From: eltf@hotmail.com (Eliot Lefebvre)
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] Neon Epoch Evangelion: Episode 12
X-Original-Date: 4 Nov 2002 05:14:37 -0800

I just want to use your pre-story warning tonigh:

This fanfic is an original take on GAINAX's "Shin Seiki Evangelion."
It contains alternative characters, plots, and a different overriding
internal logic.  It is intended, from the beginning, to be different.
This includes different Children and different histories.  In short: if 
the mere thought of someone other than Shinji in the cockpit of EVA-01 
makes you queasy, you are in -entirely- the wrong place.  Any and all 
flames stemming from this alteration will be mocked mercilessly.  You 
have been warned.

The final episode of NEE, incidentally, has been written.  Pre-readers 
have been thrilled by the ending, including the part where... well, 
you'll get there in due time.  Until then, please enjoy this episode.

Not much else to say.  Vice City is owning my soul.

                                  ]++[

               ]+ ELECTRONIC TRANSCENDENCE PRODUCTIONS +[
                                presents

                         ]+ NEON       EPOCH +[
                   ]+ E  V  A  N  G  E  L  I  O  N +[

                   ]+ EPISODE 12: A NAME LIKE HOME +[

                     By Eliot "Lostfactor" Lefebvre

             Based off of "Shin Seiki Evangelion" by GAINAX

                                  ]++[

But when you pray, close the door and pray to your Father, who is
unseen.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward
you.
- MATTHEW 6:6

                                  ]++[

It had been a night of little sleep for Neil, his mind filled with
things that he didn't want to think about even in his dreams, ranging
from simple guilt to outright terror, the single green eye that he
assumed was his still-lingering memory of EVA-01 watching over
everything like some kind of demonic overseer.  That in and of itself
was nothing particularly unusual - Neil had always been unusually prone
to nightmares - but what was unusual was that he was able to finally
wake from them and drift back to a mostly-dreamless sleep, the only
image drifting through his dormant brain one of he and Nieve sitting on
a cliff naked and staring at the setting sun, asexual enough to avoid
him feeling guilty about it when he finally did wake up far later than
usual.  Even the way that he awakened felt awkward, a slow drift into
wakefulness instead of the quick shift that he was accustomed to.

When he did actually wake up, he realized fairly quickly that he'd
overslept far beyond his usual waking hour by the sheer emptiness of
the kitchen and hallway slightly outside his room.  A quick examination
of the lowered area by the doorway revealed that Misato's shoes were
already gone, and noticing that Nieve's door was open he realized that
the girl had already gotten in the shower, something that he knew would
take some time.  Misato had left him a quick note on his door asking
him to bring the trash down to the disposal, and with nothing but the
sound of rushing water from the shower to keep him company he had
breakfast fairly silently, the yellowish walls of the apartment feeling
at once oppressive and numbingly open.

By the time he was getting dressed, Nieve was out of the shower, and
while he had the urge to peek out and try and catch a glimpse of the
girl in her towel as she walked back to her room, he resisted it,
feeling slightly guilty even for thinking it as he buttoned his light
green shirt slowly, the fabric swishing loosely over his jeans.  It
even felt slightly silly to be thinking about trying to struggle for
glimpses of Nieve with her clothes off, especially after the girl had
all but offered herself to him two days prior.  Sighing heavily at the
thought and only vaguely curious about why she hadn't pursued the
subject, he exited his room a minute or two after he heard Nieve close
her door, grabbing the dark green trash bag and slipping on his shoes
before he headed out the door, certain that Nieve wasn't going to worry.

The apartment building itself was largely open, bay windows facing the
front doors of each of the apartments along the buildings, a hallway
running around the apartments and to the stairwell that led down to the
garbage disposal.  Neil's feet knew the path well enough to walk it
almost blindfolded, and he let his thoughts drift as he walked slowly
down the hallway, morning sunlight streaming in from one side and
bluish-white painted walls on the other, making the entire hallway seem
almost unbearably bright.  The thought that he could walk the path down
to the trash with so much confidence was in a way slightly encouraging,
letting him know full well that he was beginning to feel normal in
Tokyo-3, even with the Evangelions.

"And that I'm lonely," he muttered to himself as he reached the
stairwell, the relief from the reflected light of the sun a welcome one
as he stepped into the windowless stairwell and begain to descend
towards the ground.  His words made him feel a little selfish, but he
knew that it was the truth - for all that he felt normal, he felt
alone, as though despite his position of importance he was better off
kept separate from the other inhabitants of Tokyo-3, like some kind of
caged beast.  The fact that he was so obviously not a true resident of
Japan seemed more to aggravate the problem than to cause it, and as he
stepped out the door of the stairwell to the outside he caught sight of
a pair of Japanese women chatting with one another, moving slightly
away from the entrance once they noticed that Neil was coming out.

Sighing, Neil made his way across the white concrete terrace of the
building, heading towards the boxed-in areas that the Japanese used to
dispose of their trash, passing by numerous clotheslines and ignoring
the stares he received as he walked.  He'd always been something of a
loner, and part of him wanted to believe that his increasing loneliness
came primarily from that fact, the fact that he simply tended not to
associate with many people in a normal situation.  Still, that didn't
explain why he felt lonely even in the apartment that was supposedly
his home, why it felt as though he was distant even from Nieve.  Even
though he knew on an academic level that things were getting more
normal for him, as he reached the small sectioned-off trash area he
realized that they didn't feel any more normal.

The trash bag was lighter than usual, and Neil threw the green
container into the area, knowing that the rest was up to the disposal
staff that would come by slightly later in the day.  Turning back
towards the apartment building and sticking his hands in his pockets,
he sighed once again, scuffing his way towards the building, head
turned downward slightly, the fact that he'd gotten up late beginning
to get to him.  He wanted, more than anything, to be able to shake the
awkward feeling of loneliness that he'd gotten from the apartment, and
he knew that the only real way of doing that was going back in time and
waking up when he usually did, sitting down to breakfast with Misato
and Nieve like every morning.  It would have been enough of a
distraction for at least a little while, even if it wouldn't have
solved the problem.

As he walked, his peripheral vision unconciously caught sight of the
neat row of mailboxes, set unassumingly against the wall of the
building facing towards the trash area.  Neil's thoughts scattered for
a moment, and reaching into his pocket he produced the key, slipping it
into the lock for Misato's mailbox and pulling out the stack of letters
within, noticing immediately that there was a rather unassuming-looking
brown paper box mixed in with the others.  Feeling a minor surge of
excitement, Neil moved the other letters out of the way, staring at the
box and flicking his eyes up to the return address, a grin slowly
spreading across his face.

Fastening the last few buttons on the sleeveless red blouse, Nieve
grinned at herself momentarily in the mirror, her fingers hesitating
and then abandoning the task of fastening the top two buttons.  Much as
she disliked the heat of Tokyo-3, it did give her an excuse to wear
unusually comfortable clothes, and there seemed to be more of an open
attitude towards dress, certainly more than she'd expected to find.
Opening the door to her room and grabbing her book from her desk, she
glanced quickly into Neil's room to confirm that he wasn't there, then
stepped lightly into the living room, determined to enjoy herself.  Her
back had finally stopped hurting from the combination of lava and acid
over a course of two days, and she took the fact to be a good sign,
that the best thing she could do was to simply read a good book and
enjoy the day.

Pulling down the shade of the window in the living room before sitting
on the couch, she leaned back and grinned, plucking the unfastened
neckline of her blouse slightly and doing her best to settle the fabric
of her short skirt so that she wasn't revealing too much.  "Couldn't
hurt if I reminded Neil of what he was missing," she muttered to
herself, cracking the book open to the spot she'd left off at.  She'd
realized that the direct approach didn't seem to be working with Neil,
and while she couldn't fathom why, she'd found that he seemed to be at
least slightly more responsive to her simply being herself, something
that she was more than willing to do.

Hearing the front door open, she took a deep breath, less out of a need
to give herself confidence and more in hopes of making her bust look
larger, slightly thankful that Misato wasn't at home to make her
efforts look trivial.  Letting the book snap shut once again, she
leaned forward to say something to Neil, then noticed that he was
carrying the mail, his eyes intently focusing on a single brown package
as he idly tossed the rest on the kitchen counter.  Nieve hesitated for
a moment, then stepped quietly over towards Neil as he sat down at the
table, apparently not noticing the girl approaching him as he tore the
box open.

"What's that?" asked Nieve at length, peering over Neil's shoulder and
letting her chest rest slightly on his back at the same instant,
stunning him ever so slightly and giving him a moment of pause.  The
box had opened to reveal a stack of folded papers, and taking advantage
of Neil's momentary reverie she darted her hand out and snatched the
one closest to the top, drawing away from Neil almost the second that
her fingers closed around the smooth white paper.

A slow trickle of apprehension flooded through Neil for reasons that he
couldn't entirely place at the knowledge that Nieve was holding the
letter, and he pushed his chair back and stood, turning toward Nieve
and looking at her rather sternly.  That seemed to only make her
happier, and she backed towards the living room, waving the letter
temptingly in front of him.  "Nieve, come on, give it back," he said
firmly, walking towards her and feeling unusually immature as she began
to circle the couch.

"No, no, now I want to know what these are," replied Nieve, stepping
slowly at the same pace that Neil was following her, slowly leading
them in a circle around the living room, circling the couch in the
center as they passed the television, then the window, then the
bookshelf opposite the television.  "Come on.  Don't I get to find
out?  Are they poetry you've written?  Naughty pictures?  Articles on
movies?"  She smiled mischeviously, dancing backwards as Neil tried to
increase his pace to catch up with the girl.  "Letters from your secret
lovers?"

The last question elicited a frown from Neil, and he froze in place as
Nieve continued to move, obviously quite happy with the game.  "Wait,"
he said, shaking his head and looking somewhat confused.  "Aren't we...
I mean, haven't you said we... shouldn't you..."  He stared at the
girl, and she simply smiled, beckoning for him to come after her.  He
shook his head for a moment, then jumped over the couch, eliciting a
shout of pleasant surprise from the girl as she slipped out of the way,
stepping away and beginning to unfold the paper in her hands.

Once again, the boy lunged towards her, and Nieve kept moving, trying
to open and read the paper as the room blurred around her, giggling
almost involuntarily.  She could see that the paper was on some kind of
letterhead, which at least implied that it was of relative importance,
but the exact logo was difficult to make out as she felt Neil grab at
her, trying to stop her from reading the letter.  "Ooh, now I'd bet
that these -are- from your secret lovers.  All the girls who you've
left broken-hearted.  You bad, bad man."

His face drifting somewhere between a grimace and a smirk, Neil lunged
at the girl once again, and Nieve accelerated her movements, circling
the couch even as Neil pursued her.  Clearing her throat, she stopped
by the arm of the couch momentarily, then let out a giggling shriek as
Neil tackled her, both Children falling over the arm of the couch and
onto the soft green cushions.  "Give it back!" Neil said, unable to
keep the humor from drifting into his voice as he snatched at the
letter, not even noticing that he was lying on top of Nieve as the girl
wormed her way onto the seat of the couch, his body pressing down on
her just enough to make it difficult for her to keep away from him.

