Disclaimer: Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, meaning I do not own the rights to it. I am using their characters without their permission, and will gladly destroy all traces of the story if they ask.

Homecoming

By Random1377

Deep under the ocean, two teenagers fought for their very lives, struggling with all their might to force the Evangelion Unit they were trapped in to respond to their mental command of open, open, open. The angel holding them firmly in its jaws seemed unkillable, fighting the pull of the aircraft carrier, Over the Rainbow's mighty winch as two battleships sank towards it, their intent obvious as their cannons homed in on the angel's mouth.

On the bridge of the aircraft carrier, Misato watched the progress of the battle with mingled hope and tension. It was a good strategy, but she was concerned about its success – largely because Shinji and Asuka could not seem to make Unit 02 obey their commands underwater.

"Time to target?"

One of the bridge officers checked his monitor. "Fifty seconds, ma'am," he replied quietly, "no sign of movement from the EVA."

Misato scrubbed a hand over her face. "Damn," she muttered, going over secondary protocols in her mind. "If we can't stop it here… we may have to scuttle Unit 02."

Shinji's friend Kensuke gaped at her. "S-scuttle?" he stuttered, his camera momentarily forgotten, "like… blow-up?"

Touji, Shinji's other friend, muttered, "No way…!"

"I'm short on options," Misato snapped, "Time to target?"

"Thirty s- movement! I've got movement from Unit 02!"

Everyone waited tensely as the countdown slowly reached zero.

"The ships are in the angel's mouth!" the officer cried out. "Pointblank range – they can't miss."

Misato clenched her hand into a fist. "FIRE!"

Moments later, the Over the Rainbow shook with the force of a large, underwater explosion. All hands braced themselves as a huge plume of water shot out of the ocean, sending droplets flying everywhere as a rather ragged looking Unit 02 arced high up into the air, somehow, miraculously, crashing back down onto the deck of the Over the Rainbow before slumping, powerless, onto its face.

"Well," Misato said briskly, "that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Everyone on the bridge gave her a baleful glance, but before any rude comments were made, the communications officer said, "Ma'am? The pilot of Unit 02 is requesting immediate, urgent communication."

Yawning, Misato said, "Patch her through. Hey Asuka – great j-"

"Get me out of here!"

Misato blinked, taken aback by the panic in the pilot's voice. "Asuka, calm down," she said with some confusion, "the angel's dead. What's the-"

"Get me out!" Asuka practically shrieked, "Get me out – get me out RIGHT NOW!"

"Whoa, whoa!" Misato said, motioning with her hands even though Asuka could not see her, "Easy! What's going on?" With a sudden sense of foreboding, she said, "Where's Shinji…?"

Asuka's reply chilled her to the bone.

"Took him… it took him…" the redhead babbled. "I swear to god if you don't get me out of here I will rip this goddamn ship apart!"

In spite of the anger in the Second Child's voice – or perhaps because of it – Misato found this threat terribly amusing. "I'd like to see that with no power," she said dryly, "now where is Shin-"

"I told you it took him!" Asuka roared. "Open the plug, damn it! Let… me… out!"

"What are you talking about?" Misato demanded. "If this is some kind of joke, it isn't funny – I'll get you out as soon as we have power restored, or do you want me to eject you into the sea? Now put Shinji on."

There was a long, long silence, broken finally when Asuka whispered, "…I can't, Misato. He's not here anymore."

Misato growled in frustration. "What does that mean? Asuka? Asuka?"

"We've reestablished power with Unit 02," the officer next to Misato reported, "wasn't easy by hand, but we got it."

"Give me a pilot lifesign reading," Misato ordered, "hurry."

The officer nodded. "Coming up now… got it – pilot, is a-ok."

Misato frowned. "Pilot?" she echoed, turning to the man. "Were you paying attention to the fight at all? There's two of them in there."

"Umm, my readings show one," the officer said apologetically, "the other must have ejected or some-"

He was cut off as Misato slammed her fist down on the console. "Damn it," she shouted, "Get me someone who knows what he's doing!"

Pushing the startled officer out of the way, Misato began typing on the computer, her eyes scanning the readout as her brow drew down in a confused scowl.

"What the hell?" she muttered, scanning Asuka's bio-signs. "Alive… but unconscious? She fainted? Asuka fainted? And where – the hell – is Shinji…?"

