I could do was help clean up."

Ah. That explains that.

"Commendable" Hikari nodded. "We'll need somewhere to store all of this-"

"Who said anything about storing it?" Asuka snorted as she knelt down, dropping the box to the ground and starting to shovel the letters into it. "Just throw it all out".

"Ah…alright" Hikari said in slight surprise, feeling a pang of envy running through her as she looked over the flood of letters. From the numbers, she estimated almost every guy in her year had put something into her locker, though she knew it was probably more a case of some people putting multiples in, plus more then a few guys from a year above or below who had snuck in.

And Asuka was just treating the offers and pleas like a gigantic annoyance.

Well okay, it is a gigantic annoyance Hikari admitted to herself, smiling at Toji as he helped throw the piles of paper into the tray. But…just once, I wish I had been the center of attention this way…

Her thoughts were interrupted as the bell rang, Hikari's eyes flickering to the doorway into Classroom 3-F as everyone started to amble into their classrooms.

"We have to head inside," Hikari said.

"Wait, I have to throw all this out! I don't want anyone going through this!"

"I could take it to the Incinerator" Toji suggested.

"Not without me you're not" Asuka shot back, suddenly wondering if this was Toji's plan all along, perfectly explaining where the box had come from. She wouldn't put it past him in the slightest to sell off the letters to interested parties or something…

"Fine," he responded with a roll of his eyes, surprising Asuka slightly, forcing her to wonder why he was trying to be helpful.

"Alright," Hikari chewed her lip. "Go, I'll explain to the Sensei where you two have gone, just don't take too long," Hikari decided, jerking her head back to the class for Shinji, who looked from Asuka, to Toji and back again, before he smirked slightly and followed Hikari off.

Perhaps he thinks we're going to kill each other Asuka snorted as she scooped up the last of her love letters.

A part of her, a small part of her, noted the effort that some people had put into their envelopes. One in particular had quite magnificent brush strokes on the outside Kanji and it was a pity that she would destroy it.

But it described pretty much the entire collection. All pretty words, no substance at all behind them.

"I think that's the last of them" Toji said, lying flat on the floor and reaching under the lockers to pull out a couple of the letters and toss them on the top of the pile, quiet awe at the interest Asuka had generated fighting for supremacy with the feeling of betrayal at himself for what he was about to do.

"Okay" Asuka replied, taking a hold of the cardboard box and lifting it.

"This way," Toji said, leading her down the now almost empty passage, to the stairwell at the far end, then out the back of the ground floor to the back of the school, where the incinerator was, Toji expertly starting it up.

"We'll just have to wait a minute or so before it heats up" he said, crossing his arms and looking somewhat uncomfortable as the two moved upwind of the stack.

"Okay, that's it," Asuka said with a narrowing of her eyes, dropping the tray to her feet.

"What's it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Why are you being so nice, or at least trying to be so nice to me, today?"

Toji swallowed.

Asuka noticed.

"Out with it," she ground out.

"Oh fine" he sighed with a roll of his eyes as he crossed his arms.

"Look, you know how I feel about Hikari and how she feels about me."

"Know, yes. Understand why she does, no," Asuka replied, crossing her own arms.

"I'm sure you don't," he shot back, then stopped, took a deep breath and sighed. "Look…Asuka," he managed to get her name out, to the surprise of both children. "I don't like you a whole lot and you aren't that fond of me. But both of us care about Hikari. And although I don't understand how or why she likes you, I just know that you two are very close."

Toji paused for a second, as if gathering his thoughts. Asuka was vaguely aware that the incinerator was now burning cheerfully, but ignored it, finding this conversation far too interesting.

"Your point?" she asked, albeit with far less venom in her tone then she usually directed at him.

He sighed, before steadily raising his head to look her in the eye. "I was thinking, for Hikari's sake, we could call a truce." He held up his hands at once, as if he expected her to interrupt. "I'm not saying that we have to like each other, or pretend to be best friends…I'm just saying that for her sake, we can at least try to play nice around her. We're both spending a lot of time around each other, between Hikari on one hand and Shinji on the other…so…"

Asuka chewed her lip, a bad habit she had gotten into from being around Misato too much, before sighing. Truth be told, she actually enjoyed the verbal sparing with Toji. Similar to Shinji, except he didn't back down or get intimidated by her in the slightest. And even if he lacked the polished elegance of Shinji's comebacks, being in her mind something of a dumb jock, he did not give her so much as an inch. Ever.

She could respect that.

"Okay…" she said, slowly extending her hand as if she feared she was reaching into the nearby incinerator. "Truce."

"Truce," he agreed, shaking her hand briefly before they knelt down next to the tray, and they each grabbed a fist full of envelopes, throwing them into the fire.

"Not that this means we're friends," he added.

"God no," she snorted as they worked their way through the pile. "And it doesn't mean that I won't call it as I see it…at least when Hikari isn't around."

Toji actually smiled slightly at that, standing as they threw the last of the letters into the now cheerfully burning pile, before he reached around and cut the gas flow as the letters were consumed, the paper would burn itself out, no reason to stay.

"I wouldn't expect anything less" he agreed as they headed back into the school, before adding "Demon."

"Nor would I, Stooge," she shot back, again with the slightest smile as they returned to their classroom. "Nor would I".

Rei Ayanami methodically worked her way through the eighty five messages that were waiting for her, when she booted up her laptop and logged onto the schools intranet. It was an entirely new experience for her to have people talking to her first thing in the morning, and she admitted it was an addictive feeling, a new craving to reach out to other people and be accepted as one of them. It was her first day back at school since the team training and she was finding herself pleasantly surprised with the flood of attention, her mind drifting back over the last hour's events.

Walking through the gates in the company of both Asuka and Hikari she felt a flush she recognized as apprehension, but for the first time in her life, she had been unable to simply acknowledge the emotion and then place it to the side. It was an intensely curious sensation, but an intensely distracting one at the same time.

Fortunately, her memory had not failed her and she found a new type of enjoyment in smiling slightly at her classmates she had never really acknowledged, greeting them by name and trying one of several dozen variations of 'small talk' she had listened too in the school yard, or researched at her new home.

The results were…mixed.

But she learned much and actually made contact with a great many people, learning more about them in thirty seconds of contact then she had in a year of school with them as Asuka and Hikari chatted about a bewildering array of subjects, but invariably, the subject continually returned to her new wardrobe, after many complements over her new hairstyle which she found rather flattering.

Apparently, the girls at school had an exceptionally fine intelligence network in operation. It was so accurate in fact, that Rei wondered if she should report it to the Commander at some point, they appeared to have superbly accurate information on everything from the clothes she had brought to the fact that she had in fact, been asked to the school dance by Kensuke Aida…

Hikari Horaki however, had taken her aside and sheepishly admitted that Asuka had told her everything.

And she might have mentioned it to a coupe of people…who might have mentioned it to a few more in turn.

And so on.

Rei, recalling her calculus and the concept of an exponential curve simply nodded at the explanation, telling Hikari that it was no consequence to her that people knew what she had purchased. Instead, she had quietly slipped away from the mass around the Second Child, smiling at classmates and other people in her year she had never acknowledged, getting surprised smiles back, strolling around the area with her books firmly inside her bag, simply luxuriating in the activity of greeting people she had stoically ignored for so many years. A nod here, a smile there, occasionally a last name combined with one of the two and even a short conversation until finally she came upon the Third Child, along with several of his…and dare she say it, her friends.

"Oh, Rei, good morning," Shinji smiled, again Rei feeling that strange resonance with him as he acknowledged her, that 'click' as she felt his mind connect in a way that she didn't understand, but still felt none the less. Rei could feel that Shinji was genuinely happy to see her and somehow knew that he no doubt could feel her similar thoughts about him.

And ultimately, that was all she needed to know from him and he from her. It was a much more convenient method of understanding then 'small talk', all other things being equal…

"Good…good morning Rei," Kensuke said next, offering her a slight bow as she turned her gaze on him from Shinji. Rei had no such mental bridge with Kensuke, but none the less she took pleasure from his slightly nervous smile, generating a placidly calm one in return.

"Good morning Kensuke" she said back to him.

"You're looking amazing" he spluttered out impulsively, causing Toji to plant his palm on his face with a slight groan and Shinji's mouth to twitch up in a slight grin. But Rei, who was not precisely well tutored in the social niceties either, simply broadened her smile slightly and offered a slight bow.

"Thank you" she replied. "I take it that you have prepared for the upcoming dance?"