Nieve shot a quick glance back towards Neil, then stared at the letter,
lying facedown on the couch as she squirmed free to the seats, Neil's
body pressing down on top of her as he snatched at her.  "'Dear Mr.
Richelieu,'" she announced proudly, giggling as Neil seemed to redouble
his efforts, the entire couch moving slightly as the two bodies
thrashed.  "'We are pleased to announce that your request for a
correspondence learning program with Pritchett's Academy has been
accepted without hesitation.'"  Nieve felt herself flush a bright red,
the words sinking in as Neil's motions slowed.  "Um.  Neil, I -"

"Don't worry about it," replied Neil, reaching over one last time and
snatching the paper out of Nieve's hands somewhat defiantly.  She
stared at Neil for a moment, then at the empty space in her hands as
Neil rolled off of her onto his feet.  "If you need me, I'll be at the
table reading through this stuff.  It'll probably take a while."  He
flashed her a quick smile, feeling somewhat better both from the
arrival of the letters and the short interaction with Nieve as he
walked back towards the now-opened box.

For a moment, Nieve lingered on the couch, the soft warmth and pressure
from Neil's body still seeming to linger in place as he left, her hair
falling loosely around her face and moving gently as she exhaled.
There had been something in that moment, something magical, something
that she wanted to recapture even though she knew it was too late.
Breathing a tiny sigh, she shoved herself to her feet, stepping over to
the kitchen table as Neil began to unpack the contents of the box.
"You can't let me see that much and then not explain the rest," she
said firmly, once again leaning over his shoulder, this time propping
one arm against the back of his chair.  "What's going on here?"

"I..."  Neil shook his head, then turned to look at Nieve, the girl
still giving him an oddly mischevious smile.  "When I got to Tokyo-3, I
was pretty much exempt from school, on account of not speaking Japanese
and all.  But it felt weird not having any work to do occasionally...
too much free time, if you know what I mean.  Besides, I'd fall behind
if I didn't do something, and the Angels are going to stop attacking
eventually.  So I wrote a letter to the school that I'd attended back
in America."  He shrugged.  "My mom probably had a quick talk with
them, to boot.  I doubt that the implication I was with NERV
particularly phased the headmaster."

"Hmm."  Nieve nodded, then reached over and drew out one of the other
pieces of paper, unfolding it and examining the text on it.  "Looks
like fairly standard stuff," she noted, skimming a paragraph on the
American Civil War briefly before refolding the paper and replacing it
in the box.  "Nothing that we didn't cover in university.  If you need
any help, I could probably lend a hand."  She pecked Neil quickly on
the cheek, then turned and started walking back towards the living
room, the matter closed as far as she was concerned.

Neil stared at the girl for a second, then stood, one sentence that
she'd said sticking out in his mind like a sore thumb.  "Hold on a
second," he said, slightly louder than he'd meant to just in hopes of
getting Nieve's attention.  The girl paused, then turned her head back
towards him, her red hair swishing about in an oddly alluring manner.
"You went to university?"  She nodded.  "But... aren't you sixteen?"

"Wouldn't be able to pilot the Evas otherwise," she replied with a
smirk, tilting her head slightly to one side and taking momentary
pleasure in the look of complete befuddlement on Neil's face.  She let
it linger for a moment, taking pleasure in his oddly uncomfortable
stare, then turned fully towards him, once again taking a deep breath
and trying to push up her chest as much as possible.  "I've been in
NERV's schooling program since I was about eight.  It's an accelerated
program.  Graduated with my bachelor's degree a little while before I
came here."

The boy was still frowning, and Nieve had to consciously suppress a
giggle, his befuddlement inexplicably amusing.  "I didn't think that
NERV had a school program," he said at length, sounding somewhat put
off.  "When I first got here, Misato said that I would have to make
other arrangements for school, that NERV didn't provide education."

"Probably because you haven't been involved in the program from the
beginning," replied Nieve with a shrug, crossing her arms lightly
across her chest, looking less angry and more scholarly as she grinned
at the boy.  "I wouldn't be surprised if the other branches of NERV
don't have an education program, frankly.  I heard that it was
originally going to be instituted at all the branches, but the only
branch that actually wound up going through with it was the Irish
one."  She lowered her head slightly, her voice going down a note as
though she was rmembering something that she didn't want to.  "Dad
always said that Mom threatened to leave the agency if they didn't have
some kind of schooling program, considering my age and everything.  It
was one of the only things that she insisted on."

Neil simply stared at Nieve as she stared at the floor, the light from
the ceiling glancing off the faintest trace of liquid around her eyes.
He took a step towards her, but before he could even open his mouth her
head had already snapped up, once again smiling, the small beads of
liquid still visible at the corners of her eyes as she ignored them.
"Well, you've got work to do," she said flatly, turning once again
towards the living room and stepping lightly towards the couch.  "Like
I said, I'll be in here.  If you need any help with your work, feel
free to ask."

Staring at the girl as she moved to the couch, Neil slowly turned back
towards his box, trying to figure out why he got the lingering feeling
that there was something Nieve wasn't telling him.  For a moment he
felt as though he should pursue her, that she was just pretending to be
all right when she really needed someone to console her.  Glancing into
the living room, he saw that she'd already leaned back into the couch
cushions, reading through the book in her hands as though nothing had
happened.  Shaking his head, he sat back down at the table, reaching in
to draw out the papers and organize them, a nagging curiosity at the
back of his head that he was trying to silence.

                                  ]++[

Her seat towards the front, Hikari stood and turned towards the rest of
the class, blue eyes flashing as she ordered the class to stand and bow
as the professor left the room.  It was nothing unusual, and as the
class bowed the whispers of the students had already begun, lunchtime
starting and bringing with it the promise of a temporary relief from
the drab walls of the classroom.  Almost the instant that the professor
had actually stepped out of the door, the entire class became filled
with noise, students talking loudly with one another about what was
going on for lunch, who was considering dating whom, the latest video
games revealed down at the arcade, all the mundane little things that
composed their day-to-day lives.

Vash, for his part, simply leaned back in his chair and smirked,
finally feeling comfortable inside the classroom once again.  He hadn't
been as involved in the battle against the Ninth Angel as he would have
liked, and there weren't the same sort of obvious results that came
around when he and Neil had fought the Seventh.  Still, all things
considered, he'd been able to finally live up to the boasts he had made
when he'd first become a pilot, something that seemed to make it
socially acceptable to be around him once again.  "Hey, Kensuke," he
said firmly, trying to draw the other boy's attention.  "What did you
want to do for lunch today?"

"Nothing special," replied the blonde-haired boy, intently typing away
on his small red laptop computer.  It was nothing unusual for the boy,
especially since the Angels had begun to return - since he was so close
to two of the pilots, Kensuke had informed both Vash and Eiko on a
regular basis that he'd grown immensely in popularity on the various
military sites.  "Just eating, once I finish replying to these
questions about the Ninth and what you did against it."  He paused for
a moment, then tilted his head back towards Vash, smirking slightly as
he adjusted his thick glasses.  "You've got something better planned?"

"Much better," replied Vash, pushing back with his chair and standing
in one smooth motion.  The heads of most of the students turned back
towards him, and he stood for a moment without moving before he drew
his sunglasses out from a pocket of his black windbreaker, letting
everyone watch as he flicked the orange-tinted glasses open and
smoothly placed them on his face.  "All right, everyone!  -I'm- going
out to the courtyard, and -I'm- going to be having lunch there.  If
anyone wants to hang out with your favorite Eva pilot -" he smirked
slightly, the sheer camp value of his words hitting him as he tilted
his head slightly forward "- you're welcome to join me!"

Without any further urging necessary, the entire class seemed to
suddenly surge outwards towards the courtyard, and Vash couldn't help
but smile at the newfound publicity.  He flashed a quick victory sign
to Kensuke, who merely grinned and shook his head, and waited for a
moment until most of the students had already departed, walking over to
Eiko as Kensuke shut down and folded up his laptop.  "You coming,
honey?" he asked the girl, sitting down lightly on her desk and placing
a hand on her shoulder.

Eiko looked up from her sketchbook, letting her pencil fall against the
paper and leaning up to give Vash a quick peck on the cheek.  "I
thought we were planning on having a quiet lunch together, just the two
of us," she replied, sounding just the slightest bit hurt as she
gestured down towards her sketchbook.  Vash followed her gesture,
unable to keep from smirking at the sight of himself in a long red
trenchcoat sitting next to Eiko, both of them on a hill beneath an
apple tree.  "Guess you're going to have to tell everyone to postpone,
right?"

A lump formed in Vash's throat, his mind suddenly whirling and trying
to figure out a way to have things both ways, to keep Eiko from being
upset with him and still enjoy his newfound popularity.  His mouth felt
unusually dry as he started to speak, and Eiko could tell just from the
look on his face that something was wrong, that they weren't going to
have lunch together that day.  "Eiko, honey, I'm sorry, I completely
forgot," he begged, seeming aware of the fact that she knew what was
going on as she turned away from him.  "I couldn't tell everyone that I
wasn't going now.  They'd think I was..."  He trailed off, lacking a
decent ending to his sentence as he gently squeezed Eiko's shoulder.

"I understand," the girl said, nodding slightly and trying to hide her
disappointment, looking up towards Vash and smiling despite herself.
The expression seemed to relieve him slightly, and Eiko felt her hands
tighten slightly at the thought, at once pleased that he was happier
when she was and angry that he didn't seem to be as concerned with her
thoughts on the matter.  "Just go.  I'll get some work done in my
sketchbook."

"Thanks, honey," Vash said emphatically, leaning over and pecking Eiko
gently on the cheek, not noticing the small frown drifting across the
girl's face as she gently picked up her pencil once again.  "I'll have
lunch alone with you tomorrow."  He stood, gave her shoulder one final
squeeze before releasing it, then turned towards the door, noticing
momentarily that Hikari was shooting him a rather nasty glare.  He
shrugged, and the brunette shook her head before exiting the
classroom.  Rubbing the back of his head and shrugging, Vash gave one
last glance towards Eiko, then went out of the room, feeling slightly
conflicted but still pleased at the thought of being the most popular
boy in the area.

Eiko stared after her boyfriend for a moment, then turned back towards
her sketchbook, idly tracing in a few more lines to her work, trying to
figure out why she should be upset that Vash was having lunch with
other people.  She knew that she could have gone if she'd wanted to be
with him, she just didn't feel as though she really wanted to deal with
the crowds that she knew would be surrounding him.  On one level, she
wanted the attention the way that he did, but more importantly she
wanted someone to just be paying attention to her on a personal level,
not to be adored by a crowd.  Sighing softly, she glanced over towards
Ryo, smirking slightly at the boy as he stared out the window as though
waiting for something, sunlight filtering through his pale blue hair.
"Aren't you going to have lunch?" she asked, noticing that the meal was
already sitting on his desk in front of him.