( 0 0 0 )

The remainder of the ride back to Tokyo-3 was tense – especially when Asuka came back around and began clamoring to be let out again. Misato was finally able to calm the pilot down by assuring her that as soon as they reached land, Ritsuko would be waiting with a retrieval crew – and the number one priority would be getting Asuka out of the plug.

In their conversations, Misato tried to gather more information on what had happened… but all she managed to glean was that sometime during the battle, Shinji had simply ceased to be in the plug, leaving nothing but his plugsuit and neural connectors to show that he had ever been there.

She also discovered that the manual eject, for some reason, did not seem to be functioning. Asuka made it very clear that she had tried numerous times to get it to work, but so far, nothing. Asuka also made it very clear exactly what she thought of the ejection system, Shinji's disappearance, Misato's status as a female dog, and the lineage of the entire crew of the Over the Rainbow, who – according to her – were all born to unwed mothers.

At least she's got her spirit back, Misato thought as the aircraft carrier nosed up to the dock. She had me worried for a while there.

Misato was still worried, of course, but she was trying to keep her game face on.

People don't just vanish, she told herself as she made her way down the gangplank to meet Ritsuko. There had to be a reasonable explanation for where Shinji was. Perhaps he had gotten knocked unconscious and wedge behind the pilot's seat, where Asuka could not see. Maybe he opened the plug hatch and was trapped in the EVA's chest cavity. Hell, maybe he opened the hatch and got jettisoned into the ocean, Misato didn't know.

…never mind the fact that each of these scenarios would render the hapless Third Child irrevocably dead, there had to be an explanation.

"So," she said with forced lightness, "give me good news."

Looking her squarely in the eyes, Ritsuko deadpanned, "We're screwed."

Misato tripped and tumbled the rest of the way down the gangplank, ending up in a jumbled heap at Ritsuko's feet. "Ow," she groaned, rubbing her bruised backside as she got to her feet, "don't sugarcoat it, doc, give it to me straight."

"This isn't a time for levity," Ritsuko said sharply, "look at this."

Glancing at the paper the blonde shoved at her, Misato said, "It's the synchronization report I sent you right after the fight. What about it?"

Ritsuko ground her teeth. "Notice anything… unusual about it?"

Misato shrugged. "There's a ghost signature over the top of Asuka's ratio," she said dismissively, "static in the system – from Shinji's presence, right?"

"No," Ritsuko corrected, "what you're seeing is Shinji's sync ratio."

Pursing her lips, Misato replied, "Impossible – it's off the scale."

Ritsuko shook her head, surveying the paper herself with a slightly awed expression. "It's happened before," she whispered, "with Unit 01's first pilot. This isn't the first time we've seen this, Misato."

Misato paled considerably. "Didn't… that pilot die?"

"Boy that's a complicated question," Ritsuko muttered. "Umm… I can't really answer that, Misato – it would take me all day. Let me get to Unit 02. There's still a chance that Shinji is… salvageable."

Flinching, Misato stepped out of the way, but as Ritsuko stepped past, she grabbed her arm.

"Hey."

"Hmm?"

"…don't say salvageable."

Ritsuko opened her mouth to say that this was the most appropriate word, but one look at the harsh gleam in Misato's eyes silenced her.

"Alright."

Without another word, she continued on her way, deciding that it was definitely the right decision to keep Misato from knowing the results of the attempt to salvage Unit 01's pilot.

It would just piss her off.

( 0 0 0 )

"What is taking so long?"

Asuka fidgeted with Unit 02's right control yoke, trying to avoid looking at the empty plugsuit floating behind her in the LCL. It had been hours since the battle, and she was still trapped in the plug.

She was going crazy.

"Why can't you just let me out?" she demanded, frustrated that the stupid retrieval crew had insisted on moving Unit 02 all the way back to headquarters. "This thing's not gonna eat me," she muttered to herself, giving a suspicious glance around the all-too-empty plug. "No way!"

"Relax, Asuka," a woman's voice replied, "this may take a little while."

"Why?" Asuka wanted to know immediately. "Just open the hatch – it's not that hard!"

The voice, sounding smooth and unhurried, said, "There are some… complications, I'm afraid. I need to ask you a few questions. Oh, and my name is Doctor Akagi, by the way… head of Project-E."

Asuka rubbed her eyes. "Pleased to meet you," she lied, "can we please, please hurry this up?"

