Chapter Three
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"Shinji... get up."
He woke immediately, though he was sure he had been sound asleep before Misato had entered his room. One of his headphone plugs had fallen out, though he could still hear the familiar strains of music through the other. The dark-haired boy was still wearing the clothes he had changed into after... after...
It had been three days since he had saved the world. Three days since he had entered his Eva for the final task, and done what he had been set up from the beginning to do...
-I killed Kawrou-
//killed him...//
-crushed him-
//I didn't want to...//
-destroyed him, because he didn't want to destroy us-
He could have killed Misato afterward, for daring to say Kaworu deserved it... after all he had... after all...
//... the very first person, to say he liked me.//
... and he, Shinji Ikari, had killed him.
//Just like my father made me... just as /his/ Father made him... neither of us really had a choice.//
-He had a choice... he chose to save you-
If only Shinji had not been forced to accept that mercy.
Three days had passed, days the dark-haired boy spent mainly drowsing, never more than half-awake, not knowing or really caring what had happened next. Not surprisingly, Misato had let him, and neither his father nor anyone else had felt the need to contact either of them, and made no sign that they ever would again. He /had/ saved the world, after all, he had done all that had been expected of him. What possible use could he still be?
Shinji had wondered, half in dream at the time, if they might just store him with the Evas now, if they might -
"Shinji, get up /now/!"
Misato kicked the edge of his bed, but did not seem so much angry as worried, and as he sat up, the dark-haired boy saw she held a duffel bag in her arms, was quickly throwing all the contents of his drawers inside...
"Hey... what are you... Misato-san!?"
Shinji felt a moment of embarrassment, as she opened his underwear drawer, but Misato either didn't notice or didn't care, throwing the contents into the bag just as she had everything else.
"You've got to get out of here. Tonight."
"What?"
The woman wasn't panicked, not quite yet, but her movements never lost their quick edge. It didn't take long for her to clean out his room, his clothes and his music books only just filling the bag. Misato's eyes ran across the edge of his cello, the only other thing he owned that meant anything to him, but to Shinji, it looked as if she hadn't even really seen the instrument.
"... have to get another one, when you get settled somewhere else..."
He had never seen her so agitated, not like this... Usually, she'd just get a beer, ignore everyone around her, and wait for things to calm down...
"Misato-san... what's going on?"
The woman turned to him for a moment, and Shinji wished only that he had never asked... He already knew it couldn't be an angel, that even if, somehow, Tabris -
-//Kaworu//-
-hadn't been the last, she wouldn't be packing his things up, and telling him to leave...
"It's SEELE... they're moving against NERV..."
"What?!"
Misato gave a weak laugh, but there was no humor in it.
"I really don't know, Shinji... but when you killed the last Angel..." In her haste, Misato never saw the boy flinch. "You really stepped on a few toes, or Gendo did... and with the threat of the Angels over... the whole /project/ is over, apparently... but your father's taken control of Toyko-3 and... I don't even know, SEELE's... it's going to turn into another war, it looks like..."
"Father?"
Misato froze again, but only for a moment. Shinji knew he'd never find out what was really going on, at least, not from her.
"He wants you out of here, Shinji. There's some money in an account, he said you'd know where it was. Get a ticket and get out of here, jump around a bit, see the world..."
Yes, Shinji knew where the money was. Even though his father had never loved him, Gendo Ikari had made sufficient preparations, should anything ever happen, and his son be left to his own defenses...
It was, in a way, the most vicious thing he could have done, keeping Shinji alive and safe, though they both knew he wasn't loved. No one loved him... except, perhaps for...
//I think I was born to meet you.//
Was that the only love he would ever find? Was one moment all he would ever get, all he deserved? That one night with Kaworu, just talking, not even that for too long... was that really it?
"What about you?"
He realized things must have been serious, as Misato removed a gun from the waistband of her pants, loading a cartridge into it with a slight click, staring straight ahead, her eyes narrow, gaze determined.
"I've got to get Asuka out... she's helpless. You're not."
He flinched again, though a part of him was sure the woman hadn't meant her words to be as scornful as they sounded. As Misato moved back towards the front room, he trailed behind her.
"... and Rei?"
It was too much, had been too much to think about, who or /what/ Rei really was, but Shinji still didn't want anything to happen to her... to anyone...
"Rei is with your father..." Misato closed her eyes for a moment, sighing hard. "You have to go, Shinji... I'm sorry..."
"Will I ever see you again?"
The woman's arms were around him then, in a quick, rough embrace, but the dark-haired boy didn't return it, couldn't, because he would hold on to her, unable to let go... and Shinji knew she had to go, just as he knew that her actions had answered his question as well as any words could.