"Yes," replied Ryo flatly, not turning towards the girl as his hand
reached casually towards the lunch, plucking a bit of food away from
the center spread and then bringing it towards his mouth, the motion
seeming almost robotic.  Eiko stared at the boy for a moment, and her
hands began to move almost instinctively, flipping to another page in
her sketchbook and beginning to trace the outline that she was staring
at, keeping her eyes fixed on Ryo as the midday light pooled around
him.  He didn't notice at first, but after a few minutes of Eiko
staring directly at him he slowly turned towards her, red eyes fixing
on her own.  "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," replied Eiko, letting the image of Ryo staring out the
window burn into her memory as she moved her hand along the paper
instinctively.  The lines traced beneath her fingers as the pencil
moved, the tip gently forming lines that she felt entirely confident
in, no questions about what they represented as she let them form on
the paper.  "You don't mind if I sketch you, do you?"  She blushed
slightly, smiling at the boy as he looked down at her sketchbook, her
hand freezing in place as he stared.  "When you were staring out at the
window... you looked like something out of a manga.  I thought it would
be good practice."

"That's fine," replied Ryo flatly, his eyes focusing on the tight black
lines on the white paper, knowing that there was a sort of form trapped
within them, almost envying the girl's ability, his mind elsewhere.
Routine dictated that he finish his lunch and then review the notes
that he had taken so far over the the course of the lecture, but Eiko's
sketch was capturing his attention as he remembered the earlier one she
had offered to him to give to Neil.  "Why do you draw?"

Eiko blinked, not quite understanding the meaning behind the question
even though she understood the words perfectly well.  Ryo didn't repeat
himself, simply stared at the girl, and after a moment she shrugged,
feeling as though she'd done something wrong without even answering the
question.  "I don't know.  I just... enjoy it."

"I see."  A theory was beginning to slowly form in Ryo's mind as he
watched Eiko's hand start moving once again, tracing lines into their
places with slow certainty, seemingly enjoying the gradual formation of
the pattern in front of her.  "Do you do it because you control what
you draw?"

Frowning, Eiko cocked her head slightly to one side, the phrasing of
Ryo's question feeling slightly off, as though he was translating it
from another language.  Glancing down at the paper for a moment, she
traced another few lines almost as a test, trying to think about why
she was drawing, wanting to give Ryo a decent answer.  "I guess that's
part of it," she replied with a shrug, brow furrowing as she let her
pencil move, the memory beginning to become cloudy from other thoughts
cluttering her mind.  "I don't know if that's all of it, though.  I
think... I think I draw more because it gives me a chance to create
something.  To define something.  To turn a blank piece of paper into
art."  She smiled thinly.  "It's a labor of love.  You put your heart
and soul into it."

Ryo's mind had already half-made the connection that Eiko's words
completed, and he stared at the piece of paper in front of the girl
intently, studying the thin black lines against the white background,
certain that he was beginning to understand.  "You gave Neil some of
your artwork," he said flatly, staring at the paper still.  "Does that
mean that you love him?"

The question was as surprising as the first time Ryo had asked her
something similar, but this time Eiko managed to maintain slihgtly more
control over her pencil, restraining herself enough to keep from
breaking the tip against the paper.  "No," she said rather softly,
shaking her head and turning her pencil around, beginning to rub out
the black mark she'd made in error just enough so that she could
retrace the line afterwards.  "It was for him to forgive me.  The day
we met, I..."  She paused, then shrugged.  "I should have been nicer to
him."

Nodding in accordance with his routine, Ryo stared at the paper for a
moment longer, something that he couldn't quite describe creeping at
the back of his mind.  He turned back towards the window as Eiko
resumed her sketching, trying to understand what was going on,
remembering the conversation he'd had with Niobe and his earlier talks
with Eiko, knowing distantly that there was some connection.  There was
something about Neil that gave him control, something he couldn't quite
place, something he needed to figure out.  Giving one last glance
towards Eiko, he turned towards his lunch and took another bite,
knowing that he would have to eat quickly to maintain his routine.

                                  ]++[

Kozou Fuyutsuki had been told by his colleagues at Kyoto University
that his home had always shown the signs of a man too married to
science to marry a woman.  The thought made him smile despite himself
as he slipped on his deep red pruning gloves, the sleeves of his white
shirt rolled up past his elbows and the bright steel shears sitting on
a table only a few feet away.  It had been years since he had seen any
of his peers from his university - after the Second Impact, many of
them were dead, and he had left the university shortly after the
tragedy for his own reasons.  That had been in a different home, a
different time, for all intents and purposes an entirely different
world.  Still, as he stared at the row of miniature trees in front of
him, set up against a large greenhouse window on a series of rickety
old card tables, he knew that they would say the same thing if any of
them saw his apartment.  "Everything has changed," he muttered,
flipping the small restraint at the back of the shears off and letting
the powerful springs uncoil in his hand.  "But absolutely nothing's
changed."

Pulling the lone chair in the room towards the row of trees in front of
him, he sat down gently, then slowly wrapped his hands around the first
tree, feeling over its surface for even the smallest imperfections,
smiling wistfully as the light streamed in from the large window behind
the tree.  He'd taken up bonsai during his first year of teaching on
the advice of one of the few friends he'd kept in touch with out of
college, having been told that it was a wonderful way to release
stress.  At first, Kozou had found it to be quite the opposite, and
he'd nearly given the hobby up outright with the excuse that he had
more than enough stress without adding another source that also cost
money.  But he'd never been one to leave a project half-finished, and
while he must have killed at least three trees over the course of a
year, once he finally got the art of tending for the miniatures
mastered he would hear no talk of quitting.

Snipping off a stray branch with a steady hand, Kozou let his thoughts
roam as he continued to examine the tiny branches of the tree, trying
to make absolutely sure that he had missed nothing before he moved to
the next one.  The entire concept of the art, he'd come to realize,
meshed with everything he believed in, a sort of primitive way of
meticulously controlling an organism.  "Man has always sought to
control nature," he muttered to himself, fairly certain he was quoting
from a book but unable to think of what book it might have been as the
shears moved towards another stray branch.  "And in the earliest days,
we managed to do so through brute force or meticulous care."  He
smirked slightly as he clipped another branch, letting it fall against
the dark brown soil surrounding the base of the tree.  "Nothing's
changed there, either.  We've just broadened the field of control."

The thoughts made him think of NERV, and he had to force his hands to a
stop as he jerked the shears slightly in the wrong angle, nearly
clipping off a branch that he most certainly wanted to leave intact.
He'd always felt as though his inclusion into the organization was
peripheral at best, even though he knew that most of the science the
organization was built on was based loosely off of his theories.  He
knew full well that his presence had not initially been accounted for
by SEELE, and sometimes he wondered if NERV's parent organization
hadn't considered simply killing him long before he reached the point
where he needed to be made a part of the administration.  And how much
of that had involved the intervention of Gendou Ikari.

Giving the tree one last touch to make sure that it was doing well,
Kozou pushed his chair back, moving it over to the next tree and
sitting down in front of it, pausing for a moment before he began to
trim away at the new tree to rub his hand, a dull ache spreading
through the palm out to his fingers.  "I'm getting too old for this,"
he muttered, smirking bitterly as he thought of Ritsuko, remembering
how he'd been mildly shocked that Kaji was dating her.  He'd always
expected that she'd want someone different, more overtly
intellectually - but, as he grinned bitterly and snipped away a spare
branch, he reminded himself that he'd never been a particularly good
judge of people in general, much less women.

Freezing momentarily, Fuyutsuki looked up and out the window, letting
his hands release their grip on the shears slightly as she stared out
at the landscape, his face vaguely visible in the pane of glass.  He'd
managed to get an apartment with an excellent view of Tokyo Bay, the
buildings of Old Tokyo still vaguely visible through the water.  The
view of his own face made him wonder for a moment if Kaji's accusation
had been accurate, if he'd actually sold out what he belived in now
that he was working for NERV.  "But so is Kaji," he muttered, closing
his eyes for a moment and shaking his head.  "Did I really sell out any
more than he did?"

Smirking bitterly at himself, there was a momentary pause before he
heard the sound of his door clicking open, the lock apparently
deactivated without any warning.  Frowning, Kozou sighed softly and
grabbed the pruning shears in his right hand, preparing them as a
rudimentary weapon in his off hand as his left gravitated towards the
small pistol holstered beneath the table.  He'd considered long and
hard where he should put the pistol, but most of the time that he
wasn't at work was spent in the greenhouse, and he ultimately decided
it was the one place where he was unequivocally fenced in.  Checking
the ammunition quickly, he prepared the pistol for firing, pointing it
down the long navy blue hallway that led to his greenhouse.

Then he saw the distinctive uniform of a NERV intelligence agent, and
he sighed heavily, shaking his head and lowering his pistol just as the
agent seemed to notice the doctor.  "Sorry," he announced, placing the
pruning shears on the table and returning the pistol to its hiding
place as the black-sutied agent walked into the greenhouse.  "I assumed
that someone was breaking into the house.  It seemed rather naive to
assume they didn't know who I was."

"A logical assumption," replied the agent flatly, simply watching as
the old man closed the pruning shears once again, removing his gloves
and standing from his chair.  There was a sort of timeless patience to
NERV's intelligence agents that Fuyutsuki found himself liking more
over time, the sort of temporary illusion that the agent was more than
simply a human being.  "We've been requested by Commander Gendou Ikari
to bring you to Central Dogma.  He wishes to meet with you."

"Heh.  The old men call him to conference, he calls me to conference, I
call the Children to conference - we're all getting autocratic with
age."  He smirked at the irony, stepping past the agent towards the
door that led into his bedroom.  "I'll change into my uniform.  Give me
a minute."  The agent nodded, and Kozou closed the sliding door behind
him, beginning to unbutton his shirt as he walked over to his closet,
idly wondering what Gendou could want to talk about so urgently that he
needed to use the agents.

                                  ]++[

It had been two days since she'd found out that Ritsuko and Kaji were
seeing one another, but to assume that Misato was feeling any better
about the situation would have been patently incorrect.  If anything,
she'd gotten even angrier about it, and she'd been doing her best to
avoid Ritsuko since the incident, still not sure of when or if she was
going to forgive the other woman.  So it was extremely tempting to
simply ignore the call to the central control area by the scientist, to
let Dr. Akagi deal with her own problems.  But Misato knew that she
would have to face other repurcussions if she chose to ignore the
woman, and so despite her reluctance she found herself stepping out to
the operations level of the command room.  "What's going on?" she
asked, her voice curt as she stepped out onto the white metal floor,
eyes scanning the area quickly for Ritsuko.  "Make it quick."

Ritsuko turned and looked at Misato, then gestured up towards the main
screen, and Misato followed her gesture only to gasp slightly, suddenly
wondering if another Angel attack was in process.  EVA-05 was on the
screen, firing at what appeared to be multiple targets with the
standard-issue rifle as it ran across the landscape, the entire machine
thundering across the lush green grass as it dropped the rifle and
deployed one of its prog knives.  It was only when Misato saw the prog
knife actually take down a target that she realized Niobe was in the
Geo-Front, running through some of the training programs designed to
help the Eva pilots at the top of their game.