"Of course. Now, when Shinji… disappeared, what were you two doing?"

"Fighting the angel, of course – I already told Misato all of this!"

"Yes," Doctor Akagi said with strained patience, "I know you were fighting the angel – but what, specifically, were you doing?"

Asuka thought back to the battle, reluctantly putting herself back into the fight. "We… couldn't get the mouth open," she said slowly. "Unit 02 wasn't responding, so we had to concentrate on that – just open, open, open… that's all I was thinking about until Unit 02 moved."

"And Shinji was doing the same?"

"Yeah, I guess," Asuka said uncertainly, "I mean, we both knew we had to get the mouth to open so we could get the battleships to the angel's core… and it finally worked, so he would have had to have been thinking the same thing as me…"

"Uh huh," Doctor Akagi said thoughtfully, "and did you… feel anything?"

Asuka licked her lips, glancing briefly at Shinji's empty plugsuit. "Well," she said hesitantly, "when the angel's mouth finally did open, I… I thought I felt something…"

"Yes?"

"…I thought I felt a butterfly."

There was a brief silence. "I'm sorry?" Doctor Akagi said, clearly confused. "A what?"

"A butterfly," Asuka repeated, feeling very foolish, "it… it felt like a butterfly brushed my cheek with its wing, ok? I know it's stupid, but you asked if I felt anything – God, why can't you just open the hatch and let me out? We have power now, you can just-"

"Asuka," Doctor Akagi cut in quietly, "look around you… is there anything that looks… thicker than LCL? Or heavier? Or maybe a different color?"

Not understanding where this was going, Asuka cast around. "Umm… there's a little… huh, I didn't see that before, but yeah, there's a little… cloud of darker LCL – right under Shinji's plugsuit. What is that?"

"Have you breathed any of it?"

"Huh?"

The question was so sharp that Asuka immediately shrank back from the darker cloud.

"Did you breathe any of that material?"

"Umm… no – should-"

"No!" Doctor Akagi cut in quickly. "No, don't breathe it, don't touch it, don't go near it if you can avoid it, do you understand?"

"Is it… poisonous?" Asuka asked, eyeing the cloud nervously.

"Well, not as such," Doctor Akagi said smoothly, "but it would be in everyone's best interests if you left it right where it is."

"R-right…"

( 0 0 0 )

Misato tried to keep her head from pounding as Ritsuko gestured to the whiteboard behind her. "So what we have, essentially," the blonde was saying, "is a loss of ego borderline. Basically, Shinji's body has broken apart and reduced to an elemental 'primordial soup' if you will, represented by this diagram here," she circled the crude drawing on the whiteboard, "right now, everything that makes him up is contained in that area… he just can't reform his body."

"Question."

"Yes, Captain Katsuragi?"

"Why?"

Ritsuko glanced around at the gathered command staff, looking extremely uncomfortable. "We umm… we don't know," she admitted. "It may have something to do with the elevated sync ratio Shinji experienced during the fight, but that's not the whole story…"

"Elaborate," the commander said quietly. "Take as much time as you need, Doctor… this is rather crucial."

"Right," Ritsuko nodded, looking more nervous than before. "When Shinji synched with Unit 02… for some reason we cannot explain, his ego borderline was breached. Now, this has happened before… with the loss of Unit 01's pilot as the end result, but in that instance, we believe-"

"That's classified information, Doctor," Gendou cut in coolly, "please stick to the information needed to retrieve this pilot."

Ritsuko paled. "R-right… umm… the bottom line is that Shinji's destrado limit should have been within normal tolerances, meaning that he should not have lost his ego borderline in the first place, and also should have no trouble reforming it." She avoided Misato's eyes as she concluded, "Which means he's being blocked."

Predictably, this information did not sit well with Misato.

"Blocked?" the operations director repeated, her brow drawing down dangerously, "by who? By what?"

Gendou leaned back in his chair, sparing Ritsuko the trouble of answering by murmuring, "Unit 02… correct?"

Ritsuko nodded slowly. "Yes sir," she whispered, "since recovery, we have been reading a low-level electrical current within Unit 02's plug. The frequency is being analyzed by the MAGI, but one of the side-effects is a short circuit in the ejection program for the entry plug, keeping it inserted and sealed."

"Can't we cut it open?" Misato wondered. "Asuka's getting antsy, and if we can… what, why are you shaking your head?"