He would have to fix what he could of Misato in his mind now, for after this moment, she would be gone, forever.
A key slid into his hand as Misato stepped back, tucking the handgun back into her waistband.
"Lock up when you leave, it might confuse them for a little..."
The clatter of the chair against the table, footsteps on the floor, a few more unimportant noises... and she was gone. Shinji stood alone in the silent room, duffel bag on the floor beside him, all that remained of his life in Tokyo-3, his life as an Eva pilot...
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Shinji had thought of two things at that moment, of staying in the house, and of Pen-Pen. He had wondered at the time if it wouldn't have been easier, to just go back to bed, to let SEELE or whomever it was that was fighting come and find him, and perhaps kill him, or whisk him away to be studied or tortured or whatever it was they wanted...
The penguin, he soon discovered, had already gone, though Shinji had not remembered seeing it leave.
In the next few moments, under no real guidance or inspiration, his feet started moving, preparing to do as Misato had said. The dark-haired boy took a beer from the fridge, just to give his brain something to do while he walked, lifted his duffel onto his shoulder, and left, locking the door behind him. Shinji dropped the key in the nearest drain, and continued on towards the bank.
He never looked back.
At any moment, Shinji had expected to be caught, listened closely for the sound of cars with sirens -did SEELE even use sirens?- or for the sight of men in black suits who would simply jump him, and drag him away... but nothing happened. He cleaned out his account, not really taking notice of how much he was handed, only that the clerk seemed stunned by the amount, and the bank manager had been called to oversee the transfer.
They asked him what he was doing with so much money. He couldn't remember what he had answered.
Shinji had walked to the train station after that, buying himself a ticket for the farthest destination, and falling asleep to the gentle movement of the cars, the rhythmic sounds of the countryside rushing by.
He dreamed a sweet dream, remembering only happiness, and the feeling of warm, slim arms around him, his hands reaching up to ruffle a shaggy mane of hair so pale it continually hovered between blonde, ivory and gray, and red eyes that loved him... nothing more was necessary, but that he was loved.
Shinji woke when the train slowed, and departed when it stopped... and bought passage on the first boat out of the country, crying himself to sleep as Japan disappeared, more at a loss for the dream, and the hole it had opened up inside of him, than any sorrow for the land he knew he was most likely leaving forever.
The boy ran, just as Misato had told him to. He went to India, and traveled through Middle East, and saw the pyramids in Egypt, the sun rising over the Mediterranean, and setting behind the Vatican City. Many places in the world were still beautiful, even after Second Impact, and Shinji walked among most of them, quiet and alone, with more than enough money to buy anything he wanted tucked in the bottom of his ratty duffel bag. No one spoke to him beyond a few words of greeting, or a polite smile now and then, and he returned their kindness with his own silence.
Europe took him in for a few years, and Shinji continued to wander aimlessly, wondering from time to time if anyone was following him, trying to track him down, if NERV really /had/ been in trouble... or had his father only been trying to get rid of him? Had he truly been only a burden to all of them - even Misato-san?
His questions were answered one day, as he noticed an article in one of the papers he passed by in a French train station. Shinji could read none of it, saw only the pictures... and the SEELE and NERV insignias at the top of the page.
Over the next few days Shinji translated the story, word for word with the help of a dictionary, while he kept to his hotel room, a sharp eye out for any more words, or pictures, in the news.
The story told him nothing until he read beneath the lines, of a "project" that had been unearthed - very few details given here - a joint partnership between Germany and Japan, billions of dollars funneled from both governments, into some sort of defense project...
It had all been destroyed... Tokyo-3, NERV, Terminal Dogma... Shinji knew his father, hated him enough to know that Gendo Ikari would never have allowed something he actually loved to come to ruin, not his passion... not his life.
Gendo Ikari was dead.
//... and if he... then, there's no reason she...//
Rei Ayanami, or at least, whatever version of her had still existed, was also dead. Shinji only hoped she'd been in her Eva at the time, and gone down fighting. She deserved no less.
Whatever had happened, in those last few moments of NERV, of course, no one would ever know the real truth. The reporters had been told a sanitized version of the story, just enough for a scandal, to pull up a bit of a fuss, that /this much/ taxpayer money had been secretly put into /anything/... The people would be outraged, for about a week, and then the whole thing would die down, and disappear...
Shinji wondered if SEELE would start a war, to distract the world, if anyone kept digging, and got too close to the truth...
//What is the truth? What did I really know...//
-//I knew that Kaworu loved me... I know that he knew more about what was happening than SEELE and NERV combined...//-
/... I know that he loved me./
Shinji covered his head with his arms, that hole inside him long since turned into a depthless well, a cold lake full of all his tears... always with him, dug in next to his heart, so he didn't have to cry anymore, not every time he remembered...