"She's been out there for nearly three hours now," announced Ritsuko,
tearing Misato's gaze away from the violently-moving Eva and back
towards the technical director, standing next to Maya's console as the
young woman worked the computer frantically to keep up with Niobe.
"Came in slightly after you did, actually.  She insisted on being
deployed for training, and she's barely said a word since."  Ritsuko
hesitated a moment.  "I assumed that you knew she was training today.
She claimed you gave approval."

"News to me," replied Misato coldly, staring up at the screen as Niobe
moved with practiced grace, inflatable dummy targets popping up over
the interior of the Geo-Front as Niobe ran through them, stabbing
through the small pocket that represented their core with her prog
knife as she headed towards another rifle.  The targets themselves had
been equipped with high-pressure water hoses - considered enough to let
the Eva know that it had been hit without actually damaging it - but
Niobe didn't seem to have even the vaguest sheen of water on her
machine as she tore through the dummies towards the rifle.  "What's her
status?" asked Misato after a moment, glancing towards Maya quite
specifically, flicking her eyes towards Ritsuko for just a moment to
make it clear that she didn't want the woman to answer.

Maya, however, didn't see the eye gesture, and it wasn't until Ritsuko
tapped on her shoulder that the young woman blushed and realized that
she was expected to reply.  "Her, um, synch ratio's been holding steady
at 57% for an hour or so now.  Hasn't been tagged by one of the water
jets yet."  She paused for a moment, obviously trying to figure out the
best way to say something.  "She's doing everything -right-.  There's
no sign that she's in any specific danger if she continues.  But... the
pilots aren't really intended to be synchronized with their Evas this
time, and there are signs of physical fatigue beginning to show in both
the machine and Niobe herself."

"How long have there been 'signs?'" asked Misato, a suspicion growing
in the back of her mind as she stared at the yellow Eva on the screen
for a moment.  She waited for a response, then sighed and turned back
towards Ritsuko and Maya, her eyes annoyed, just bordering on being
outright angry.  "How long?"

"About an hour now," replied Ritsuko flatly, visibly angering Misato
and causing Maya to wince slightly.  The blonde woman flicked her eyes
quickly towards the main screen as EVA-05 jumped into the lake of the
Geo-Front before launching itself skyward once again, firing the rifle
in its hands once again.  "We couldn't withdraw it.  You've got
executive control over the Evas as long as you're here, and since she's
just using the laser-system weapons we rigged up for the war games, we
knew there wouldn't be any budget problems associated with her
practice."

"You also knew that I was -here-," replied Misato, scowling at Ritsuko,
unsure whether she was angrier at the woman for not letting her know
what was going on with Niobe or for what she'd found out about Kaji.
"You knew the whole damn time that I was just sitting down in my
office, and you could have called me."  She stared at the blonde,
hoping for an answer and receiving none, and after a minute she simply
shook her head and turned towards the microphone in the center of the
console, pulling the device closer to her mouth as she stared at the
Eva moving frantically on the screen.  "Niobe, this is Misato.  It's
time to stop training for today."

The Eva faltered in its motions for just a second, then resumed almost
immediately, letting the barrel of the rifle flash as she raked what
would have been a steady stream of bullets across a sudden glut of
dummies, stepping backwards even as it fired.  "That's all right,
Misato," replied Niobe, tone cold as her Eva whirled around and took a
quick shot at more emerging targets, her motions remaining quick and
fluid.  "I'm not even tired.  I'll test out here for another hour or
two."  She punctuated her statement by spinning and smacking an Angel
dummy away with her rifle, the dummy reeling backwards and its hose
spraying towards the roof of the Geo-Front for the instant before Niobe
shot it firmly in the core.

Misato frowned, rubbing her temple for a moment before leaning back
into the microphone.  "This isn't up for a debate, Niobe.  I just gave
you an order.  You -are- going to return to the entry port now, and
you're going to bring your Eva back down the hangar."  She paused for a
moment, glancing over towards Ritsuko, still feeling as though the
whole mess was the other woman's fault.  "And you and I are going to
have a little talk about what I do and don't authorize."

"But I..."  Niobe's voice trailed off after a moment, and the Eva
lurched to a stop as the few dummys that hadn't been destroyed
retracted back into their housings.  Misato could tell that the girl
wasn't happy with the turn of events, but she obligingly dropped the
rifle and headed for the nearest entry port a few dozen meters away,
her Eva's feet moving slowly and dejectedly.  "I understand, Major
Katsuragi.  I should be back down within a few minutes."

Slightly suspicious that the girl was going to do something that she
shouldn't, Misato kept a close eye on the main screen as she watched
the Eva step on the entry platform, waiting until the Eva had seemingly
been sucked back into the base before turning away from the main screen
and towards Ritsuko, her eyes still angry.  "Never do that again," she
said curtly, restraining the urge to slap the other woman.  "The safety
of these children is my responsibility, and that means that I should be
present for -every- Eva launch.  No matter how insistent they are, they
are -children-.  If you haven't heard me say to launch the machine,
leave it in the hangar."

"Of course," replied Ritsuko, her tone dripping with sarcasm as she
turned towards Maya's console to examine the data the young woman had
gathered.  Misato frowned, gritting her teeth slightly as she stared at
Ritsuko, then she turned back towards the elevator sharply, her hair
swishing against the fabric of her jacket as she walked.  "You're wrong
about your responsibilities, though," the blonde scientist called from
behind her.  "You're responsible for destroying the Angels and keeping
the -planet- safe, not the Children."

Freezing at the other woman's words, Misato felt her gaze grow slightly
harsher as she glanced back towards Ritsuko, staring as the scientist
turned back towards Maya's console as though she hadn't said anything.
Misato could still hear Gendou's words from the battle against the
Seventh Angel, and the thought that Ritsuko was echoing those
sentiments was eerie in a way that she didn't want to contemplate.  She
hoped for a moment that her old friend would turn and explain herself,
would take some notice of the fact that she wanted answer, but Ritsuko
remained unaware of Misato's stare, or at least unconcerned.  Sighing,
Misato returned to her path to the elevator, reminding herself that she
had other matters that required just as much attention but still unable
to get Ritsuko's words out of her head.

                                  ]++[

Niobe couldn't tell if the salt stinging against her tongue was sweat
or simply the natural taste of the LCL manifesting itself for whatever
reason.  It was a curiosity borne more out of idleness and frustration
than any actual concern for the topic - she was still crossing her arms
across her chest, angry at Misato's seemingly random decision to pull
her back in from the practice.  She'd had such limited practice with
her machine in the African branch, and she'd expected that under the
circumstances Major Katsuragi would be more than happy with the amount
of interest Niobe was showing in refining her skills.  "I still had
another hour or so of practice that I could stand for," she muttered to
herself as the Eva moved into its hangar, the gateway between it and
the launch tubes slamming shut behind her as her platform moved towards
the restraints.

The various gigantic devices used to hold the Eva in place clamped down
as her camera shut off, the catwalk in the hangar visible as it moved
towards the Eva just before the outside feed was cut.  Sighing, Niobe
knew she had seen Misato standing there, knew that for some reason the
woman was annoyed with her.  Taking a deep breath of LCL, she reminded
herself that the only thing she'd done wrong was to take the Eva out
for practice, that her results more than showed that it was
worthwhile.  She exhaled, then held her breath as the liquid drained
down past her nose and mouth, coughing momentarily as soon as her head
was surrounded by air once again, letting the residual liquid in her
lungs splatter against the yellow fabric of her plugsuit.

With a loud whirring of gears, the back of the Eva slid open, and Niobe
felt the plug lurch as it was drawn out of the machine's back,
remaining calm as the white cylinder began to move through the air.
Even though she couldn't see out of it, she knew that it was simply
going to be laid down on the catwalk until she got out and resealed the
hatch, that immediately afterwards it would be moved back to a storage
location.  As she felt the plug shudder slightly, she realized that it
had already set down, and reaching up she pushed the hatch at the top
of the plug open, wincing slightly at the sudden influx of fluorescent
light into the darkened chamber.  "Major Katsuragi," she said
respectfully, climping out of the plug onto the catwalk, shutting the
hatch behind her.  "I was able to continue training."

"I know," replied Misato somewhat weakly, the look in her eyes a far
cry from what Niobe had expected.  She remembered Joseph's anger with
her disobedience visibly, the way the tall man would storm about and
scream at the top of her lungs, the sense of barely-restrained violence
almost a physical assault in and of itself.  Misato had none of that,
and if anything she simply looked tired, arms folded lightly across her
chest, gaze stern and disapproving but not hateful.  "But I didn't
authorize you to launch.  And you were beginning to show signs of
fatigue."

The noise of the nutrient bath hoses activating came from below, and
there was an echoing splash as the purple-orange liquid sloshed into
the chamber, the largely-empty metal walls resounding with the rush of
fluid.  "I've been fatigued before.  I can't let something like that
slow me down, especially if we're in a combat situation."  Niobe stood
rigidly, head held high, her arms straight at her sides and eyes fixed
directly on Misato's.  She was doing her best to sound respectful, but
she couldn't see for the life of her any validity in Misato's
arguments.  She'd begun to tire slightly from exercising with her Eva,
nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that wasn't to be expected from
someone trying her hardest.

"You're ignoring what I said," Misato replied, the vaguest hint of
anger creeping into the back of her voice.  "I didn't authorize you for
launch.  You took control of an Evangelion unit and engaged in your own
activities with it.  That's a serious offense, punishable by ejection
from NERV."  The girl's eyes widened at Misato's words, a gesture that
somewhat surprised Misato considering that she knew Niobe knew NERV's
procedures at least as well as Misato herself.  "The UN doesn't take
lightly to these sorts of things, Niobe.  If I report you, I assure
you, Sixth Child or not, you won't be allowed to pilot any more."

Niobe felt as though she'd suddenly been slapped across the face, a
sensation far harsher than if Misato had simply hurt her.  She would
have infinitely preferred almost any physical injury to the quiet
accusation that the woman made, the sort of calm insinuation that Niobe
could be discarded so easily, that she wasn't so good that she couldn't
be replaced.  "I... I'm sorry," she said, tears rubbing at the back of
her eye as she fought to hold them back, beginning to wonder if Misato
would actually carry through with the threat as the chamber continued
to fill with the nutrient bath.  "I only did it to be ready for the
next engagement.  I was going to return the machine as soon as I was
done."

Misato shook her head, and Niobe felt a sudden rush of adrenaline
through her body at the possibility that Misato wasn't going to listen
to her.  She knew that she could have gotten away with something so
little if Joseph was in charge, but she'd simply assumed that Misato
would feel the same, and in light of the fear of losing her status as
an Eva pilot it seemed like an irresponsible assumption.  "I know you
weren't doing anything reckless.  That's why I'm not going to report
you.  I'm not even particularly worried about that."  She paused.  "Why
didn't you just come down and ask me?"