"Well uh, we're working on it" he assured her. "Shinji is going to take us for a tux fitting later today".

"Indeed?" she asked. "Then I will look forward to the result in a week's time…" Rei stated…then paused, tilting her head as if something had just occurred to her. "I don't believe you have seen my dress yet…have you?"

"Uh…no" Kensuke managed to get out; swallowing slightly as his mind suddenly wondered where this might be going…

Rei tilted her head back to a more normal inclination, almost as if disappointed.

"A pity," she simply said, before with the slightest twinkle in her scarlet eyes -and the duplication of a look she had seen Asuka turn on Shinji's back when he wasn't looking- she turned away to head into school, her –technically- superhuman hearing easily catching the whispered talk behind her.

"Dude…did Rei Ayanami just flirt with you?"

Toji got no response to his question from Kensuke Aida.

"Dude? K?"

"Oh not again," Shinji joined in the one sided conversation behind her as she reached the school building, hearing the rapid staccato snapping of his fingers. "Hey Kensuke, come back to me buddy, yo, wake up!"

Presently, Rei smiled slightly in memory of the moment as she finished the last reply, seventy two of the requests having to do with her availability at the school dance were easy to reply to, giving a simple, if slightly apologetic reply in the negative to each.

Strange, how none of these people had shown interest in her, even as a friend before Asuka had 'transformed' her…

One of the messages was from Asuka in fact, suggesting a 'house party' for after the school dance at her place.

Rei might have had some degree of naiveté at social interaction, but she wasn't that naïve…replying that she agreed, subject to the approval of Captain Katsuragi.

Asuka did not bother to reply, but Rei heard her 'humph' of annoyance from across the classroom when the message arrived.

The final message was flashed onto her screen as soon as the computer finished its external network linkup. The pilot's laptops looked the same as the other school laptops, but 'under the hood' were something else entirely, an order of magnitude more powerful with a customized operating system designed to establish a remote connection to NERV on startup, in case they needed to be contacted and their phones were either out or off. All they needed was a length of Ethernet cable and any kind of internet connection and they would be logged in, anywhere in the world. In Tokyo-3 however where the MAGI ruled, they were always on the internet, something that made them the envy of the rest of the class whose ability to occupy the mind through sensei's lectures was more limited.

Well, except Kensuke, who had hacked the schools internal firewalls with little effort within a week of starting this year.

FROM [[Akagi::57.128.87.254

'Monthly upload. 16:15 sharp.

-Dr Akai.'

Rei deleted the message with a mental sigh. So, they had decided to continue her uploads, after an oddly lengthy break. The consequences to this sudden decision were immediate and significant.

This would clearly cut into her socialization time.

Frowning slightly at the annoying interruption, she composed a message to classmate Chihiro, informing her that NERV had called her for tests and, regretfully, she would be unable to 'hang' downtown after school.

She studied the message for a few seconds, then added that she would deliver a greeting to her Father if she saw him in the Evangelion cages, before nodding, deciding it was an appropriate message, sending it off just in time to calmly answer 'present' as the Sensei reached her name on the attendance sheet.

The Boeing OV-203 Hyper-Shuttle screamed through the Earths Thermosphere.

The gigantic space plane was probably the most amazing waste of taxpayers money ever seen, which said much given the pilfering NERV and SEELE had performed on humanities resources over the last fifteen years.

A replacement for the now retired Space Shuttle, the Hyper-Shuttle was actually a marvel of design and technology. Unlike the venerable Shuttle, the Hyper-Shuttle did away with the 'cheap' reusable booster rockets and external fuel tank. It could carry fifty passengers in the same comfort as an airliner from point to point in a suborbital arc, or in a cargo configuration, boost huge loads into orbit from a runway, before heading back down, for a fraction of the cost, waste or logistics of traditional chemical rockets.

The key to its genius was the quartet of enormous engines on each wing, which drank a unique thick 'sludge' of a fuel, which six micro particle beams -developed as an outgrowth of fusion research- then blasted and vaporized, generating an enormous thrust impulse which was blasted out the back.

The technology had redefined space flight, suddenly making the entire solar system a whole lot smaller...but ironically, when real space travel finally was in the grasp of humanity, no-one appeared to care anymore.

It is a pity that the human race ceased caring about what was out here Gendo Ikari thought to himself as he stared out at the vast expanse of the unblinking starfield above him. Almost unwillingly, he couldn't help but remember Yui had been an avid astronomer. Strictly an amateur -her profession was biochemistry and cybernetics, not astrophysics after all- she had loved spending time late at night looking up at the stars and the moon as he looked on from a distance, humming that strange old song about flying to the moon as she paned her telescope around in fascination…

Foolishness Gendo chided himself as he returned his attention outside the spacecraft, looking down at Russia far below, speeding along at 14,000 miles per hour. There is no need to reflect on the past and what has been lost on this road. I will reclaim the past by shaping the future.

The Committee had kept him longer then he had anticipated, the old men both happy and unhappy at the same things as only they could be.

On one hand, they were very happy that the projected engagement-scenario costs thus far against the Angels were coming in far under budget for damage to Tokyo-3, even including repairs to the Evangelions and upgrades to Unit Zero to full combat status.

This had in turned annoyed Gendo, as he realized what he most owed this too was his Son's superb piloting skills, a fact that had won him a great deal of sarcastic praise from SEELE's public face, well aware of the friction between the family members and gladly taking the moment to heap praise upon him for raising such a fine warrior.

On the other hand, they were predictably petulant that he had taken a great joy in flatly rejecting any possibility of reducing NERV's budget to deal with the Angels, pointing out that that because they had been lucky so far in getting off so lightly, that they should not and couldnot get complacent, lest they all forget what happened 15 years ago.

That had silenced the fools somewhat.

Still, for the moment, everything was proceeding well.

Patrol aircraft over the South Pole had detected a faint energy signature; the Lance would soon be in their grasp once again, apparently none the worse for wear after being at Ground Zero. The First Branch was making acceptable progress in their study of the 4th Angels S2 engine, aided by the partially recovered remains of the 5ths.

They were less then pleased at the loss of a full third of the UN Combined fleet against the 6th Angel, an engagement which was not entirely in agreement with their precious scenarios and had generated a great deal of heat that the Committee, not used explaining its actions to anyone, had been forced to spend vital time and effort putting into handling, to Gendo's amusement.

They were still not exactly sure why the 6th Angel had attacked the convoy, having no choice but to accept the only logical finding; that Unit Two had drawn it in. Without knowledge of Adams presence on Over the Rainbow, there was no other conclusion they could reach.

Still, the presented explanation had not exactly filled the committee with confidence.

That their attackers would home in on Lilith's presence searching for Adam had been the basis for all the defensive scenarios NERV had developed, letting humanity concentrate its defenses into creating a gigantic kill zone known locally as Tokyo-3.

But there was always that old staying about eggs and baskets…

NERV Central was the only NERV base with extensive anti-Angel defenses, to say nothing of the only combat ready Evangelions and pilots to drive them. The other branches did have had extensive security, but it was oriented around stopping the occasional terrorist or corporate spy, not skyscraper sized attackers that could chew down an Armored Brigade for a quick snack if they were so inclined. If any of the future Angels decided to visit other NERV facilities around the world, the damage would be catastrophic, to say the least.

And worse, their scenario would be useless for predicting or defending against such a move.

Not that their precious scenario suggests anything like that will happen of course Gendo snorted as he looked down on the Earth. The 6th was off the Japanese coast, close enough to justify it being on the way to attack Tokyo-3. And the 7th arrived precisely according to their scenario, mollifying any thoughts that something was amiss...

"Excuse me. Since we're sharing the flight, do you mind if I sit here?" a voice asked from next to him.

"Not at all," Gendo replied smoothly, his face not shifting its focus one inch from the world under him and the unknowing people scattered across Siberia working hard in the newly accessible and resource rich fields scattered across the formerly perpetually snowbound areas.

"The revised budget for the…sample collection passed quite easily, didn't it?"

Gendo now did let the slightest smile come across his face. The committee's desperate need to get their hands on the Lance was amusingly transparent and the cost for funding a modest naval expedition to the South Pole to 'collect' it had been neatly attached to the revised budget put to the UN Security Council. SEELE, who knew the true value of the Lance –beyond an enormously powerful Anti-Angel weapon- had played their puppets well, but they in turn hadn't realized just how much money earmarked for Gendo's own little projects had been laundered through Tokyo-3 reconstruction and expansion projects so completely that it would take years for them to untangle it…not that they had years of course.