"If we open the plug," Ritsuko pointed out softly, "we could disperse the core components of Shinji's body, trapping him in Unit 02's core forever."

A profound silence fell over the small group as they considered the ramifications of losing Unit 01's only viable pilot… as well as the son of the Commander, and Misato's current favorite roommate.

"This electrical activity," Gendou said finally, "is there a pattern?"

"Definitely," Ritsuko said firmly, "and… it seems to be building."

"Interesting."

"Wait, building?" Misato said, leaning forward in her chair, "Is Asuka in danger?"

Ritsuko wet her lips. "Not… currently," she said evasively, "the current is at such a low-level, I doubt she even feels it, and at the rate it's been building, she might feel the hairs on her arm stand up in a day or two."

"Which brings up another concern," Gendou pointed out. "The Second Child cannot survive in the plug without sustenance forever. A solution must be found before we lose two pilots."

Motioning for Misato to calm down as she all but shot to her feet, Ritsuko said, "The LCL will keep her hydrated for several days. It won't be comfortable for her, and we'll need to have a pretty damn big dinner waiting for her when she gets out, but humans can survive for days without food. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I think our bases are covered for now."

"Doctor," Gendou said evenly, lacing his fingers together and resting his elbows on the table as he regarded Ritsuko, "this… issue needs resolution. I am making it your number one priority retrieve Unit 01's pilot from that plug as soon as possible. All of NERV's resources are yours in this matter – make it happen, Doctor, and make it happen fast. Dismissed."

Ritsuko bowed as the commander rose to his feet and exited the small conference room without another word.

"Whatever you need from me," Misato said quietly, "it's yours. I'll be in the cages."

Knowing it would be useless to tell the woman that there was nothing she could do to help, Ritsuko simply nodded and watched her old friend make her way out the door.

As soon as the room was empty, the blonde slumped against the wall, letting out a long, ragged sigh. "Oh, this doesn't look good," she muttered to herself, burying her face in her hands.

If there was ever a more hopeless task, she had not heard of it. Succeed where the greatest minds of Geherin had failed? No pressure there!

No use whining about it, she told herself, pushing away from the wall and starting off towards the EVA cages. Time to get to work.

( 0 0 0 )

Asuka snorted, waking from her fitful sleep and stretching awkwardly in the pilot's seat. "This sucks," she said eloquently, rubbing her eyes in the pitch blackness of the plug and yawning expansively.

She had asked Doctor Akagi to turn off the lights after several hours of severe boredom, hoping that if she took a little nap, they might have a solution for her predicament by the time she woke up. By the chronometer on her wrist, and the fact that she was still in the plug, it was sometime in the middle of the night and she was still stuck.

"Why me?" she muttered, rubbing her arms absently as her hairs momentarily stood on end. "Stuck in a stupid plug with an empty suit – and no one knows why. Hey, stupid Third… are you in here? Can you hear me?" She bit her lip as the silence remained unbroken. "Are you like, a ghost or something now?" she whispered uncomfortably. No one had really explained what had happened to Shinji – and Asuka had never really been a fan of ghosts and ghost stories, so she was feeling more than a little uneasy at the idea of being in such close proximity to one.

"If you are a ghost, you better not haunt me," she said, trying to sound braver than she felt, "it wasn't my fault your ego border was breached, you know, so don't-"

Her voice seized up as something brushed her hand.

Just his suit, she told herself, it's just his plugsuit – don't freak! Do NOT freak!

Calming herself, she reasoned that it was just the LCL cleaning system kicking in and making a little current, pushing his suit up against her hand – nothing more than that. Simple explanation!

Only… didn't they say the LCL cleaning system was offline? she thought with a shiver. That's right, they did! And they told me I might have to go in my suit – like that would ever happen – but that I should try to move to the bottom of the plug so I wasn't brea-

She screamed as another, feather-light caress echoed across the back of her hand.

"Who's there?" she demanded, whipping around in the blackness of the entry plug. "Shinji? Shinji is that you? Come on… say something – this isn't funny! Are you back…?" Scrambling backward, Asuka managed to get out of the seat, scooting awkwardly in the darkness until she reached the bottom of the plug.

Suddenly, wetting her suit seemed like a very real possibility.

Something else was in the plug with her – she could hear it rustling in the darkness, just where Shinji's suit was.