"I assumed I would be distracting you," replied Niobe, sinking her head
slightly as she flexed her fingers, feeling the LCL still soaking her
plugsuit and hair beginning to dry and form an uncomfortable sort of
crust over her body.  "You have work to do, and I understand that.  I
just wanted to take my Eva out to get some extra practice in before the
next Angel attack.  Nothing more."

"But you should have come asked me.  I promise you, I would have been
more than happy to let you engage in a supervised training session."
She paused for a moment, knowing that Niobe would raise an objecting to
the last part of her sentence, simply waiting until the girl looked up
at her with questioning eyes.  "Yes, supervised.  There's a limited
amount of time allowed for training like that."

Frowning, Niobe glanced quickly towards EVA-05, flicking her eyes
downwards as the nutrient bath began to seep up past the waist.  "There
shouldn't be a limit, though," she argued, knowing that she sounded a
little bit whiny by saying it but also knowing that it was the truth.
"I just want to be better at piloting my Eva, to dispatch the Angels
more effectively.  Shouldn't you be encouraging that?"

"To a point, yes.  But that doesn't mean that you should be rushing off
and nearly getting yourself killed."  Misato sighed heavily, shaking
her head and rubbing her temple gently as the young African girl stared
at her.  "Niobe, the Evas are artificial life forms, and they need to
rest at times.  The same goes for you.  If you try to push yourself too
far, you can just burn yourself out completely."  She paused, shaking
her head, seeing that the girl didn't seem to be understanding what she
was saying.  "If you keep pushing yourself this hard, you're going to
wind up dead."

"Better dead than second best," replied Niobe without hesitation,
taking some small satisfaction at the shock visible on Misato's face as
she stepped around the woman.  Misato whirled on her heel to face Niobe
again, but the girl had already almost reached the door at the end of
the catwalk.  She paused at the sound of Misato following her, then
turned, smiling at the woman as best she could.  "I'm going to go
change back into my clothes.  You shouldn't need me for synch testing
today - I imagine that was more than enough data."

Misato paused, then nodded weakly before Niobe stepped out through the
doors.  Niobe smiled at the closed doors for a moment, then turned and
began walking down the drab hallway of the facility, trying to figure
out why Misato had been so upset, a vague sense of dread creeping back
into her as she remembered Misato's threat that she could be
discharged.  "I'm a valuable asset to the, but I'm not invaluable," she
muttered to herself, clenching one hand into a fist as she turned down
the seemingly endless corridors.  "I've got to try harder."  Closing
her eyes and nodding to herself, she took one final turn and headed
towards the locker room, her hand gravitating towards the small button
on her wrist to return the suit to a looser state.

                                  ]++[

Staring at the compressed Chemistry lecture in front of him, Neil
struggled to remain focused, then sighed and glanced over his shoulder
towards Nieve, the girl still lying on the couch and reading her book.
She'd been there most of the day, and aside from a brief break when
they'd both sat down to have lunch there hadn't been many words passing
between them.  He stared for only a moment, then returned to the
lecture, trying to make himself remember how to note ionized particles,
the lesson still blurring into nothingness almost the second he read
the material.

"Gods," he muttered to himself, shaking his head as he stared at the
paper, giving up after a moment and shoving the small slip away,
tempted to simply put it back in the box and forget about it.  He was
annoyed at himself for getting distracted, especially considering that
taking courses had been his idea in the first place even if Misato
would have in all likelihood been ecstatic about it.  It was
frustrating, feeling unable to focus on something that he wanted to do,
even knowing that he was skilled with science.  "But I don't really
want to do this," he muttered after a moment, leaning over the table
and checking over his shoulder quickly just to make sure that Nieve
didn't hear him.  "I just wanted to feel normal again."

The thought made half-smile bitterly towards the table, remembering
that his life had been something approaching normal before he'd been
invited to attend school in Japan.  He'd had a few friends, a stable if
not normal household, and more than enough money to get by, enough to
enjoy himself and indulge in his hobbies without worrying.  It hadn't
been perfect, but it had seemed decent to him even before he'd gotten
the letter, before the picture of Misato had captured his attention
enough to make him decide that flying to Tokyo-3 to attend school was a
good plan.  "Then I find out that by 'school' they mean 'gigantic robot
with a mind of its own,' and by 'attend' they mean 'pilot,'" he
muttered, still talking into the table, knowing that Nieve would say he
was whining otherwise.

Nieve.  The thought of the girl made the boy turn his head back towards
the living room, watching her for just a moment as she leaned back
against the couch, apparently unconcerned with the problems that Neil
was going through.  "But she's been training her whole life to be a
pilot," he reminded himself, turning back towards the table with a
somewhat dejected smirk, tracing the grain of the wood with his eyes
and trying to suppress the feelings in the back of his head.  "She, and
Ryo, and Niobe... this -is- normal for them.  Heck, even Eiko and Vash
live here.  They've got their family and friends here.  I'm the only
one that's really a stranger in a strange land around NERV."  The words
made him feel even worse, pressing his face deeper in his arms,
suddenly wanting nothing more than to feel normal again, to close his
eyes and be back in his mother's house once again.

"Wonder if mom knows where I really am," he muttered idly, finding it
difficult to muster any particular emotion one way or the other on the
matter.  Academically, he knew that his mother must have found out by
the time the school approved his long-distance study program - he'd
mentioned that he was working for NERV, and considering Liselle
Richelieu's position in the school's administrative hiearchy it seemed
foolish to assume that she hadn't seen his application at some point.
It was a little more questionable if she'd known what was going on
beforehand, but either way she hadn't seemed to make any effort to
contact her son, an action that seemed oddly characteristic of the
woman.  "A normal mother would at least call me.  Or write me.  She
knows where I live - she's got to.  She could have even just stuck a
note in the package."

Pausing for a moment, Neil sighed heavily as he realized that he was
talking to himself, a sure sign to him that he was lonely.  Glancing
over at the piece of paper with the Chemistry notes on it, he realized
that more than learning he simply wanted to have other people his age
around again, to not feel like a toy soldier that could get called up
by NERV whenever it was convenient for them.  He wanted to not be the
only odd man out in the organization, the only one that walked out of
the base and got the distinct sense that his presence in the country
was somewhat abnormal.  Giving his work one last glance, he pushed back
his chair, then started walking towards the living room, resolving that
he could at least solve part of the problem.

Nieve, head propped up against the arm of the couch as her feet pressed
against the arm at the other end, noticed the soft sounds of footsteps
down the hall, and she glanced over to see Neil walking towards her.
Smirking slightly, she snapped her book closed, plucking once again at
the opened collar of her shirt and propping herself up enough to look
the boy in the eye.  "How goes the studying, learned one?" she asked,
shooting him a sly grin.  "Finally coming to me in a last-ditch attempt
to understand something?"

"I... I just wanted to talk," replied Neil with a shrug, stepping
around to the other end of the couch.  Nieve blinked, then drew her
legs in closer to her body, giving Neil enough room to take the seat at
the opposite arm of the couch and lean against it slightly.  He stared
at her for a moment, his thoughts still gravitating towards his mother,
the fact that Nieve had mentioned her mother had connections with NERV
tickling at the back of her mind.  "Have your parents gotten in touch
with you at all since you got here?" he asked at length, feeling
slightly awkward.

The red-haired girl's expression darkened briefly, her legs drawing
closer to her body.  Neil felt his eyes widen as the girl seemed to
approach the edge of tears for just a moment, but she held up a hand,
not wanting to drive him away with the sensation that he was making her
miserable.  "My father and I have never been really close," she replied
after another moment, looking away from Neil and towards the brown
wooden floor of the apartment.  "And my mother... she's been dead since
I was ten.  I don't like to talk about it."

Although he was fairly certain that his own mother would have contested
that Neil simply felt a minor rush of adrenaline through his body at
the knowledge that he'd said something wrong, as far as Neil was
concerned a sense of pure awkwardness seemed to suddenly flow through
his body, Nieve's expression unspeakably painful to behold.  "I'm
sorry," he mumbled, unsure of what to say.  "I was just... because of
my...  with..."  Stopping himself, Neil resisted the urge to hit
himself in the forehead, knowing full well that he was acting like an
idiot.  "Sorry."

"It's all right," she replied with a shrug, turning back towards the
boy, the sorrow in her eyes apparently having melted away.  "It's not
as though it's a particular secret, and it happened a long time ago.  I
just prefer not to think about it."  She shrugged, staring at Neil for
what seemed like a long moment before saying anything.  "Did you have
anything else you wanted to talk about, or was it just the mother
thing?"

"Um.  Not really."  Neil shrugged, glancing towards the television and
almost wishing that he could speak the language, knowing that there
would at least be something to divert Nieve's attention with.  "There
wasn't anything that I really wanted to talk -about-, I just wanted to
talk."  He paused for a moment, words in his heads simply lacking the
critical few connections to form them into sentences.  "Do you ever
feel... do you ever feel like you just want to be normal?  Like you
don't want to deal with the Evas anymore?"

"Heh.  So you want to talk about -that-."  Nieve smirked, leaning back
against the arm of the couch and tilting her head back to stare at the
ceiling, the light above her playing oddly across her skin.  "I
remember getting asked that question every single time I would get
interviewed as a child.  Everyone in Ireland seemed to hang off that
question, if I just wanted to be a normal kid again.  There were even
protests against NERV because they said I was being denied that right,
that I wasn't being given the chance to live a normal life."

"So you're sick to death of answering the question," finished Neil,
chuckling somewhat bitterly and shaking his head as he turned his gaze
downwards towardst the floor.  "I'm really asking great questions
today, aren't I?  First I ask you something you don't want to talk
about, then I ask you something that you might as well just record and
play back."

Nieve suddenly leaned forward, extending one slender pale arm and
pressing down on Neil's nose with one finger, smirking at the boy as he
looked at her with surprise.  "Don't assume that I'm not going to
answer the question because of something silly like that," she said,
sounding vaguely seductive as she leaned back against the arm of the
couch.  She paused for a moment, looking as though she was thinking
about the question as though for the first time, then suddenly shifted
her position, crossing her legs across one another so that both were on
the couch, her arms falling between them and propping her up as she
leaned towards Neil.  "I don't know, really.  I've been with NERV so
long... it's hard to think about anything else."

Both Children paused for a moment, then Nieve winked at Neil, and he
suddenly picked up on his role.  Smiling for a moment, he cleared his
throat, adopting a mock-stern expression and staring at the girl as
though he was being deathly serious.  "Well, Miss Soryu-Leary, why
don't you tell us about how long you've been with NERV," he asked,
doing an intentionally poor newscaster impression.

The girl giggled, a light and airy noise accompanied by a slight flip
of her red hair in a way that Neil couldn't help but be attracted to.
"Well, Mr. Richelieu, my father was a scientist from Japan who was
working on a project over in Ireland when he met my mother, and since
both were respected in their fields they were natural choices for the
heads of NERV's European branch."  She smirked for a moment longer,
then let the joy fade slightly from her face, just enough so that she
was visibly taking the topic slightly more seriously.  "I think I was
seven when I first got used to the idea of my parents working for
NERV.  And I was one of the participants in the first rounds of the
Marduk Test, one of the first positively-identified Children."

