Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book One)

E8 Part 7: Apocalypse, Please

Express Access Elevator MEDIAN-T1

The retrieval team said something about the train system having restart issues. Shinji was too tired to care. They herded him into a long, thin hallway and closed the door. He wandered down three flights of stairs and stumbled into the elevator he found at the end of the path.

He rested his aching head against the bulkhead. God. He needed... something to eat, to start with. Plus a nap. A very long nap. Then maybe some time in the Zero Room... like, say, a month or so. He scratched his head and yawned.

Then someone threw an arm around his neck and yanked his head back by the hair.

"Push. The. Button," Asuka growled in his ear.

... crap.

Shinji swallowed. He slowly reached out his hand and pushed the down symbol.

As soon as the door shut, Asuka immediately forced him down on his knees and put him in an underarm headlock. "YOU LEFT ME OUT THERE TO DIE, YOU MORON!!!"

"I d-didn't -- Asuka, just listen --"

"And what, you just thought I'd let you get away with it?!" she snarled. "IDIOT! I knew how to kill with my bare hands before I got my first bra!"

"I w-was trying to draw one of them away!" Shinji attempted to pull her arm away from his throat. "When it didn't work, I came back!" In retrospect, he thought, it probably would've helped if he'd actually said something beforehand. But explaining things while doing them was hard.

"Oh, please! A likely story!" She tightened her grip. "Just admit it! You got scared and wussed out, didn't you?!"

"Well, no -- I mean, y-yeah, sure, I was scared, but I --"

"HA!" She twisted her hips back and forth, trying to dislodge his hands from her arm. "And anyway -- even if you were smart enough to think of something like that, which I doubt -- what if they'd just killed me while you were gone? Huh?! Did you think of THAT, Einstein?! What the hell made you so sure I'd even be ALIVE by the time you came back?!"

"Oh, gee, I don't know," he snapped. "Because you're you?!"

The door slid open. They both froze.

Rei stepped into the elevator. She tilted her head. "I'm... not quite certain how to interpret these sorts of things," she said. "Is that intended as an affectionate gesture?"

"Huh?" Asuka said blankly. She glanced down.

At that precise moment, Shinji realized for the first time that the side of his face was pressed directly against Asuka's breast.

***

Elevator Shaft T1. 1 km below the surface.

Despite being more than five hundred meters away from the descending elevator car, the acoustic sensors at the midway point clearly picked up the distinct sound of a slap.

***

Express Access Elevator MEDIAN-T1

Shinji gingerly rubbed the side of his face. Gah. Even his teeth felt numb. Asuka stood as far away from him as possible, arms crossed over her chest, the color of her face nigh-exactly matching that of her red plug suit. Rei looked between the two of them curiously.

There was precisely nothing fair about a world, Shinji reflected, where he had to deal with this right after a combat mission. (He winced as sensation started to return to his face, all of it painful.) She felt kind of nice while it lasted, though, part of him whispered inside of his head. Oh, God, no, he thought with a mounting sense of terror. Don't think that. Not here. She'll sense it. And she knows where they keep the rifles now.