On his nineteenth birthday, Shinji went to Germany, to see the land a girl like Asuka had come from, all the time wondering if SEELE was still on his trail, and wondering more and more now whether they had ever even cared. It wasn't as if he'd attempted to cover his tracks, apart from never using a credit card, or signing his name to anything... but really, if they truly were searching for him...
Germany was beautiful. Shinji searched for Asuka's name as best he could, for any reference to Langly, but never found her, or any sign of Misato...
As far as he knew, he was the only survivor.
//... the only survivor, and the person who deserved it the least.//
Shinji moved on, to England, Ireland, back through Switzerland, up into the Netherlands, Norway, living quietly, walking from town to town, picking up a book here or there, music for the cello he had yet to buy... He'd practice sometime, in music stores, on one of their instruments, and usually could gather at least a small crowd. More than once, he'd been invited to return, and sometimes he did...
Finally, America. New York, or at least, the rebuilt New York. A city, he was told, that was too damn stubborn to give into anything, even apocalypse.
... and it was there, that Shinji finally stopped running.
There was no real reason for it, the city no better or worse a place than any he had been in before, but he decided to stop anyway, try and rebuild a life, or grow a new one from the ashes.
It might very well have been the package that had finally found him, God only knew how, from Asuka Langly. No return address, no sign of where it had come from or when, just her name, written in wide script. He wondered who had written it, if Misato was still with her...
If he stayed, perhaps another package would find him, and he had, and they had... no address on any of them, but at least he knew she was still alive... and her paintings looked beautiful on his otherwise bare walls.
Shinji rented a small apartment, writing his real name on the lease for the first time in nearly a decade, and found a job in the first place he liked with a "Help Wanted" sign in the window. A florist shop, manned by a blind woman, an young Irish woman, and a man just a few years older than he, who reminded him of Kagi... in a blonde, stupid sort of way.
Until the stabbing, things had been fairly peaceful, and surprisingly quiet. Shinji had finally bought a beautiful cello with a bit of the still enormous sum he now considered to be his inheritance, and joined a local symphony. One day, the dark-haired man had found a pinup sign outside the group's practice room, advertising a singer who was searching for backup players for her jazz routine. The young man had never played jazz, but ripped off the phone number anyway, inspired by years of relative peace to sample some small, new slice of life.
At first, Claire had been ambivalent, if not downright hostile, acting much like a less-energetic Asuka might have treated him, had the redheaded girl /ever/ been out of energy. Shinji /could/ play what she gave him though, and quite well, and so he soon won her grudging respect, and spent his time between the accompaniments for her songs and the orchestra's, studying his English, and arranging flowers at the shop.
Shinji would wake, from time to time, covered in sweat and screaming, begging for his father to help him, pleading for Toji's life, or for Kaworu not to force his hand, not to smile and tell him it was all right, as Shinji closed the Eva's grip tight and snuffed out his life... his joy...
Other times he woke, feeling as if he had been held tightly all night by warm, gentle arms, cuddled safely in an embrace of smooth skin and soft wings... and those dreams made him cry even harder than the nightmares usually could, aching inside for things that had never come to him, and, of course, never would.
Most of the time, though, Shinji simply lived, letting NERV and SEELE and everything else disappear into the distant past, helping it to drift as far away as it could ever go... until he didn't think about piloting the Eva every day, didn't remember Kaworu's broken body, and the blood on his hands so vividly, as if it had happened only yesterday.
Time healed, and Shinji let it, content to forget what he could, and hold up other memories in the light, jewels of his own that sparkled and shone just for him... memories of Misato, he and Asuka playing a simple game of cards, and enjoying themselves for a night... memories of seeing Rei smile...
... memories... of he and Kaworu in the bath, the light-haired boy speaking so simply of things like love and kindness and vulnerability that still could make Shinji turn red, watching him with those ever-honest eyes...
Now, Shinji was once again content to let himself heal from this latest attack, to let the horror of what had happened slip from both body and mind, the way so many more terrible things he had faced already had, and return to his duties in the flower shop.
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"Shinji... are you /sure/ I can't help you with that?!"
Brigid hovered close to him, watching as he slowly moved a blue porcelain vase from the outside display back into the flower shop. Behind him, Shinji could hear Ben struggling to do the same with a much larger concrete pot.
"Geez, Bridge! Cut the man a break already, he's twenty, not three!"
Ben grunted, shifting the pot up into an easier position against his muscular arm, tossing his shoulder-length hair behind his back. "That's right, right Shinj?"