"Wait," asked Neil for a moment, blinking and trying to figure out
Nieve's response, running through the other Children in his head and
the numbers that were supposedly associated with them.  "What do you
mean by the first rounds of the Marduk test?"

"Yeah, you wouldn't know about that, would you?  They ran the Marduk
tests on a few children that they suspected would be capable of
piloting the Eva before they started testing worldwide.  I just
happened to be one of them."  She paused for a moment, then giggled
almost involuntarily.  "See what I mean?  I remember all of this the
way that most people talk about their favorite toys at the time.  NERV
is my normal life."

Neil simply stared at the girl for a moment, unsure of what to say as
he turned his gaze towards the darkened television.  He was enjoying
the conversation and didn't want it to end, but he didn't have the
vaguest idea of how to fix the problem and make sure that it kept
going.  He opened his mouth halfway, then shut it again, feeling the
weight of Nieve's stare on him as he tried desparately to figure out
something to say, some way to convince her to not stop talking with
him.  "Do you want to go out to dinner?"

A moment of silence passed before Nieve seemed to register the
question, Neil himself only distantly aware of the fact that he'd
actually said it instead of simply thinking about it.  "Um.  You mean,
like, out on a date?" she asked, sounding oddly reluctant as she turned
her body towards the television, uncrossing her legs and setting her
feet down on the floor.  "You're asking me out on a date?"

The question struck Neil as odd, but he nodded his affirmation, and
Nieve smiled broadly at the prospect.  She would have preferred to have
been in charge of the relationship's direction to the point where she
was the one that asked him out on the dates, but it was a minor detail
in something otherwise flawless.  "I'd love to," she replied, nudging
herself over towards him, hands folded in her lap as she tried her best
to simply look coy.  "But won't Misato worry?"

"Maybe.  I don't think she'd even be back in time for us to have dinner
with her."  He shrugged, glancing over towards the girl as she nudged
closer to him, feeling at once fairly ordinary and somewhat confused.
"Besides, we haven't gone on anything resembling a date since... well,
you know."  Pausing for a moment, he smiled at her, his guilt
evaporating for just a moment.  "We are supposed to be a couple, aren't
we?"

"Yes.  Yes, we are."  Nieve edged closer to the boy once again, then
reached out one long pale arm and snaked it around his shoulders,
pulling herself closer to him.  The sudden touch of the girl's soft
skin against his body was a bit of a shock, and for a moment Neil felt
himself resurrecting the same old feelings of guilt as though he'd done
something wrong, thoughts drifting towards Eiko and the night of their
first kiss instinctively.  Closing his eyes, he felt Nieve's head rest
against his shoulder softly, and he let go of the guilt for just a
moment, letting himself simply enjoy the girl's proximity and the soft
rushing noise of her breath.

                                  ]++[

Ryo knew that he had broken routine once again as he walked the steps
to his apartment, the small white plastic bag swinging next to his own
schoolbag as the walked down the dreary gray hall towards the place
where he lived.  At the back of his mind, he felt something that he
couldn't put a name to, something that seemed like an internal
regulation system to make sure that he didn't make a habit of breaking
his routine.  It was unpleasant, but Ryo ignored it, knowing that he
was simply trying to acquire a new routine, logically reasoning that it
fit into the larger scheme of his various patterns.  Reaching into his
pocket with his free hand, he unlocked the door to the apartment and
pushed it inward, letting it swing open as he removed his shoes and
stepped inside.

Niobe, lying on her bed and reading, heard the noise of the key turning
in the lock and sat bolt upright, knowing that there was only one other
person with the key to the house.  Virtually throwing herself towards
the door out of her room, she paused for a moment in front of the
mirror, hastily adjusting the loose yellow shirt that slipped off one
of her shoulders alluringly, tugging on the waist of her jeans before
she nodded to herself and stepped out of her room.  "Afternoon, Ryo,"
she said flatly, trying to sound calm, as though she hadn't waited for
him.  "How was school?"

The boy stared at her for a moment, as though she'd asked the question
in a foreign language.  "The building was fully intact," replied Ryo,
cocking his head slightly to one side and trying to gauge whether or
not he had answered the question that Niobe was asking.  She smirked
slightly, but then shook her head at him, and he got the distinct
impression that he'd misunderstood something.

"I don't mean 'how was the building,'" Niobe replied, unable to keep a
small smile from creeping onto her face.  The way that Ryo constantly
took her words almost literally was cute in its own way even as it
tended to infuriate her.  "I'm wondering how it was for you.  Did you
enjoy yourself?"

Something in Niobe's words seemed to resonate with something deep
inside in Ryo's mind, and he simply stared at the girl for a moment,
trying to unearth whatever was causing the reaction.  There was
something there, and he knew it, but he had no frame of reference and
couldn't begin to put it into words.  "It's simply part of the
routine," he replied flatly after a moment, remembering that he still
was carrying the white plastic shopping bag, the objects withing
suddenly seeming to acquire a greater weight.  "I have something I need
to do.  If you need me, I'll be in my room."

Ryo stepped around Niobe, and Niobe simply watched him as he walked
down the hall to his room, opening and shutting the door in one smooth
robotic motion.  As soon as he was out of sight, she sighed heavily,
shaking her head and becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the world
around her as she crossed her arms across her chest and began pacing
back and forth in the hallway.  She wanted to know what he was doing
that could be so important as to tear him away from her so
instantaneously, but at the same time she knew that it was important to
let the boy have his privacy.  "It comes down to whether or not this is
important in getting him to notice me," she muttered to herself, trying
to think of a way that it wouldn't be, almost hoping that she didn't
have to intrude in his room.  Sighing heavily after a moment or two of
thought, she glanced at the door to his room briefly, then gritted her
teeth and padded gently over to the door.

Letting her hand rest gently on the doorknob, Niobe took a deep breath,
snaking her fingers around the cold metal and turning it as slowly as
possible, tuning her ears entirely to the minute sound of the door
clicking.  She had learned to remain quiet when opening a door from her
father, and while part of her knew that she was misusing the
information, she also knew that he would approve of her taking the
necessary measures to ensure that she would succeed on her own skills.
The doorknob finally came to a stop, and Niobe pushed the door gently,
peering into the room with quick glances until the door was open far
enough that she could see Ryo.

The boy was sitting on his bed, leaning over something, the shades of
his room open and his arms visibly moving over something.  Niobe
frowned and strained to get a closer look, then realized that he was
working at something as he turned partially towards her.  Once again,
she strained her eyes, trying to figure out what the carving was of,
flicking her eyes about the room until they lighted on a photograph
sitting slightly behind Ryo.  Taking another deep breath, she pushed
the door slightly further open, assuming that whatever Ryo was making
was being modeled on something from the photo, finally getting a clear
enough look at the piece of paper to realize what it was a picture of.

Niobe's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the photo, and suddenly
stepped backwards from the small crack in the door, having seen
everything that she needed to understand.  Keeping her breath quiet,
she closed the door slowly, releasing the doorknob at just the right
pace to keep it from making noise, quietly stepping back to her room
and closing the door before she gave into her urge of frustration and
slammed her fist into the pillow on her bed, the soft padding offering
little resistance to her force.  The picture was unmistakable, a shot
from one of the earliest days of NERV, something that Niobe recognized
from repeated exposure - a picture of Nieve standing on the shoulders
of EVA-02 flashing a victory sign, something that her father had called
NERV's best publicity photo.

"It's Nieve," she muttered, flopping down on the bed and trying to
control herself, feeling her breath come more heavily as her hands
began to clench into fists around the sheets.  "It's still Nieve.  I've
done so much, and he still only seems to notice Nieve."  She opened her
mouth to speak again, then simply let out a whimper of frustration into
the air, resisting the urge to simply thrash on the bed until she felt
exhausted, wishing that there was something that she could do.  "I've
done everything right.  I spent hours at NERV today.  I'm reading up on
battle strategies.  Why won't he notice -me-?"

Another sigh tore itself out of her lungs as she lay on the bed, trying
her best to figure out what was going on, remembering how many times
her father had reminded her that the Second Child had a three-year lead
on her.  "That must be it," she breathed somewhat hollowly, sinking her
eyes against the pillow as she closed them, trying to simply relax
again.  "She had a headstart.  But I'm doing better than her.  I just
have to keep doing better, to get better at piloting the Eva."  She
paused for a moment, remembering how she'd been largely on the
sidelines for the battle against the Ninth, willing to bet that
factored in to Ryo's ignorance of her.  "Maybe I'll talk directly with
Commander Ikari.  He'll be happy to have me put in more hours of
training."

While Niobe quietly tried to console herself with the sound of her own
voice, Ryo sat in his room and moved a sharp knife over the surface of
the wood, shaving off tiny chips with each motion and occasionally
stopping to glance back at the picture he had of EVA-02.  He knew how
much Nieve seemed to feel affection for the Eva, remembered how she'd
spoken of it in more glowing terms than any of the other pilots.  That
made him think of something that he couldn't quite place, made him feel
as though she would be more likely to be willing to give control to him
while he slowly worked over the soft wood, moving his hands in
practiced patterns, recalling the procedures even though he couldn't
remember when he'd been taught them.

Though Eiko denied that her sketch given to Neil had anything to do
with love, Ryo had figured out logically that something must have been
going on, that between her gift of the sketch and her willingness to
sacrifice herself for Neil's safety some kind of bond had been formed
between the two of them.  He remembered watching Neil and Nieve kiss,
and he'd finally drawn a connection that satisfied him, knowing that
what she had done was give him something as well.  "Gifts are part of
love," he muttered to himself, slipping the knife down and beginning to
whittle away the red Eva's shoulder flanges so that they would be
shaped properly.

Pausing for a moment, he frowned, his words sounding strangely alien,
something in his tone giving him the distinct impression that he'd said
something wrong.  Glancing down at the partially-finished carving, he
tried to figure out what he was missing, how he could know that it
wasn't as simple as that.  There was something escaping his brain, and
he set both the knife and the carving down as he closed his eyes,
letting the light from his window wash over him as he tried to remember
the one elusive bit of information lying just beyond his reach.

"A labor of love," he said, the sudden realization surprising even him
slightly.  Eiko had claimed that her artwork was that, and he knew full
well that love was connected to kissing.  Picking up the carving once
again, he examined it, turning it over in his hands, trying to figure
out if he was giving control of himself up to the small piece of wood.
It certainly didn't seem to be the case.  "It's only wood.  It isn't
like Eiko's gift to Neil."

Staring at the carving again, Ryo found himself wondering if it was
worth the effort to continue working on it knowing that it would
ultimately have no effect.  After another moment, he reminded himself
that he was obligated to see it through to the end if he truly wanted
to establish a new routine, and shrugging slightly he picked the knife
back up, letting it scrape against the wood once again, slowly
smoothing the surface to the desired shape.  He felt something tickling
at the back of his head at the thought that the exercise was ultimately
lacking in a fundamental element, and without thinking he brought the
knife along a path into direct contact with his thumb, the sharp blade
breaking Ryo's pale skin easily as he felt a sudden jab of pain through
his arm.