The irony of having SEELE fund their own destruction did amuse him.

Still, politicians could only be pushed so far even with the best of leverage before they would balk at giving out cash, but with five Angel attacks in as many months after a 15 year pause, money was not exactly an issue. NERV's slight embarrassment at the initial engagement against the 5th Angel had been more then offset by the successful actions of Evangelions, all but one of the engagements lasting less then six minutes once an Evangelion was deployed, again mocking the UN and National forces which still tried and failed to intercept them out of stubborn human pride.

"The Committee's main concern is for their own survival. They are not stingy when their own lives are at stake," Gendo replied to the Chinese General as he sat down next to him. General Qiao Liang was apparently a 'do nothing' officer formerly of the Peoples Liberation Army and now of the UN's advanced projects group, at least publicly anyway. In reality, his only real concern was acting as the administrative officer of the newly expanded 6th Branch of NERV in Beijing.

"Oh, I have one more piece of good news," the General added as he studied his fingers with an unconcerned look. "All members of the UN Security Council bar the US have approved the budget for Eva Unit 06. And it's probably just a matter of time for the US as well, that country is allergic to unemployment."

Gendo accepted the news with an even nod. The US was always by far the most…prickly nation to deal with, always much more willful and independent then others, even after the Second Impact and the rise of the UN. The fact that they had two NERV branches on their soil, one capable of serial Evangelion construction unassisted by external NERV facilities –and under US Military Control no less- was something that SEELE was becoming increasingly concerned about, but not to the point they would take action.

Yet.

"And what about your country?" Gendo asked, even if he knew the answer. It had been the price of buying the General and his backers in the Chinese Central Committee and it had been all too easy for SEELE to provide it, placing another Government in their thrall without lifting a finger, exposing their existence or placing themselves at risk.

Just him of course.

Liang smiled with the slightest nod, a concession of Gendo's actions and the upholding of the 'NERV's' side of their agreement, the poor flag officer not having a clue just how far over his head he was in this game.

"We will participate, beginning with the construction of Unit 08. The plans for the second installation project are still viable…however; there is the problem of not yet having found a pilot."

An irrelevancy if the dummy plug system works as planned Gendo thought. Perhaps it might not be nearly as effective a system in battle as real pilots, but if they could ultimately swamp the Angels with massed S2 equipped Eva attacks without risk to Unit One or the pilot of Unit Zero, so much the better in his mind.

"The Angels have returned. We have no choice but to defeat them" was Gendo's reply.

Liang accepted the statement at face value with a nod, but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"We don't want another Second Impact either," he said, causing Gendo to finally glance over at the General and acknowledge him, the double meaning clear.

The PRC Government might not know about SEELE's existence, but they probably suspected the Committee had some kind of motive…and they were letting them know they were watching.

This was fine by him. Let them watch. By the time they figured it out, it would be far too late to do anything about it. Not that they would push too hard to figure it out, lest they lose their newly promised upgrades and construction rights at the 6th Branch of course and the tens of billions of US Dollars in contracts.

The point made however, the General moved back onto other topics.

"I hear Chairman Keel was sulking over the pilots?"

"Foolishness," Gendo snorted. "The old men are sticking their noses in where they shouldn't, because they feel a loss of control over someone they never controlled in the first place."

"From what I heard, neither did you" Liang retorted with his own snort.

"There are many levels of control" Gendo replied, ignoring the sarcastic tone. "Both subtle and unsubtle. The attempt to place a chain around the Third Childs neck is redundant as he has placed one there himself. By letting him develop strong bonds with his fellow pilots and his guardian, he has exposed the fulcrum that underlies his being, as well as the levers to control him. Coercion is both counter productive and dangerous at this stage of the scenario."

Liang kept his peace as Gendo thought back to where all this had started. Looking for anything to sulk about, one Committee member had muttered about Captain Katsuragi's competence in controlling her charges, citing the danger of 'inappropriate' contact between the pilots that might complicate Angel engagements.

When Gendo had raised an eyebrow and inquired if he was volunteering for the job, he had delighted in the uncomfortable shifting, pointing out that the teamwork exercises he had ordered were still ongoing, with excellent results. If of course they wished to disrupt this and give the Third Child every reason to leave, well that was their prerogative of course.

Keel had not been amused at his sarcastic response (perfectly pitched so it couldn't be accused of being a sarcastic response of course) but he was far too skilled an operator to say it outright, instead commenting that they would interview the Third Child at a future point and make a suitable judgment on if his living arrangements were suitable.

It, Gendo had judged, had been a foolish and futile attempt to exert SEELE's authority

What pray tell, old man, will you do if and when you tell Shinji to leave Katsuragi and he says in turn he will leave Tokyo-3 if you try to force him?

A rather vain and unusually ego driven move for the usually smooth operators…which made Gendo wonder if he was missing something. Shinji was…complex after all, with no simple definition to label him.

NERV had created the First.

The Second belonged to NERV, her self image and desires had been carefully sculpted around the Evangelion, she could no sooner stop being a pilot then SEELE could give up their quest for immortality.

Shinji however…he was the wild card. He was far, far too valuable to loose given his astonishing, combat proven natural talent and the fact that only he had the ability to pilot their most valuable Evangelion. Yet he was without any strong ties to NERV, every one of his psychological profiles utterly worthless in predicting his actions since he had arrived, almost as if in between stepping on the train from Nagano to Tokyo-3, he had had a personality transplant at a stop along the way…

Gendo allowed the slightest smirk come across his face as the acceleration from the engines de-orbital burn cut off and the aircraft started its atmospheric interface.

Watching Shinji and the Committee face off against each other might prove to be an interesting diversion.

"Well. This is the last night we'll be doing this," Shinji commented to Asuka as he flung his sheets up in the air, before letting them settle down onto his futon.

"Thank God," Asuka agreed as she dumped her own sheets and pillows down on hers. "One more night next to Misato snoring and I think I might smother her in her sleep…accidentally."

"How can you smoother someone in their sleep accidentally?" Shinji asked with a confused tone, but interested look as he placed his pillows down on the floor.

Asuka shot him an arch, superior look.

"Do you want a demonstration tonight, Third Child?"

"Uh no, that's quite alright," he replied with a sort of wary dignity that earned him a snort as Asuka continued to arrange her own 'bed', fiddling with the arrangement several times before giving up and tossing the pillow down on the floor violently and flopping onto the lounge.

"Man, why do Japanese people have to sleep on the floor? It's so pathetic" she whined, as she had every night they had been forced to 'eat, breathe and sleep together'. He had tried to debate this point with her on cultural grounds and lost every single time, Shinji quietly in awe of just how sharp and agile her mind really was when she tried.

So he took a slightly different path this time.

"You know Asuka, you do have more then enough money in your bank account to buy a bed if you want one," he pointed out in a perfectly distant tone, as if it was something he was saying in passing.

Asuka blinked.

Clearly, this rather simple and elegant solution to her hate of the Japanese custom of sleeping on Futons had not occurred to her.

The 'first time' around Shinji recalled she had just pestered Misato until their guardian had 'borrowed' a bed from some empty Geofront sleeping quarters for her, ordering some grunts in the logistics department to ship it to the apartment in what probably qualified as an abuse of UN resources...until you calculated that keeping the Second Child as happy as possible was a goal of great merit and a worthy investment of NERV's considerable resources.

Right now however, the Second Child paused, her mouth hanging half open in preparation for a rant that stalled as her mind analyzed his statement and decided that he actually had a rather good point.

Then it opened fully.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me that when you thought of it!" she demanded, not missing a beat.

"Because I thought a 'college educated, honors level student' like yourself would see the logical solution," Shinji replied, greatly enjoying throwing back her primary gloating point back in her face, watching her jaw tense slightly in the process. Without any good comeback to that point, she just settled for glaring at him.

God she was cute when she was angry…which was rather convenient given that sometimes he thought it was her default state. And as much as he could sit here all night just staring at her, with her soft silky hair flowing over her shoulders, untamed by the A-10 clips she had left in her room, it was much safer to just to move beyond the annoyance before it turned into a fist fight.

"Come on, let's get to bed."

Asuka 'humphed' the way she always did on the rare occasions when she lost an argument, before she pushed off the lounge and walked over to the wall to slap the light switch, the room darkening at once, only the moonlight coming through the window lighting her way as she walked back and dropped to the floor with a wave of air.