The dark-haired man nodded, wincing just a little with the strain against his stitches as he lifted the pot higher and the edge dug into his side. No doubt he would be hurting a bit tomorrow, but it was worth it, to be able to work today. He liked this place, liked these people... and appreciated them, their camaraderie, more than he was sure they'd ever realize.
"Right, see Bridge! He's fine!" Ben clapped Shinji on the shoulder, and the dark-haired man stifled a cry, fighting to keep his balance as he was almost knocked over by the larger man's enthusiastic gesture.
"Sorry..." Ben chuckled a bit, very obviously not sorry, since no real harm had been done, and watching the shorter man stumble had been amusing. Brigid sighed, looking as if she might want to throw any number of pots and vases at her co-worker, before throwing a quick smile Shinji's way instead, and returning to working out the inventory.
It was so much different here, this harmony between them all. Shinji fit into his place, and nothing was required of him that he could not provide. Brigid's red hair, not to mention her temperament, was easily the equal of Asuka's at times, but the girl's fury had never come down on him, not even in jest. Whatever he hadn't been able to give the German girl, in their time together, Brigid had never expected of him in the first place.
Ben was quite possibly the most easy person to get along with that Shinji had ever known. Good-natured and happy, slow to anger and quick to forgive, the blonde American had immediately taken Shinji in as a friend, though it was obvious that the blonde tended to talk down to him a bit. Shinji didn't mind being treated like a younger brother, and got the feeling from time to time that Ben was actually nervous around him, and hid it with his loud jokes, and a cheer that could be, at times, extremely overzealous.
Vara was usually the one in charge of the shop, though Shinji had never bothered to ask if she was the actual owner. The blind woman was, perhaps, the only person able to be more quiet than he was. Vara moved and worked in an unconsciously silent way that at times nearly reminded him of Kaworu - and not in the way that so many things reminded him of Kaworu, when he was too tired to remember to forget.
The four of them created and delivered bouquets and arrangements to many places downtown... corporate offices, smaller businesses, and of course, deliveries to friends, family and lovers of all kinds.
Ben took care of most of the deliveries, while Brigid placed orders for flowers and balanced the books. Shinji worked in the shop, taking orders, sweeping and cleaning the small store and doing whatever else needed to be done. He made most of the arrangements, the one Vara had brought him in the hospital had been an anomaly, though in his opinion, a very skillful one, given that she had apparently done it alone.
//Amazing colors, for not being able to see them...//
He had often worried about the woman, wondered how in the world Vara had managed to live in such a large city with what, to him, seemed to be such an enormous handicap...
//... but Vara wasn't the one who got stabbed in an alley, now was she?//
Shinji smiled to himself, adjusting the vase on its new perch near the wall, and turned to gather up a bunch of flowers to place inside of it, couldn't help but breathe in deep at the fresh scent, his smile growing at the brush of gentle petals against his hands. This was so much different, so much better than anything he had done before...
So nice, this life... not perfect, and perhaps, not even all that happy much of the time... but it was comfortable, and livable...
"Shinji! Phone!"
The dark-haired man nodded to Brigid, who set the phone down on the counter as she went back to her books. Shinji finished tipping the flowers back into the vase, dusting off his hands as he moved toward the phone...
The only person it could have been was the landlord, and the only reason...
//A burglary... damn it...//
The dark-haired man hoped no one had taken his cello. It wasn't as if he couldn't have bought another one, of course... but he had grown accustomed to this one, liked it. The instrument was so much more than a skillful melding of wood and strings, it was -
"Hello?" Shinji's mouth was already set to form a frown, disappointed... but the voice that spoke was low, most certainly male and therefore not his landlord, but also not anyone he knew...
"Is this Shinji Ikari, son of Gendo Ikari?"
The dark-haired man's mouth went dry. Had he not been frozen, Shinji would have dropped the phone. Dimly, a part of his mind realized he would have to answer... have to say something...
"My father is dead."
He hung up the phone, hand still loosely cradling the receiver, staring at nothing. If it were to ring again, Shinji was sure he would scream... but it did not.
His heart was pounding, because he knew... there were a thousand possible reasons for the call, but only one force that could have made it, only one group that would have known where to reach him, and would have mentioned his father's name.
SEELE.
He had been found.
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"Are you sure you're all right?"
"It's nothing, really... I'm just a little tired."
Shinji brushed off all of Brigid's concerned glances with a smile and a few soft words, making a good show of peace, while inside he was anything but steady or calm.