"Doctor Akagi!" she cried suddenly, "Hello? Is anyone out there? Turn on the lights – please? It's… I can hear something moving…!"

Great! she thought bitterly, I'm caught in a bad Ju-on nightmare, and everyone that's supposed to be helping me is off sleeping! Son of a-

"Asuka…?"

"Misato?" Asuka called, "Oh thank God, I thought everyone had left! Are you near the control panel, can you turn on the… lights…?"

Asuka's skin went dead cold.

The voice had not spoken over the speaker system.

"Asuka, is that you…?"

The Second Child cringed back against the bulkhead, her heart hammering in her chest as something touched her foot. "Who… who are you…?" she gasped, trying not to shake as she realized she had nowhere to run.

She failed as the hand (she could feel that it definitely was a hand) slid slowly, searchingly up from her foot to her ankle to her shin, generating such a primal, visceral fear in Asuka's chest that she could not even squeak, let alone lash out and kick at her assailant, not that she thought it would do any good – not if it really was a ghost, anyway.

"Shh," the voice – it was definitely a woman's voice – urged, "don't be afraid… I won't hurt you."

Somehow, Asuka was no reassured.

"Let me go," she whispered, wishing it came out as a demand instead of a begging whimper. "Don't touch me – get away!"

The voice sounded hurt as it said, "But it's so dark. If I can't touch you, I won't know where you are."

That's fine by me, Asuka thought, pulling her knees up to her chest so that her feet would be out of reach.

There was a long, painful silence before the thing (Asuka did not know of another way to think of it) moved again, slithering along the edge of the bulkhead until it was right next to her.

"Please leave me alone," Asuka said hoarsely, no longer even trying to hide her fear as the thing loomed over her in the dark. From the way the LCL was moving around her, Asuka was fairly sure that the thing was larger than her – at least the size of an adult – so she held no illusions that she could fight it off… and in the dark, with no one to save her, her pride and dignity both seemed to waver and vanish, leaving her shaking and scared as the thing slowly reached out and touched her hair.

"You've grown…" the thing said with a hint of sadness in its voice, "you've grown so much…"

Something about the voice, and the touch, stirred something in Asuka's memory. Straining her eyes in the darkness, she tried to pick out the shape of the thing stroking her hair.

"Here," it said, grasping her lightly by the wrist and bringing her chronometer up, "turn this on."

Asuka did as she was told, blinking as the unexpectedly bright readout from the digital watch cast off an eerie green glow, illuminating the shape of a woman roughly thirty five years old. Using the chronometer like a flashlight, Asuka slowly brought it up, playing it across the woman's bare shoulder until it lit her smiling face.

"Mein… Gott…"

"Guten morgen, mein Liebchen…"

For the second time that day – and only the third in her life – Asuka fainted, unable to cope with the sight before her.

As she slumped against the wall, the woman in the plug with her sighed. "I suppose I can't blame you," she said to the unconscious girl, "it is a bit of a shock, after all. I hope you don't mind if I hold you while you sleep though… it's been so long…"

Carefully, she took Asuka by the shoulders, leading her down until her head was resting in the woman's lap. Lightly stroking the Second's long, red hair, the woman began to hum.

"Rest easy, Liebchen," she whispered soothingly, "Mama's here now…"

Continued…?

Author's notes: Ok, I don't know if I spelled the German right, and I can't remember if the watches on the plugsuits are red or green…but I hope this was an enjoyable read anyway. I've been toying with this story idea for several years now (yes, I have been writing EVA that long, thank you very much) but it wasn't until recently that I had the inspiration to actually write the first chapter. If it gets continued, I figure it'll be about 3-4 chapters or so, and before anyone out there screams, "AOI RIP OFF!" yes, it is very similar in its beginnings… though not even half as dark as that story. Probably not even a quarter as dark… or a tenth – man that story IS pretty damn dark, isn't it?

This chapter was not pre-read, cuz I wanted to post it without anyone knowing it was coming.

Mild-update note – corrected from 'scramble' to 'scuttle' in the first scene, since I had the wrong word in there. Man, you'd think after this long I'd be able to catch stuff like that…

Second update – German spelling corrections courtesy of Jinund, who tried to get me to use something besides Liebchen, but failed cuz I really like that word.

Feedback is always welcome on any page with reviewing capabilities, or by e-mailing me directly at random1377(at-sign)yahoo(dot)com.