There was the usual sound of movement as they both settled onto, then into their beds, Asuka taking much longer to find any kind of comfortable position before settling down, Shinji slowly drifting off as his breathing slowed…

"Shinji?"

Part of him could feel the siren call of sleep calling to him and told him to ignore the voice and just surrender to the oblivion...but the larger part Asuka Langley Soryu's fist had always held a solid grip on told him to wake up.

"Asuka?" he replied as he opened his eyes, letting him stare at the ceiling high above them.

There was a pause and the sound of her shifting on her Futon.

"You know…" she paused as if gathering her thoughts, "we're all alone here tonight."

Okay, that got his undivided attention.

His gaze shifted from the etched panels on the ceiling to the person next to him, rolling over to find that Asuka was also staring at the ceiling, her profile just that much more beautiful in the pale moonlight, the expression on her face would have been a mystery to most people…

But not to him.

'We're all alone here tonight' wasn't what she was going to say Shinji decided, the slight tightening of her face a dead giveaway for Shinji as he wondered what she had hesitated at telling him, but deciding to try and lighten the mood before she started brooding.

"Pen-Pen is going to be annoyed to hear you say that," Shinji pointed out, causing a flicker of a smile to pass over her face.

"Well the only two humans here tonight," she clarified her statement, finally turning to her left to face him, unable to see Shinji's hand under his blanket pinching his thigh rather painfully to force himself to focus on her face and not where her loose T-Shirt barely covered her chest.

"Misato left us both alone here, without supervision."

"I guess she trusts us both enough not to do anything…inappropriate."

"Oh?" Asuka's smile became…dangerous. "Such as?"

Shinji felt alarm bells start sounding in his head at that look.

"Given the way our attempt on that machine ended, I'm guessing dancing isn't what she's worried about."

"Oh stop being such a baby, it takes all the fun out of this," she sighed, blowing a strand of hair away with a sharp exhale of air as she adjusted her position, mulling over what to say. "You know…I had over fifty offers today to go to the dance with various classmates, at least thirty of whom already had dates, mostly from our own school."

"I heard," Shinji nodded, knowing from Hikari that if the class rep hadn't gone at the 'line' of people waiting to ask her out at recess with a preverbal hatchet it would have probably been closer to eighty.

He also tried to ignore the spark of anger and jealously at the thought of all those people trying to ask his Asuka out…

"You should realize just how lucky you are Ikari that I'm going with you. Most guys you age would kill for the honor," she pointed out when he didn't elaborate on his reply, clearly impatient for him to confirm this great honor she had bestowed on him.

"More then a few guys expressed the same feeling to me today," he replied, easing up into a sitting position. "Most of them were rather…jealous."

"As they damm well should be," Asuka snorted as she rolled onto her back again, declining to tell Shinji that a very surprising number of girls had approached her with much the same thoughts about 'getting' Shinji. Hikari had told her that more then a few of the girls had been convinced that Shinji had known she was coming to Japan all along, hence why he had –politely- let it be known he didn't want to go with anyone local, despite countless offers.

Asuka had thought about shattering their illusions, pointing out that she had asked him to the dance when she had first found out about it (and that he had jumped at the chance) but she had held back. There was a fine line beyond which gloating was unbecoming, even for her, so she let them have their illusions, encouraging them with a hint that she and Shinji had first met when they were two.

True enough, even if she didn't remember it…and she grinned tightly as she again thought over Shinji's story about her whacking him over the head when he dared stand up to her.

Some things never changed, it would appear…and the knowledge that she had known Shinji far longer then she had first thought was strangely comforting to her.

"After all," Asuka continued to lecture Shinji on just how damn lucky he was as he didn't appear to get the point, "you're going to the dance with the most popular, beautiful and downright sought after Girl in school; you should appreciate your fortune Third Child".

"Well here's a question, who would you take to the dance, if I wasn't here, or wasn't available."

Asuka frowned slightly at his question, not quite able to completely suppress the suddenly uneasy feelings coursing through her at this line of questioning…if Shinji was starting to get cold feet…or Gott help her, if someone had stolen him from her…

"Are you saying," she asked in a calm but none the less deadly tone, "that you are planning on standing me up?"

Shinji had the delightfully good manners to look shocked at her suggestion and flinch backwards, something that caused her body to start to leach back the chemical cocktail that had started her heart thumping.

"No no, I was just wondering, that's all," Shinji hastily pointed out as he saw the danger signs and hurriedly worked to defuse the landmine he had just stepped on without realizing.

"Don't wonder," she commanded in that same deceptively calm tone, before she lightened it slightly as she considered his question, then dismissed it. "But to answer your question, really I don't know. I guess I would have picked one of the offers thrown at me at random or something."

A lie.

I could never go with any of those fakes she thought to herself as the silence stretched uncomfortably, Asuka realizing she had just told Shinji he was no better then any other random person, silently cursing her choice of words, even as a distant part of her wondered when she had become so considerate of his feelings…

Shinji, who could now read all this on her face rather clearly somehow managed not to smile at her and decided not to press the issue, having gotten his answer from her, without her saying a word.

"So…I was talking to Rei about the dress shopping," Shinji subtly shifted topics, causing Asuka's slight frown to vanish into a tight smile.

"Were you now?" she asked. "What did the First have to say for herself?"

"Nothing," he now frowned. "In fact, she refused to say anything about your dress at all, claiming that she had orders not to say anything…you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Moi?" she asked with an exaggerated look of innocence on her face.

"Rei wouldn't take orders from Hikari," he pointed out. "In fact she would never take 'orders' from anyone outside of NERV, which rather strongly suggests that you gave her instructions not to tell me about the dress."

"Do go on," Asuka drawled, supporting her head with an arm against her pillow.

"Hikari is your best friend and even though we get along well, she would never tell me anything if you asked her not to."

"How interesting," she nodded with a vague, airhead type tone that actually annoyed him slightly.

"So, I was…I was just wondering what it looked like."

"How interesting," Asuka nodded again, somehow managing to sound even more vague and stupid, the fact finally hitting him that he was not going to get an answer, she wanted the dress to be a surprise.

Okay. He could wait…there was only a week left as of tomorrow…and if she wanted to surprise him, well…it had to be good.

"Okay fine," he yawned trying to sound disinterested, rolling onto his back, then his other side. "Good night Asuka"

"How interesting!" she declared again.

"Stop that."

Asuka just laughed slightly as she rolled onto her back and took her victory for what it was, at the same time simultaneously grinning to herself at the flattering thought that Shinji had been asking about her dress, congratulating herself for getting the three people who had thus far seen it sworn to secrecy.

I am going to blow the Baka's mind into itty, bitty, tiny little pieces when he sees me a week from now Asuka thought to herself with a somewhat evil look on her face. If he doesn't pass out on the pavement outside Rei's place then and there, I'm going to be very, very disappointed.

With that happy thought in her mind, she got herself as comfortable as possible on the stupid floor, sighed and went to sleep.

An hour later, the nightmares started again.

"Okay Rei, that's it, we're done for the night."

"Roger."

Rei felt the familiar but slightly uncomfortable buzzing pressure of the neural scanners lining the tank fade away as they shut down, the First Child opening her eyes as the LCL buoyancy level was reduced, gently dropping her to the floor of the tank as vents opened and the amber fluid was reclaimed. She took a deep 'breath' of the fluid as the levels dropped, then leaned over and explosively expelled it from her lungs, coughing out the last of the liquid before she stood as the walls of the tank itself lowered into the floor, allowing her to step out into the cool air, slick with LCL.

Doctor Akagi looked up at her from behind her glasses without raising her head before she returned her attention back to her console as she tapped away, shutting down the system and clearly wanting to get out of here.

"The upload appears to have been routine, but we'll need to make sure there was no corruption before we move back to a weekly schedule," she announced without preamble as the console faded to darkness.

"Yes Ma'am," was all Rei could say, dripping naked in front of her.

"Well…that's it," Akagi said with a slight frown at her as she calmly waited for future instructions.

Shoo! Rei translated that as in her mind, the subdued hostility from the Doctor still present in every gesture, nuance and look when the two were alone as, not for the first time, she wondered what she could have possibly done to attract such hate from her…

"Yes Ma'am" was all she said, turning and heading for the tiny shower and locker off to the side of the giant room. She had stocked it with some of her hygiene products recommended by Asuka, taking a guilty pleasure in spending an extra few minutes after washing her hair to run an exfoliating glove lathered with a cleansing liquid over her skin, exterminating all traces of LCL under the hot water before she dried off and got dressed, managing not to shiver as her skin rejoiced once again in its newfound sensitivity. She had come dressed in her school uniform, but she had folded the green dress and red ribbon inside her school bag, complementing a brown ankle length skirt that matched well with the uniforms white shirt, over which in turn she put on one of her NERV windbreaker jackets.