//Of course I'm not all right... but I can't tell you, because you wouldn't understand, and if I tried to explain it, you'd either think I was crazy, or they'd kill you.//
/I, Shinji Ikari, saved the world.../
It sounded impossibly moronic, even in his own head.
Shinji saw his enemy as soon as he walked out of the shop for the night. Brigid had offered to close, saying she needed a bit more time to work out a few orders, and he had gladly let her. If he was alone, there was less likely a chance that anyone would have to get hurt.
//Anyone... besides me.//
Two men, both with dark suits and glasses, watched him from a car at the corner, the attempt at camouflage so obvious it was asinine. Shinji had no doubt who they were, and that he was their target, though he felt his heart begin to race despite the knowledge, clenched suddenly sweaty palms, though they only sat there, watching him.
//It wasn't as if you tried to hide... you knew this was always a possibility...//
... but what on Earth could they possibly /want/ from him now? It had been a decade, ten /years/ since he had run, escaped NERV as it imploded. SEELE had obviously won, what could they possibly need him for?
Shinji walked calmly down the street, flinched as he turned the corner, and heard the car start from the opposite block. He didn't bother to look around, sure there must have been more of them, somewhere...
He had slammed down the phone without thinking, but Shinji was not about to run. Even if, somehow, he /could/ manage to escape them now, the dark-haired man knew they would pursue him for the rest of his life... and, on a much smaller scale, his wounds still ached something awful, whenever he moved the wrong way. He wasn't about to flee anywhere.
//If they want me... they can have me.//
Shinji walked into the coffeehouse on the corner, a place only a few blocks from his own home that he had never bothered with before, and ordered a small coffee with a shot of amaretto. It was his usual treat after a night of playing backup for Claire's soaring vocals, but the coffeehouse they usually performed at was a small-time, independent establishment, where as this was warehouse coffee... and utterly vile. The dark-haired man kept sipping at it anyway, searching for anything that could subdue the butterflies nipping down his throat, circling in his stomach despite the flood of bitter brew meant to drown them.
//Drowned butterflies... oh, that would be /much/ better...//
Amazing, how irrational his thoughts could become, how well they leapt from point to irrelevant point, when he was afraid...
//I'm not afraid...//
No, he was angry... because he was afraid. Shinji had thought his life, his quiet contentment rested on firmer ground than this, but the simple phone call had smashed all his thoughts of strength, and stability...
He was almost grateful, in his nervousness, to see the two men, accompanied by another man in a gray business suit, finally walk through the door.
No pretense, they walked right up to him, the two larger men flanking Mr. Gray Suit as they sat around the small table. The men all looked American, though Shinji had often had trouble telling Americans apart from some Europeans, or Canadians...
"Hello, Mr. Ikari."
American, with no trace of an accent. Shinji took another sip of his coffee, not trying to appear overly concerned or overly mellow, not /trying/ to appear anything...
"You didn't try to hide yourself very well... it's almost as if you /wanted/ to get caught."
If the man was trying to bait him, Shinji didn't care, and if he were trying to make some sort of point, the dark-haired man cared even less.
"Why would I bother? SEELE has all the money in the world... If I tried to hide, I'd only end up miserable, and you'd track me down anyway."
The man merely folded his hands in front of him with a smile, obviously willing to ignore any trace of bitterness in the younger man's words.
"Fair enough... but then why did you hang up the phone, Mr. Ikari?"
"Call me Shinji."
-//Not Ikari /anything/, I just sound like my father...//-
The dark-haired man took another sip of his now lukewarm coffee, happy to concentrate on the bitter dregs, the sourness on the edge of his tongue...
"What do you people want from me? It's been ten years... I doubt if I even know how to pilot an Eva anymore, if I could remember..."
"Oh no, Mr. Ik- Shinji." The man smiled slightly once more, an expression Shinji was already growing to hate. "I imagine it's much like learning to ride a bike... once you learn, you never forget..."
-/never forget... I will /never/ forget... all that I was forced to do.../-
"... but you would be correct to assume, that all the original Evas have been destroyed."
Shinji flinched, knowing what that meant, feeling the casket close on a question, decades old.
//Rei. I'm sure of it... and...//
"My father?"
"Quite destroyed."
Shinji didn't quite know what to think, or what to feel, but didn't want to do any thinking or feeling in front of these men.
"So... why are you following me?"
Gray Suit leaned forward, though Shinji could still not see the man's eyes from behind his dark, mirrored shades. The twin images of his own face staring back at him looked very, very small...
"We need you to save the world again, Shinji."
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Author's Notes:
1. Please give me a little time to get my spelling and terminology in order. This is my first Eva fic, and it always takes me a few chapters to get into the swing of things.
2. Same goes for following the show's plot. <grin>