Wincing, Ryo dropped the knife, the hand holding onto the carving
squeezing involuntarily and squeezing more of the delicate crimson
liquid out against Ryo's white flesh.  The knife fell to the ground,
twirling slightly as it went and leaving a small trail of blood before
it clattered to a stop, but Ryo didn't give the tool a second thought,
staring at the wound on his thumb.  His blood was seeping out slowly,
into the wood of the miniature EVA-02's chest, staining the wood to
match the color of the actual Eva.  There was nothing particularly new
about the wound or the pain - he had experienced being hurt many times
before, and he was in no way unfamiliar with the appearance of his
blood.  Yet something new bubbled through his veins, something he
couldn't place immediately once again.

Taking the carving in his other hand, Ryo released it from the bleeding
hand, placing the object down on the bed as he stared at the welling
blood on his thumb.  "Anger," he whispered, knowing the name of the
emotion, something unconsciously providing it as he stared at his
thumb, an unfamiliar sensation still tickling through his brain.  "Is
this what anger feels like?"

Ryo paused for a moment, then squeezed his thumb against his other
fingers, letting the liquid bubble out and run across his skin, feeling
the sharp daggers of pain race up his arm.  "Yes," he muttered, feeling
his thumb begin to ache on top of the simple pain of the cut, releasing
it and wiping off the blood on his sheets.  "Anger.  I'm angry.  This
is anger."  The words sounded oddly foreign to him, and he stared at
his hand again, feeling the newfound anger seep through him, a slow and
innocent smile spreading across his face as the blood began to peek
through his white skin once again.

                                  ]++[

Her fingers aching and wrist sore from the demands she'd placed on it,
Eiko sighed heavily as she released her pencil, letting it tumble to
the soft cushion of the bed as she examined the final sketch.  She'd
acquired something of a fascination for the way that light wrapped
around objects, and while her exact memory of how Ryo had looked
sitting in the light had faded slightly, she would have been more than
willing to bet that her final sketch was a faithful reproduction of the
scene, at least to the extent that was possible from a pencil sketch.
"Maybe I can borrow the scanners at the computer labs in school," she
muttered, staring at the piece, feeling proud of herself at the same
time that she felt slightly drained.  "Then I could color it with the
computer."

Casually, Eiko reached out and touched the rough surface of the
sketchpad, the suggestion of doing anything that required even vague
amounts of effort sounding utterly distasteful for reasons that she
couldn't quite place.  It had been a perfectly pleasant day after
lunch - school had finished, and she'd gone to the arcade with Vash,
Hikari, and Kensuke, where they'd played on whatever had sparked their
interest while Vash bemoaned the lack of a single good shooting game at
the arcade.  Then she and Vash had spent a little time alone together,
and Eiko had come home to finish her sketch of Ryo.  There was nothing
wrong with the day.  A little boring, but nothing else wrong.

"Boring," she repeated to herself, the word seeming to become more and
more important as she thought about the day.  Glancing towards the Ryo
sketch once again, she sighed and closed her sketchbook, feeling
utterly uninspired.  That was her problem in its entirety, she realized
as she leaned back against the pillow at the head of the bed, letting
her head sink against the soft white cushion.  The day had been
completely boring, totally predictable, the sort of thing that she
hated.  "The only interesting thing that happened was talking with Ryo."

Staring at the light ceiling of her room, Eiko suddenly found herself
going over the conversation again in her mind, the boy's words ringing
in her ears like a mantra.  He'd asked if she loved Neil, but he hadn't
asked it as though he was simply curious, the words sounding more and
more like a request for confession each time Eiko replayed them in her
mind.  "Neil's a friend," she repeated to herself, wondering why she'd
even bothered speaking aloud, knowing full well that the only person
she could be trying to convince would be herself.

A thought began to grow in the back of her head, and Eiko immediately
felt herself wince, leaning slightly deeper into the pillow and
jostling the bed enough to send her sketchbook and pencil clattering to
the floor.  She knew that the day had been boring, but she reminded
herself that it wasn't indicative, that her life hadn't become
monotonous in any way, that she'd nearly made love to Vash even though
she knew that her parents would have hated her for it.  That one
example alone, she knew, proved more than anything that she wasn't
simply conforming to her parents' wishes.

"But we didn't go through with it," she whispered to herself, suddenly
feeling very exposed, reaching down and trying to pull down the skirt
she was still wearing from school, wishing that it covered more of her
legs for the first time that she could remember.  "I couldn't stop
thinking of Neil."  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, feeling
as though she was standing on the cusp of something massive, like there
was something very important she was about to do.

Pushing herself off of the pillow, she suddenly felt herself developing
an idea that at once excited and terrified her, feeling only more
secure in the concept by virtue of the fact that it scared her a
little.  She stood from the bed, then looked towards the small white
phone that sat on her desk, the simple plastic casing almost seeming to
mock her as it almost dared her to pick it up.  With heavy feet, she
stepped over towards the phone, feeling adrenaline move through her
body as she gently touched the receiver, hesitating for just a moment
before picking up the device and hearing the dull dial tone fill the
air in the absence of other noise.

Her hand remained in place for a moment, letting the receiver simply
hover as the dial tone sounded to empty air, then slowly she turned it
over and brought it closer to her face, her free hand slowly reaching
over and dialing a few digits before she brought the receiver flush
with her ear.  "I'm just going to see if he picks up," she said, trying
to breathe calmly even as she found her breath coming more quickly, a
thin sweat beginning to form around the hand that gripped the
receiver.  "I'll just see if he picks up, and I'll go from there.  If
he doesn't pick up, I haven't done anything wrong.  Just calling a
friend."

The phone let out a single droning ring, the silence of Eiko's room
feeling almost physical as the ring died out and nothing else made
noise in the room besides Eiko's own anxious drumming of her fingers.
Then a second ring came and went, and a third, and Eiko found her
fingers no longer moving, wondering if Neil was there or not,
simultaneously wanting him to pick up the phone and wanting him not to
ever know that she called.  A fourth ring, then a fifth, then a
clicking noise and the unmistakable voice of Misato on the other end.

Eiko panicked, not even bothering to listen to Misato as she slammed
the phone back down at the hook, all but jumping back onto her bed as
the cold sweat from her hand began to seep out of her body
universally.  It took her a moment to turn back towards the phone,
sitting cross-legged on the bed and staring at the small white
appliance, and it took her another moment to remind herself that she
might have simply gotten Misato's answering machine.  The thought still
didn't stop the adrenaline that slowly swam through her bloodstream,
her hands pressed hard against the fabric of the bed, breath coming
heavily and in regular intervals.

"Not there," she muttered, feeling at once relieved and disappointed.
She'd thought for a brief moment that having Neil around might make the
day more interesting, might cut through the dull environment of the
day, but something in the back of her mind told her she should feel
guilty about that, that she had done something wrong.  "But I just
wanted to talk to my friend," she hissed, flopping backwards on the bed
once again, adjusting her body until she comfortably lay with her head
wedged within the pillows, body curled into a fetal position with her
knees almost touching her chest.  "Is there anything wrong with that?"

Consciously attempting to calm herself down, Eiko simply stared at the
phone over the edge of the fluffed pillow, half-terrified that Misato
had caller ID and in a few moments everyone in that apartment would
know that she had called.  What made her feel odd, however, wasn't the
fact that it was a terrifying thought, but the fact that at the same
time she was excited by the prospect.  Sighing heavily, she continued
to stare, her sketchbook lying on the floor, open to where her sketch
of Tokyo-3 would have been had she not given it to Neil.

                                  ]++[

"I'm not going to kid you.  I don't want to be here.  I can think of a
few million places that I'd rather be, and half of them are prisons."
Neil paused for a moment, face remaining stern as he took a quick
drink, then slammed the can back down on the table.  "But I'm here
anyways.  Even though I don't want to be, I'm -here-.  And I think you
ought to afford me some kind of respect just for that, just for having
the guts and the determination to not leave no matter how much I might
want to.  Because if that doesn't mean anything to you, I'm going to
leave, because there's no reason for me to be here."  He stopped,
staring at Nieve through the few fingers of his hair that had fallen
down in front of his face, eyes glittering angrily.

Staring back at the boy, Nieve's eyes were wide with surprise as she
watched him hold the expression, and at length she let out a loud sigh,
a satisfied grin spreading across her face.  "Wow," she said, nodding
at the boy as his face split into a broad smile, shaking her head in
disbelief.  "You -are- good at that."  She chuckled lightly, glancing
around the dimly-lit restaurant, the red vinyl seats and black-painted
tables adding to the overall atmosphere that the place was intended to
be private.  "What move was that from, again?"

"'Live Through,'" replied Neil, pushing his blonde hair back into place
and grinning at the girl, pleased that she'd enjoyed the impression.
"It was released a couple of years after the Second Impact, and it was
one of the first films made afterwards that didn't just dramatize the
events of those few fateful days - it actually made a meaningful story
out of it."  He paused for a second, taking another sip of the bitter
liquid that they jokingly called coffee in the restaurant, enjoying the
sens of the warmth seeping down his throat gradually.  "What's
interesting is that those lines weren't actually in the movie's
original theatrical release."

"You're kidding me," replied Nieve, glancing around the restaurant and
trying to figure out if their waiter was ever going to come back and
take their order.  Although the staff had been well-dispositioned
towards the prospect of having the two Children dining at their
establishment, they also seemed to want to prolong the experience as
long as possible, and while Nieve had counted at least five
photographers trying to be discreet about taking pictures they'd only
seen their waiter briefly to receive drinks.  "How do you know them,
then?"

"Well, they were originally -filmed-, they just weren't -included-,"
replied Neil, unconcerned about the food aspect of the evening, happy
to simply be able to show off his knowledge of movie trivia.
"Apparently the footage of that entire scene got left on the cutting
room floor by accident, and nobody caught it until the writer sat down
and watched the film once it had been released.  By that point it was
too late to do anything, but it was included on the DVD once they
released it.  Ironically enough, the movie -does- make reference to the
same scene later on."

Shaking her head, Nieve took a sip of her drink, some kind of Japanese
soda that the waiter had recommended for reasons that she couldn't
begin to fathom.  The drink was vaguely sour, but not in the good sense
of being lemon-flavored so much as it simply tickled the sour taste
buds for no apparent reason.  "It's amazing that you know all this
stuff.  You said it was released in 2002, right?"  Neil nodded, and
Nieve shook her head again, still surprised by the boy's memory.  "So
you know about a film released when you were -two-, and you know almost
everything about it.  That's just not normal."

Neil shrugged, frowning slightly as he reached behind his ear and
scratched a small patch of agitated skin, still feeling somewhat
nervous that he was going to say the wrong thing now that the
conversation had moved back to him.  "While you were learning how to
pilot the Eva, I was learning everything I could about movies," he
offered, leaning slightly closer to Nieve.  "After all, us normal
children have these things called 'hobbies.'"