Whereas Shinji's Jacket was a dark blue and Asuka's –of course- was a dark burgundy, hers was a light crème that complemented her skin quite nicely, at least in her opinion. Her Unit Patch was circular, the head of Unit Zero on her left breast with a bold red '00' painted across it, rather clearly showing her Evangelion designation, 'R. Ayanami' printed in black letters on her opposite breast.

She closed up the locker, ensured the shower was secured and her bag was packed, and then picked it up left the tiny bathroom. Doctor Akagi had long since returned to her office two hundred meters higher above this level and Rei found her own way across the cold and not quiteempty room, perfectly aware of who (or whom) waited in the darkness, sliding her access card through a reader next to the meter thick armor grade door. It obediently rose into the roof, which was normal, but it revealed a tall man in a black uniform, with heavy orange tinted glasses waiting outside…which was not normal.

"Rei."

"Commander," she said, offering him her usual slight smile that she found was increasingly just a simple a set of muscular actions, without any real emotion behind them, as her new perception of her own worth clashed with his stated goals for her existence.

"The upload was successful?"

"Doctor Akagi requires time to ensure there is no corruption on the upload," Rei explained as he shifted slightly, gesturing down the corridor without lifting a figure, Rei obediently falling into line towards the elevators as with a hiss, the door sealed once again behind her.

"Indeed? I suspect she is being overly cautious, but that is not an unworthy goal in project of such importance," Gendo said in a typically dismissive tone. "We are behind schedule already and will need to make increased efforts to return to it".

"Understood," she replied blandly as they halted at the elevator. "If…I may ask a question?" she inquired, getting a glance that she knew meant for her to proceed, "why were the uploads halted? Have…I done something incorrectly?"

"Not as such" the Commander replied as the elevator doors opened and they stepped in, the Commander inserting his card and tapping a button much higher in NERV then their deep level, the elevator jolting into action with the usual 'click…click…click' of the level counter above the door.

"I…do not understand," she replied, mostly because it was what she would have said before she had started to think for herself.

Gendo glanced down at the young woman –he could no longer in all honestly think of her as a 'girl'- and frowned. Every day that passed, she grew to look more and more like Yui to him. Now with the attention of the other two Children, one of whom appeared to have taken Rei as something of a protégé after finding out how…limited her social skills were, Rei was changing all too quickly in front of him.

True, her growth was still limited and her core purpose, by all indicators appeared still bound to his without any problems, but…

There was always a 'but'.

What if he was wrong? What if Rei decided to betray him and the very purpose he had designed her for?

Free will.

It was humanities greatest strength…and its greatest weakness, the core difference between the offspring of Adam and the offspring of Lilith, the ability to choose. Oh you could try to constrain it, limit it, direct it…but at some point, every human had to make a choice to accept consequences one way or the other.

His decision to continue Rei's uploads was a calculated risk. He had considered leaving 'this' Rei active until the proper time, terminating her and then restoring Rei to an old image, but again, the blasted possibility of this Rei dying and having to be 'brought back' without all these memories raised far too many questions and was just too strong a possibility to ignore happening. Trying to place harsh constraints against Rei could only invoke consequences from the other two pilots, whom had apparently grown quite close to the formerly distant and aloof First Child.

Still, ultimately, he did have confidence. All evidence pointed to the fact that Rei had not breathed a word of her true purpose to either of the other pilots, nor any of the truths behind the Human Instrumentality project she knew of. She had never once given the slightest hint that she would disobey any order from any NERV personnel and when asked of her purpose, she had given the correct answers without hesitation.

All other things being equal, he would therefore have sufficient reason to declare Rei's new activities harmless to his agenda and in fact useful in their own ways for team building and morale boosting…but in his life, all things were rarely equal.

The line between caution and paranoia for someone in his position was not a well lit sharp edge, but a blurry gray zone that appeared to grow larger and wider every day as fifteen years of his planning came down to months of execution. It was like playing a game of chess where both sides' knights could randomly mutate into any other piece at unpredictable intervals, changing the strategic situation in an instant. All one could do was to use them ruthlessly when they opened up new avenues of attack, brace the defenses when an opponent achieved a window of opportunity and counterattack hard when again they mutated into a position of weakness.

All one could do was watch, wait and act.

"Rei, your actions recently have…concerned me," he admitted. "You have become close to the Second and Third children, moved out of your apartment into a new apartment and have dramatically increased your level of social interaction. At the same time, I can find no conclusive evidence that any of this interferes with your primary purpose."

Gendo turned away, still standing ramrod straight as he looked at the door, considering his position. Truly, he had no real concern if Rei wanted to make any friends, go shopping, date that Aida boy –who's Father worked for him, a useful fact to know- or go on a nightly killing spree leaping from rooftop to rooftop, so long as at the end of the day, she was ready to do what needed to be done.

The fact that the Second had so proactively sought to improve her circumstances, aided and abetted by the Third and Captain Katsuragi was no danger. If anything, his review of the tactical training exercises had shown a remarkably polished teamwork that boded well for launching coordinated assaults against the Angels as opposed to engaging them piecemeal, the Evangelions fighting as singular parts of a larger, more terrifying machine as opposed to three small individuals.

And if Rei in these new friendships and respects found a greater reason to throw herself into the fray to protect her friends, sacrificing herself in place of them to take out an Angel (and protect Unit One) without hesitation…then so much the better.

Although he had a disturbing thought that he might find the loss of 'this' Rei who had been around for quite some time, upsetting.

Irrelevant, she will return if she is lost, that is the covenant I have made with her he thought as the lift continued to rise, finally turning back slightly to face her.

"Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence that suggests these…'changes' have led to an increase in your value in all key performance indicators and as such, these changes should be encouraged, so long as this remains true."

"Yes Sir," was all she said back as the lift slowed, then the doors opened with a light 'ping' as they reached the administration level of NERV HQ.

"It's late. I'll have a car sent around," he declared as they exited the lift before he turned and offered her a slight smile. "I will have to…review your new apartment some time…Good night Rei."

"Good night Sir," she answered, bowing slightly before he turned and headed for his personal quarters, unlike most people in NERV, he was quite happy to live inside the Geofront…probably because he felt many people wanted to kill him and he appreciated the layers of titanium battle plate around his bed.

So, I have permission to continue from the Commander Rei thought, letting a slight smile come across her face. Unexpected, but none the less welcome.

The marked NERV car was typical of dozens of such vehicles in service around the city and the driver typical of any number of Section Two agents employed by the UN. He said nothing as she got in, driving without instruction up to a surface based train station a hundred meters from the Headquarters pyramid where a car train waited, loaded with dozens of cars of other late shift NERV personnel waiting to go home. Their car was locked in quickly and soon the train was underway, the platform their car rested on rising slowly on its hinges to keep them level as the train ascended a steep thirty five then forty degree angle track up through the Geofront sky towards the towers suspended above them.

It only took half an hour for the train to drop them off at a convenient car train station, and then drive her the few blocks to her house, Rei politely thanking the driver who nodded before pulling away. She glanced down to a nearby cross street down which Captain Katsuragi's apartment lay and debated if she should 'impose' as the Captain continually insisted she do whenever she wished, but eventually judged the time too late in the evening, deciding to just turn in.

She pulled her key out and entered the secure foyer then took the lift to her floor, noting again that this modern lift was clean, smooth and quick, a far cry from the aged and abused lift at her old apartment, which, she had found to some degree of consternation, was scheduled to be demolished.

It was not as if her new apartment was not in every measurable way superior to her old apartment…but she still felt a slight twinge of regret knowing the place of so many memories was soon to be destroyed as if it never existed…

Enough she told herself as she reached her apartment and took out a second key. The past is just that, it is time to build my future.

The door opened and she entered her apartment with a sigh, turning on the lights as she did so. It was much larger then she would have ever considered had she been given a real choice, almost half the size of Captain Katsuragi's apartment in fact, but Asuka had insisted the convenience of the location was too good to pass up, forwarding the relevant paperwork to the Vice Commander without Rei even knowing, the NERV bureaucracy working surprisingly swiftly for once and before she had truly thought about it, she had moved in. The furnishings were somewhat…sparse, but tasteful, what Rei considered an elegantly understated style where 'less' was 'more'.

