From: "Rakna" The One I Love Is... Alternate Epilogue - For the one I love Written by Alain Gravel Story based on characters created by and copyright to GAINAX http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Teahouse/2236/ ======================================================================= Alternate Epilogue - For the one I love "Sir. The visiting hours are over now." Slowly, the man looked at the nurse. She was young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, not a child anymore, but only barely a grown woman. She had a nice smile and an innocent face. The man may have found her attractive in a past almost forgotten. The nurse, a girl named Lily, tried not to shudder while the man gazed at her, before pushing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. She couldn't really explain it, but the man gave her the creeps. He was good looking. Not too old, at most thirty. A soft looking face. His dark hair was tied in the back in a short ponytail and he didn't seem to have shaved in the last few days, which actually made him sort of attractive. However, there was something dark about him, and it wasn't just the black NERV uniform. If you looked carefully through the tinted lenses of the glasses he wore, you could see haunted dark eyes. "I see. I didn't realize it was so late." Lily let out a small sigh of relief as the man turn back to look at the woman lying on the bed. Despite the fact that she seemed a bit skinny and that she was very pale because of years of institutionalization, she had to admit that the woman was quite beautiful. She had only been working in this clinic for a week and already this patient was her favorite. Maybe it was the long red hair that reminded her so much of her ex-girlfriend. The man leaned toward the sleeping woman and gave her a light kiss on the lips. He then looked at her and the nurse was surprised to see the man actually smile. "Soon, Asuka-chan. Very soon. Just be patient a little longer." The man then picked up a black trenchcoat and walked out of the room. "What a strange man," thought the nurse. This thought didn't leave her for a few hours and she expressed it to her colleague, Tanya. She liked Tanya a lot and always shared her thoughts with her. Tanya had been a great help in getting used to the place. Too bad she had a boyfriend... "You'll get used to it," answered back Tanya, slowly slurping her cup of coffee. "I've been working here for almost ten years and I can't remember a single day where this man didn't visit the patient from room fourty-two. I think he was her fiancee or something." Ten years. Maybe more then ten years. He had visited her every day. Suddenly, Lily's opinion of the man became a lot more positive. A man that much in love couldn't be bad... * * * NERV's Supreme Commander stood on the platform facing the Evangelion and stared at the yellow eyes of Unit-01. Soon, everything would come to fruition and his goal would be within his grasp. Adam and Lilith were no more, but Unit-01, child of Lilith, still existed and so did the other Evangelions. "Commander." The Commander pushed back his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked at the newcomer, a woman in her forties, with blond hair and wearing a labcoat. "Doctor Ibuki." "I've left today's reports on your desk." "I see. The news didn't mention a catastrophe in China, so I assume that Unit Beta-02's activation tests were a success." "Yes sir. Although the synch rate with the A.I. plug was not more then ten percents, as expected, the unit successfully activated." The Commander nodded. "Good. A fiasco like the activation attempt in Paris would have been a pain. I can't afford having another Unit blow up. We already suffered unacceptable delays. We were lucky that the obliteration of Paris in the explosion erased all traces of the experiment. I don't like relying on luck." There was a long moment of silence, as two emotionless faces stared at one another. "How did today's dummy plug experiment go?" the Commander finally asked. "Another failure. Like in the previous attempt, the clone lost cohesion and dissolved into the LCL. I did determine however that our synthetic LCL is the cause of the problem." The Commander frowned. This was not good news. "Any solutions to that problem?" "I will need to redesign the LCL formula." "I see. So you want to perform another genetic resequencing on Rei." "Yes." "She nearly died in the last attempt. Will she live through this operation?" "I believe so. However, I doubt that she will be able to function on her own after this procedure, even less think by herself." "Irrelevant. You may proceed." "You're so cold, Shinji." "Not more then you, Maya." "You loved her once." Shinji signed. Maya had always been a sentimental fool. "I did. But it's all in the past." "Then why can't you forget about Asuka?" "Why can't you forget about Ritsuko?" The Doctor looked down. That name always had the desired effect on her. "Soon our plans will come to fruition, and all will be alright. Once we achieve Instrumentality, you'll be able to be with her once more and Asuka and I will be reunited." The Doctor looked at him, eyes full of hope. "Yes..." "I will see you later tonight at your apartment." "Yes sir." The Commander left. There was still so much to do, so much that kept him from reaching his goal of being reunited with the woman he loved. However, all obstacles would be dealt with, and soon... they would be together again. [END] Alain Gravel rakna@globetrotter.qc.ca February 14th 2000 Started on January 28th 2000 First pre-reader draft finished on February 14th 2000 Final draft finished on March 21st 2000