"Hey!" snapped Nieve in agitated tone, the slight chuckle that
accompanied the statement making it clear that she wasn't as angry as
her tone would imply.  "I have hobbies too."

"Really?  Name one."  Neil tried to grin smugly, to look as though he
was completely confident in the question, but he felt as though he was
treading on dangerous ground with his words, and for a moment he
worried that he shouldn't have said it as Nieve's face darkened
momentarily.  Then she smirked again mischeviously, and his tension
relaxed slightly as she thumbed her chin, apparently struggling to
think of something.

"All right, I sing," replied Nieve after a moment, slapping the hand
from her chin onto the table defiantly and grinning at Neil.  "I used
to be part of a choir back in Ireland.  And..."  She paused for a
moment, eyes flicking away from Neil towards the wall as though to
avoid the boy as a distraction.  "I don't know if you can really count
reading as a hobby, but if you can, that's there too."  She shrugged.
"I used to be into writing, too, but I decided that I really wasn't
very good at it.  I think I brought some of my old poetry with me."

Giving a quick nod, Neil found himself suddenly and unexpectedly simply
caught up in the simply appearance of Nieve, the way that her red hair
seemed to pour of her head down around her head and shoulders, the
smooth firm skin of her neck and chin, the slight capricious twinkle in
her eyes, the way that her twin emerald orbs seemed to catch a twinkle
of light even in darkened rooms such as the one they sat in.  "This is
nice," he said at length, surprising even himself with the words but
unable to stop saying them.  Nieve was staring at him quizzically now,
and he knew that he had to finish what he was saying, that he couldn't
just pretend he'd said nothing.  "Just... this.  The two of us sitting
here and having dinner..."

"What about it?" asked Nieve, leaning towards Neil, the small distance
that seperated the two of them seeming to contract noticably as the
girl leaned over, her chest pushing up and straining slightly against
the fabric of her shirt.  She didn't even seem to notice, but for the
first time that he could remember in a long while Neil didn't even feel
particularly tempted to look away from her.

"It's nice," he finished, somehow feeling more confident by the way she
seemed to actually be interested in his words.  "It's just... nice.
Normal.  It feels like we're really just normal kids for a minute,
without NERV, without the Evas, without the Angels.  Just normal
sixteen-year-olds out on a date with one another."  He paused for a
moment, thinking back on his words, realizing that he was repeating
himself a conspicuous amount.  "I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"No," replied Nieve, reaching her hand forward towards him, her intent
obvious as she stared into his eyes.  Neil swallowed hard for a moment,
then reached his own hand out and placed it gently in hers, feeling a
slight tickle as her slender fingers wrapped around his hand, slipping
between his own fingers and pressing against his skin tightly.  Both
opened their mouths to say something, then grinned in unison and closed
them, simply enjoying the pure innocence and normality of the moment
temporarily.

                                  ]++[

Breathing a last exhausted sigh, Misato typed the final few words
necessary for her report on the Ninth Angel, then hit the quick
combination of keys to save the document and flopped to one side of the
keyboard with a sigh of relief.  It had been a long day of work even
without the minor incident between her and Niobe, and she wanted more
than anything to simply go home.  She'd received a call from the
Children earlier to let her know that they were going out for dinner,
and much as she wanted to tell herself that she would miss them she was
almost oblivious to the fact as she blinked just to stay awake, staring
at the glow from the computer with just enough focus to keep sleep at
bay.

"Food," she muttered to herself, hauling her body away from the desk
with an almost herculean effort, closing the document that had taken
her at least two hours to complete before shutting down the computer.
"Get food.  Get home.  Have beer.  Sleep for days."  Rubbing her eyes
forcefully, she yawned, letting out a small moan, then blinked a few
more times and walked towards the door out of her office, flipping off
the lights as the doors hissed open and then closed.  In the back of
her mind, she knew that there was probably something that she was
forgetting, but it wasn't anything that concerned her as she began to
walk down the bland hallways slowly, feeling her vision start to blur
slightly from sheer exhaustion.

Then one of her feet hit the ground at entirely the wrong angle for a
woman wearing heels, and she found her senses suddenly focusing once
again as she started to topple forward.  A minor yelp escaped her lips
as she tried to stabilize herself, then a louder one as she felt her
balance give out completely, body pitching forward uncontrollably.  The
floor rushed up to meet her as she fell downwards, and she winced
before the floor even hit her, anticipating the feel of the cold metal
and the odd almost-scent of pain coming off her skin as she slammed
down.  "Ow," she muttered, hoping that she wasn't being watched, having
that sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't be so lucky.

"Making out with the floor?" asked Kaji, and Misato knew immediately
that he'd seen more than enough, unable to suppress a groan as she
looked down the hall to see the man walking towards her, the same
disheveled outfit on that he usually wore.  She closed her eyes for a
second, then opened them again to see him standing over her, reaching
down with one hand towards her.  Feeling even worse simply because it
was Kaji, she reached up and grabbed his hand, feeling as he helped tug
her to her feet, stumbling back to balance as she felt her left knee
protest the movement.  "You okay?  You look upset."

Glaring at the man for a moment, Misato resisted the urge to reach out
and slap him, instead simply turning her gaze away from him and towards
the wall.  "You think that I wouldn't be?" she asked, still unsure of
exactly why she was so mad at him and Ritsuko but not nearly ready to
forgive either of them.  Doing her best to be defiant, she stepped
firmly around Kaji, walking down the hall for a coupld steps before she
felt a loud shout of protest from her knee once again, forcing her to
stop and lean against the nearest wall as she hissed a breath inward.

"Slow down," advised Kaji, the tone of his voice simply concerned.
Misato wanted to believe that he just wanted her to be all right, but
part of her couldn't help but be angry, feel as though he was babying
her.  "You must have hurt yourself more than you thought.  Here, let me
help you to your car at least."

Kaji's hands closed around Misato's shoulders, and glaring once again
she shoved his hands off of her, whirling around as best she could and
letting her angry eyes stared into his own confused ones.  "Don't touch
me," she snapped, feeling slightly exposed from the touch even at the
same time that she wanted him to hold her again.  "I know what's going
on between you and Ritsuko.  I found out a couple days ago.  Don't you
go trying to hold me."

The man's face seemed to melt with the recognition that Misato knew
what was going on, something that gave Misato some small satisfaction
at the same time that it made her feel cruel.  "I'm sorry," he offered,
shrugging gently at the woman as though he was talking about something
unimportant.  "I probably should have told you when we started working
together.  But you know now, so I don't -"

"It isn't about whether or not I -know-," snapped Misato, feeling even
more violated by the simple act of speaking with Kaji, wishing that she
could simply hit him hard enough to make him realize that his cavalier
attitude towards the situation was entirely wrong.  A slow wave of
tears began to surge upwards as she felt her lungs contract, her
breaths coming more quickly involuntarily.  "It just isn't right,
Ryoji.  Ritsuko used to be my best friend in the world.  You used to be
my lover.  How could you... could you..."  She trailed off, realizing
that she sounded hysterical, a blush beginning to seep to the surface
of her skin.  "It just isn't right."

Kaji's hands closed around her shoulders once again, and this time she
didn't fight him, forcing herself to hold the tears back.  "You left
me, Misato," he said calmly, the tone his voice sounding even worse
than before, as though he was simply stating fact.  It made her feel
like a little girl, as though she needed to be scolded, something that
reminded her of all the worst things about her father.  "I didn't think
it would make you this angry.  I thought you would understand that we
both had to move on."

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child," she said harshly, once again
turning her gaze sharply away from him, feeling her anger breed more
freely without Kaji's calm and measured stare looking down at her.
"I'm only a couple of years younger than you are.  I..."  Once again,
she trailed off, not ready or willing to deal with the old feelings
bubbling back to the surface.  "Ryoji... you never said that you loved
me.  I left because..."  She felt her mouth curling into the right
shape to tell him truth, then losing its nerve and going back to the
easier and more comfortable lie.  "I left because I thought I was
holding you back."

The man's rough but gentle hand brushed against her cheek, and she
realized that despite her best efforts she was crying after all.
Looking towards, Kaji, she wanted to make up some kind of defense for
her actions, then found herself cut short as the man leaned in and
kissed her deeply, pulling her face closer to his and letting his lips
hold tightly against her as he slid his tongue inside of her mouth.
Misato felt a brief surge of fear and confusion, then found herself
giving in, losing herself to the man's strong embrace, the smell of
cigarettes and a sort of manly perfume about him, even the slight
scratch of his beard stubble against her face.  She wrapped her arms
around him as though time had flowed backwards, letting her own tongue
seek out his.  It wasn't so bad, she thought, living for moments like
these.  All of the pain he'd brought her seemed worth it for the simply
feeling of his kiss.

Almost as suddenly as it had started, it was over, and Misato felt his
lips move away from her, his grip returning simply to her shoulders,
the scent lingering in her nose as he moved away.  Then he was simply
holding her against the wall as she stared up at him, eyes wide in
utter confusion, the stains of tears running down her cheeks still
fresh.  "Trust me," he said softly, as though he was afraid of someone
hearing him.  "Just have faith in me.  I won't let you down."

Misato wanted to ask him what he meant.  She wanted to beg him not to
go, to ask him to stay with her, to return with her to the apartment
and hold her until everything became all right.  She wanted to scream
at him for betraying Ritsuko, wanted to slap him for having kissed her,
wanted to slap herself from letting him do so.  All of the desires were
tugging her in too many conflicting directions, and she wound up doing
nothing except staring at him, watching him as he released her
shoulders and walked away, almost hurrying away from her as though
being near her was dangerous.

"Don't go," she managed to whisper a moment too late, staring at the
now-empty hallway that he had walked down, eyes beginning to fill with
tears once again, her emotions a convoluted mess that still felt to be
pulling her in every direction.  She slumped down against the wall to
the floor, feeling as though she was thirteen all over again, that even
though she seemed to be such an adult on the outside she hadn't grown
at all.  Sniffling slightly, she closed her eyes, letting the tears
lingering in her eyes fall down her cheeks before standing, more
convinced than before that she needed a beer, something to chase away
the demons from her home within her mind.

                                  ]++[

Outro: Neon Epoch Evangelion is based off of -Shin Seiki Evangelion- by
GAINAX and company.  It is not intended to be a straightforward fanfic,
but it is building off the work of others, and as such it is done with
the utmost respect for the original works and their authors.
Basically, even though this is an original work, it's based off the
work of others, and if you read this, you should go to see the original.

Special thanks to all of the real Children - you know who you are.

Extra special thanks to Joe Augulis for his consultation on the
Japanese portions of the story.  He might not know much Japanese, but
that's more than I know.

Copyright 2002 Eliot Lefebvre.

NEXT EPISODE:
             Why do you wake up each morning?
             Why do you say the things you say?
             Why do you pilot the Evangelion?
NEON EPOCH EVANGELION 13: QUESTIONS OF THE FAITHFUL
"People want to believe whatever is most convenient."

                                  ]++[

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