The living room had a large soft couch on the far wall that faced the hallway wall and the plasma display hung there –that Asuka had demanded to plug her video game system into at some point- along with a number of bean bags the Second Child had pulled out of her astonishing number of boxes brought over from the Third Branch. A small four place table sat off to the side where the carpet of the lounge room gave way to the tiles of the kitchen, a small but modern and efficient layout she approved of, containing more then ample storage space for her few needs. Beyond the kitchen wall was her bedroom, which backed onto a balcony that ran the rear of her apartment, with a second bedroom opposite it that she had placed a spare futon in, on the off chance anyone ever decided to stay the night.

Next to that spare bedroom and opposite the kitchen was the bathroom and next to that and the entranceway, a small combination laundry / storage space sat.

In short, it was foolishly oversized for her when compared to her last apartment, which had been nothing more then a bedroom/living area, a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom all rolled into two rooms…but she found it none the less a quite pleasant place to live…especially on the few –but hopefully soon more- occasions her friends 'dropped over'.

Placing her school bag in her room, Rei removed the uniform inside and placed it in a dirty clothes bin, before disrobing and changing into her silk night clothes, shivering as always as the garments slid across her skin like a writhing living creature, simply absorbing the pleasant sensations that resulted as she settled into her bed. She glanced out at the night skyline of Tokyo-3, from this angle she could just make out part of the apartment building in which Captain Katsuragi's apartment resided…

And as she closed her eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep, she wondered not for the first time, what it would be like to dream, just once…

("I'm not a child! I'm going to grow up quickly")-

("So look at me")-

("Please, Asuka, die with me")-

("No! I'm not your doll")-

("I'm going to think for myself and live for myself")-

("That Girl over there")-

("Mom! Please, don't quit being my mom")-

("Mom! Mom! I've been chosen")-

("I'm an elite pilot, chosen to protect all of mankind")-

("I'm the best in the world")-

("It's supposed to be a secret! But I'll tell you anyway! Just for you")-

("Everyone will be nice to us from now on")-

("So, we won't be lonely anymore")-

("So, we'll be fine, even without Dad around")-

("We won't be lonely anymore")-

("So, look! Look at me")-

("Come on, Mom…Mom…Mom?")-

-And with a last desperate lurch, Asuka woke, coming off the floor and looking around the darkened room almost wildly as she shook uncontrollably, her face no longer the confident mask she always presented, but that of a terrified four year old as she buried her head in her raised knees and wrapped her arms around her legs tightly.

Slowly however, her racing heart slowed its frantic beating, her body's instinctive reaction to oxygenate her bloodstream as part of the flight / fight response disengaging as she concentrated, intellectualizing the primal feelings to rob them of their power with some success, as she slowly, carefully lowered her back against the futon again.

Outside, she could hear the distant sound of an ambulances siren as it hurried to help someone, feeling a final spike of despair that no-one would be coming to help her as once again, the nightmares returned.

They had been gone for the last week, sleeping next to Misato. She snored so loudly that she was woken up three or four times throughout the night, just as she had started to dream. It had had the effect of breaking her sleep into chunks of a few hours at a time, leaving her slightly cranky in the morning, but she freely and gladly traded the sleep for a respite from the dreams that had battered her year after year after year.

Oh not every night. Sometimes months would go by, causing her to dare to hope that they might have gone for good…then they would crash into her again.

And now, they were back.

She flopped down on the bed as she glanced across at Shinji next to her, his back turned on her as he happily breathed in and out, a sudden surge of envy at his peaceful sleep hitting her as she looked over at him, angrily reaching up to wipe away the tears that had come unbidden while she slept.

It's not fair she thought in quiet despair. Why…why can't I just sleep…what have I done to deserve this…oh Mamma…why did you leave me all alone?

She had asked that question hundreds of times…and once again, no answer came as she shut her eyes, pulled her sheets tighter around herself and grimly settled down, not realizing that she had sprawled out much closer to the slumbering Third Child as she prepared to return to her own private hell.

Slowly she sunk her mind into the depths of unconsciousness and soon she hovered in the poorly defined shadow land between dream and consciousness as she tried -and failed- to return fully to sleep. Relentlessly, her mind fought her bodies demand for release, unconsciously perhaps terrified of returning again to face the horrors.

On the floor with her eyes shut, Asuka fidgeted. Perhaps it was her body randomly shifting, perhaps it was some small part of her unconscious mind seizing an opening. But the end result was that she rolled onto her side…and bumped into Shinji Ikari. On instinct, an arm and a leg came up and over the blissfully ignorant Third Child and latched onto him, her arm across his chest and her leg hooking across and around him, securing her position as her head found a comfortable place behind his, the warmth from his body starting to soak through the thin sheets into her.

She made a content noise and, slowly, the somewhat severe expression on her face melted into a softer, calm and almost content expression as for the first time in far too long, Asuka Langley Soryu feel into a deep, restful, sleep.

Shinji Ikari slowly woke the next morning, feeling strangely, almost overpoweringly…content. The last time he had felt anything like this…

For a sudden, terrifying half a second, he knew had been taken back to the Sea of LCL...or that he had never left it, that it had been nothing but a dream inside a dream.

With skyrocketing apprehension, he opened his eyes-

And breathed a sigh of relief.

He had never been quite so glad to see Misato's living room, the soft yellow light from the sun filtering in, but not yet bright enough to signify it was time to get up, closing his eyes again and sighing slightly, exhaling his panic drain away, as he listened to the faint sound of birds chirping in the hills around Tokyo-3 as he relished the physical sensations of a world of AT fields all around him.

The futon was agreeably supporting, but comfortable. The sheets kept off the chill, but were not thick or heavy enough to annoy him and his pillow was soft under his head. The arm across his chest and its partner leg further down both held him gently, but firmly, pulling him close and allowing the incredibly comfortable warmth from the body next to his to flow into his back, as he lazily concentrated on counting the steady, deep heartbeats he could feel-

Wait a second.

Arm

Leg

Warmth

Heartbeats?

Not daring to move so much as a nanometer, Shinji concentrated on the sensations across his back, all of his senses coming online as his brain shot right to First Stage Alert, screaming at his nervous system for all the information they had ten seconds ago.

Yes. He could feel the chest of a definitely female gender pressing into him, making him swallow despite himself as his mind traced the 'imprint' being made on his back, body warmth soaking into him and trying to entice him to just relax and go to sleep.

THAT was not going to happen, his heart rate now accelerating like a bat out of hell made sure of that.

Tracing forward and across his side, he could feel the arm looping around his own upper arm and down, terminating in what felt like a hand lightly resting against the left side chest moving ever so slightly as he –and probably she- breathed in and out…and now that he concentrated, he could feel an intermittent but regular breeze playing at his hair, almost as if someone was exhaling into it…and he could smell just the faintest hint of a very familiar vanilla and strawberry scent…

Probing further down his body, he found there was no possible mistaking of the grip of the calf and leg that came across his him at his hip, wrapping over and down the other side to entrap his own legs.

Still almost unwilling to believe, he opened his eyes again and directed his focus down.

There was the arm. Elegantly smooth and limber, it was sitting across his chest, with red painted fingernails catching the early morning light most enticingly. Carefully, he risked shifting his head several degrees and looked down as far as he could…yes, he could just make out the sheet covered limb that had engulfed his lower body and tangled them irrevocably together.

Thinking faster then he ever had, he glanced 'forward' at the same cabinet Asuka had spied him in the night before last…and in the slightly angled reflection, he could make out Asuka Langley Soryu pressing right up behind him, holding him like a lover with a content look on her face that he knew must have matched the look on his, before he woke up.

It all added up to one, inescapable conclusion.

'You are a dead man, Shinji Ikari' his mind notified him with a mental shrug.

He consoled himself with the fact that Asuka was at least holding (or hugging?) him from behind. Had he woken up face to face with her at this range, he probably would have started shaking so violently that she would have woken up…and, well, that would have been that. At least this way, he had time to think, plan and, God willing, escape.

Ever so carefully, he started to move his right arm, pinned under hers, trying to nudge it away-

-And almost at once, it flexed and simply pulled him tighter into her, with a slightly annoyed murmur from behind him telling the folly of that idea.

Okay. He couldn't get out that way…perhaps if he shuffled his legs forward…

No luck. Strange, he had always fantasized about being trapped between Asuka's thighs…but he had never thought there would be so much terror involved. It was funny the way some things came true…

He forced himself to relax, counting slowly to twenty before he started to think the problem through. He examined it patiently from every angle; every perspective…and his mind calmly reported the only logical conclusion.

I'm screwed…Okay, okay. Don't panic…

Then, with a sinking feeling, he felt tremors pass through Asuka's body followed by a slight sigh, both of which hit him with the force of an earthquake and a trumpet fanfare respectively, announcing to him that the Second Child had started to awaken.

Oh who the hell are you kidding Ikari, panic!

With no other options remaining, he played dead, shutting his eyes and 'going back to sleep' in the hope that Asuka might at least put off killing him until he could enjoy it, awake, on as many levels as she would…

Asuka slowly returned from the land of dreams, feeling so utterly relaxed and rested that she had to fight off an instinctive flash of annoyance at the fact that she was going to have to get up soon. Since coming to Japan, she had never had a night's sleep that had left her in anything like this state…and she didn't want it to end too soon.

She wasn't sure if it was because she couldn't get used to sleeping on the floor, or Misato's snoring on the times she stayed out here and not in her room, but her sleep had consequently ranged from barely adequate to poor. But this morning…she felt better then she had in months. After her first bout of nightmares, her dreams had been full of joy, hope and peace, of friend and family, of good times and fond memories, the specters vanquished to somewhere she didn't care to figure out. Even now, she just felt so wonderful, lying on her side and lazily hanging onto the wonderfully warm, soft and comfortable blanket, keeping her eyes shut as she felt the faint thumping of its heart beating, surprised at how fast it sounded to her…her…heart?

Heart?

Asuka's eyes snapped open, focusing on a mess of chestnut colored hair in front of her face. Almost in disbelief, she flexed her limbs slightly…yup; she was hanging onto Shinji like Misato protecting a slab of beer during an intervention.

From their positions, she made a guess that she'd rolled over and latched onto him at some point during the night…and as she lay there half stunned at this sudden twist in her situation, the rational, logical part of her mind had to wonder if this could be why she felt so perfectly at peace this morning. As crazy as it sounded…could simply holding Shinji in her sleep have had such a profoundly relaxing (and calming) effect on her dreams?

Because the fact was, she had never been able to escape the nightmares before. Oh she had avoided them. She had endured them. She had suffered through them, crying herself back to sleep again and again in Berlin and Munich…but they had never just cut off halfway through the night, swamped and buried under such a feeling of peace.

She had never woken up the next morning feeling so…so alive.

But she would not be able to look Shinji in the face today if he woke up and found her clinging to the back of him like some scared child. Biting her lip, she ever so slowly lifted her leg away from Shinji, out then up, grateful that her aerobic exercise programs had left her with such fine muscle control as she removed her leg without disturbing the apparently blissfully happy Third Child.

Damn right he should be happy she thought to herself with a smile crossing her face as she studied Shinji in the reflection of the cabinet beyond him. But then again…so am I. I don't know how the Baka did it…but if he managed to take the nightmares away by me holding onto him…then…well…

Carefully, she drew back her arm and pulled her chest and hips out of contact with Shinji, shivering slightly at she was suddenly robbed of the warmth of the close contact, before she frowned, hesitated, then leaned back towards his ear.

"Thank you, Baka," she whispered in a low, almost inaudible tone to the sleeping Third Child, before easing away and getting to her feet, slowly walking to the bathroom…and missing the slightest smile that came across the face of Shinji Ikari, on the living room floor behind her.

"Hey Shinji, wait up a minute will you?" Misato called out as Shinji got up to head for the door as the tone of the doorbell faded, having been rung at exactly seven fifty AM, Japan Standard Time. Rain, hail or shine, Rei Ayanami arrived with a precision that was somewhat spooky to anyone who didn't know her…and almost as much to those who did.

"Uh Misato, Rei's here" Shinji pointed out as he hesitated in his half standing half sitting position, glancing at Asuka in the hallway who was struggling to get her shoes on while snarling as she hopped around on one foot, saying something mildly insulting about the Japanese customs governing wearing shoes inside a house. "We need to get going or we'll be late".

"Its okay, I'll drop you at school" his guardian called cheerfully. "I just need to talk to you about something real quick, okay?"

"Hey, how come he gets a ride and I have to walk?" Asuka demanded as she finally got her shoes on, picking up her 'briefcase' style bag and glaring down the hallway at Misato, who was leaning against the hallway wall with a moderately serious expression on her face.

"Because it's good exercise and I need to talk to Shinji alone about something".

Shinji couldn't help but notice how Asuka's face twitched slightly at the fact that she was being excluded from this conversation…and he saw enough in that twitch to let him know she was worried.

He could guess what was going through her mind, because it was probably the exact same thought going through his.

Misato knows! Oh God...not 'The Talk'...anything but 'The Talk'...

The thought blasted through his mind, obliterating any and all other concerns of any and all other issues of the day he might have been thinking about in an instant as he turned back to face Misato, franticly trying to school his face into an expression of simple curiosity as Asuka attempted a final protest.

"Well why can't I-"

"Now Asuka" Misato ordered in a tone that while still polite, did not invite refusal, the 'Captain' tone that not even Asuka would really try to push against.

Asuka managed to avoid chewing on her lip through shear willpower, not willing to show such a clear sign of weakness. If Misato had seen her last night, holding onto Shinji and she told him about it now –after she had declined to say anything about it to Shinji after waking up, she didn't know if she would be able to look Shinji in the face for the rest of the day…or week.

But unable to do anything about it and too smart to waste energy arguing when there was both no hope of winning and every possibility that she would draw attention to something she didn't want attention drawn to, she just turned to the door, shot a…well, a look at Shinji's back before walking down the hallway, stepping outside to greet Rei and shutting the door behind her

Shinji slowly sat back down at the table, Misato taking the seat opposite him at the far end of the table, making him suddenly flash back to his debriefing with the JDA a week ago…

"So, Shinji," Misato greeted him as she settled. "We…need to talk about what -"

Shinji Ikari cracked.

It might have been the semi serious look on her face. It might have been the fact that she had her NERV uniform on, putting her in the persona of 'Captain Katsuragi'. But his façade cracked none the less and it all come pouring out as he desperately tried to justify himself and 'his' actions in some kind of crazy plea for leniency.

"It's not my fault! I was asleep and she leaned over and held onto me and I didn't know because I was asleep and I woke up and she was hanging onto me I didn't say anything cause I didn't think she knew that I knew and she just wouldn't let me go when I tried to get away and I just didn't think that it was important to tell you that…that…"

Shinji's incoherent rambling slowed, then cut off as he noticed Misato wasn't looking at him in disappointment, anger, or even acceptance…but confusion.

Confusion that gave way to a surprise…which mutated into amusement…and then exploded into laughter.

"You…you had Asuka grab onto you last night?" she cackled, dropping her folder onto the table and thumping her body back against the wall for support as she was wracked by incessant giggling. "And you thought that I…I…" Misato tried to get out, before giving up and spending a good twenty seconds as she tried to get herself back under control.

"Oh Shinji, I knew I should have checked on you both when I got home" she muttered, all but gloating at his scarlet faced discomfort as he found a wonderfully interesting pattern in the apartments carpet, refusing to look up as he realized how stupid he had just been.

"Mis…Misato, please don't-"

"It's okay, I'm just teasing you Shinji," she chortled with a wave of her hand, her tone slowly mutating into a more friendly and less mocking one. "I know you would never do anything to Asuka…and she would never let you do anything," Misato said, before she paused and tilted her head slightly with a curious look. "Unless of course she wanted you to 'do' something to her…"

Shinji just groaned, folded his arms on the table and crashed his head into the safe, dark place created there.

"Hey look, come on, I'm just joking," she called out, causing him to slowly raise his head, wondering precisely how much more his circulatory system could take today from these blood pressure spikes before he had a heart attack.

"I know…" he agreed with a rather weak smile, "but she wouldn't be".

"Which is why we won't tell her that you know," Misato assured him as she reached out for the dropped folder, her face still furiously twitching as she fought the laughter back down. "If anything, I'd say she looked far happier this morning then she had in a long time, it might have done her a world of good to sleep with you, if you'll pardon the expression".

Shinji could appreciate that. Her honest comment to him (even if she had thought he was asleep) of thanks, combined with Asuka's somewhat chipper attitude at breakfast had let him know that whatever else, she had actually gotten a good nights sleep and he knew better then anyone just how rare that could be for her.

"So um…how can I help you Misato-San?"

"Oh nothing much…I just wanted to know why you have gone to such lengths to get the school dance going," she shrugged. "You got the Vice Commander to put it back on somehow and you've brought eleven girls in your year rather stunning dresses anomalously through Hikari, then after making yourself unavailable, you turned around and accepted the offer of a girl you've known for far less time then any of them, without protest."

Shinji felt his jaw drop.

"Um, how did you-"

"All your financial activity statements for the month get forwarded to my terminal," Misato explained. "And the Commander briefed me on your…activities with the Vice Commander when he called me into his office and told me I would have to go to the dance and watch you three."

"Uh, sorry about that," Shinji winced, knowing that most sane NERV personnel spent a great deal of time avoiding his Fathers office if at all possible.

Misato however, just waved it off.

"No big deal" she shrugged. "I got the impression he didn't really care about this whole thing anyway, he just wanted to make sure there was a certain level of security and safety provided...but he didn't really tell me anything about the why." Misato sighed, easing her coffee cup away with a finger as she offered him a comforting smile.

"No I meant you having to go and baby-sit all of us at the dance" he corrected her. "I mean I know it's your job, but-"

"Screw my job," she snorted softly, her eyes not shifting from him. "But it's not your job to look after everyone but yourself. You had barely even started at your new school when the dance was called off, but you went to a great deal of effort to get it put back on. Then you provided funds, anomalously, to ensure no girl would be without a dress. Then you worked to hook up Rei with a date…even if she eventually had to take matters into her own hands."

Misato paused in thought for a second. "That girl has issues…but damn if she doesn't look good in a dress…" she muttered before she shook her head. "Anyway. Then, you reject taking anyone to the dance after you went to so much trouble to get it put back on, until Asuka arrived and forced the issue!"

"I'm not sure I get your point" he said with a slight frown.

Misato raised an eyebrow as she opened the folder which Shinji was able to read as some kind of account printout, tracing her finger down the list.

"So far you've brought all those dresses, fixed my car for me, brought a few bits and pieces for Rei's new apartment, brought a lot of food –mostly for Asuka and not you, as well as a few other small things for this place…and the only things I can find that you've brought for yourself are the tuxedo for this dance…which you only brought because Asuka dragged you to it, and those new clothes a week ago, because she dragged you along shopping." Misato looked up with a genuine look of concern at him as she closed the folder. "Shinji, you've been running around like the worlds greatest problem solver. And, well, I'd like to know why you've been intent on doing anything but cutting yourself some slack."

Shinji just blinked.

It was all too easy to think that Misato was an airhead, without anything resembling a brain inside her head, especially after she had knocked back a few cans of Yebisu. But he had forced himself since coming back to remember that she had been to college with Ritusko and she had managed to hack into the MAGI system when she put her mind to it…at the end.

She was not an idiot, even if it suited her most of the time to play the giddy party animal.

But how could he possibly explain why helping those he loved brought him such incredible joy?

How getting Rei to open up, watching as she slowly crawled out of the shell his Father had nailed shut around her, had made him so proud of her he could have cried?

How when Asuka had 'asked' him to go to the dance with her, that it had taken all his willpower not to strut around the shopping center for the next six hours, smirking at everyone he saw with a goofy grin?

How providing his classmates some kind of joy in their life of Angel attacks and friends vanishing gave him a kind of satisfaction that he had never felt before in his life?

Or how doing such small inconsequential things for Misato like fixing her car, were the most pathetically small things he could do to make her happy, after she had given up her life to save his?

How the hell could he explain that?

"It was just because I felt a bit guilty," he sighed finally, telling part of the truth and hoping it would be enough.

He was just getting so sick of lying to everyone.

Especially Misato.

"Why?" she asked, though he could see in her expression that she had made a guess.

"The dance had been canceled because the insurance wouldn't cover it," he explained. "And the reason because it wouldn't cover it, is that the Angel attacks had screwed up everything in this city."

"And you felt responsible for that?" Misato asked with a raised eyebrow.

"According to Doctor Akagi, the Angels keep attacking Tokyo-3 because the Evangelions are here" Shinji pointed out with a slight snort. "That sort of says it all, doesn't it?"

Of course he knew that was a load of crap and he suspected Misato thought as much. Strategically, Tokyo-3 was little more then a gigantic lure for the Angels, that much was true. But the bait was Lilith, the echo of the second Angel apparently so similar to the minute heartbeat of the First that the Angels were inevitably been drawn here when they awoke.

Well except Gaghiel, who had passed close enough to the real Adam to go into a frenzy.

"So one way or the other, we're responsible for the problems caused by the Angel attacks. My classmates had the dance taken from them for no good reason, just illegal profiteering. I could do something about it, so I diddo something about it."

There, that should be believable enough-

"I don't believe you".

Dang.

"You piloted Unit One initially because Rei would have been put in mortal danger. I saw the look in your eyes when you and your Father talked; I felt more warmth when I was at the South Pole fifteen years ago, I didn't think there was anyway you were going to get into the Eva. But when Rei was wheeled out, you changed your mind and you've been frankly, protecting and helping her ever since then. And Asuka…" she shook her head slightly. "I was thinking that you two needed 'The Talk' sometime, I'll probably have to expedite it after what happened on the floor last night".

"Um…my Uncle gave me the talk a year ago," Shinji muttered but Misato just kept talking without noticing.

"Shinji, I don't know why you're so dead set on trying to help everyone around you, just that you appear…well, driven to do so. The fact that you look so happy while doing it has delayed me having this conversation with you for some time, but I have to have it now. I want a promise".

"A promise of…?" he asked carefully, feeling suddenly trapped as Misato let her lips twitch slightly into a somewhat sinister smile.

"I want you to promise me that you'll go to this dance and enjoy yourself. Not fret about Toji or Kensuke or Rei or Hikari or even Asuka. Not look to help half your class…I just you to say screw it to the rest of the world for a night and have fun".

"You're…ordering me to have fun at the school dance," he said in a somewhat amused tone.

"You got it," Misato beamed.

Shinji rolled his eyes.

"Oh gee, Yes Ma'am Captain Katsuragi" he said with a mock salute. "Have fun at the dance, it will be hard, but I will be sure to – ouch!"

Shinji's slightly sarcastic response cut off as Misato kicked him under the table, causing him to jump half out of his chair before easing back down.

"As I was saying," Misato continued in a perfectly calm and all too happy tone as she ignored his surreptitious rubbing of his shin bone, "I want to see you have fun there, not just get dragged in on Asuka's arm as a glorified evening bag. You need to learn to live a little Shinji. There isn't any point in saving the world unless you can enjoy it".

Trust me Misato, I do appreciate it…I appreciate this world more then you can ever possibly know…

"Misato…" Shinji sighed slightly. "It's not that I never wanted to go to the dance. As I said to Asuka, it was just because I didn't have anyone to take. All the girls in the class who kept offering to go with me just saw the famous Evangelion pilot, the hero, the whatever. None of them, except Rei, had a clue whatit meant to step into Unit One and fight the Angels. As far as they all know, it's just a giant robot daddy gave me to play with, like a giant video game."

Shinji took a breath and swallowed before plunging on, noting how he was coming dangerously close to saying things he shouldn't.

"I don't hate any of them, it's just that none of them were at all interested in getting to know me, except for Rei, and I've connected to her on a level that just didn't feel…" he struggled for a word, "right, for someone to take to the dance. Asuka…" he paused and smiled slightly. "I did think about asking her soon after I saw her…but frankly, I was convinced I never had a chance in hell, until she asked me."

There was silence in the room for a few seconds before he continued, looking at her with a level, earnest expression.

"You don't have to worry that I'm not going to enjoy myself Misato…I…I've wanted to go with her almost from the first time I saw her. I don't know if she asked me just because I was a convenient target or not, but I'm going to make the most of this and just enjoy myself…even if she really doesn't care about taking me."

Well that was true enough. It had taken him all of six seconds from hearing of the dance (and its cancellation) from Toji to thinking about taking Asuka to it. There had been, of course, the slight problem that he hadn't had the first clue how to get her to go with him and he had resigned himself to asking and probably failing…until he had talked to Kaji, the master of masters of manipulation, finally understating why Misato had been so utterly suspicious and cautious around him for so very long, before just letting herself go.

Misato returned his stare for several seconds, her eyes boring into his rather uncomfortably as if trying to judge the truth of his statements, before they softened and she blinked, smiling slowly as she stood.

"I think you might be surprised Shinji," she commented cryptically, closing the folder and getting up. "Come on, let's get you to school."