All characters copyrighted by Gainax, not me.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
In this fic, Yui Ikari is NOT part of Unit 1.  If you have a problem with
this, don't read.

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        Commander Ikari looked at the printouts of the EEG and the timings
of the Eva's eyes lighting up.  Then he looked back at the EEG and saw that
another brainwave had overlapped Shinji's.  The other brainwave spiked in
it's intensity whenever the Eva's eyes were aglow, but was strangly shifted
when it wasn't.  That couldn't have been a coincidence, the Commander
thought, but what could he do with it?  He glanced at his monitor and saw
his son back in the hospital, this time with three seperate EEG's hooked up
and with a round-the-clock guard.  As this project was too important to
allow any interferance, the Commander had decided not to trust the Doctor
to keep people out.
        He picked up the remote and switched the signal to the camera he
had set up to watch Eva 1.  He looked at it's cold, metallic face, still in
disbelief about what had happened.  If he hadn't seen it himself, he
would've dismissed it and moved on with business.  And speaking of
business... the Commander allowed himself to think about what Seele has
planned.  What they were going to do, he had no idea, but he knew that it
was going to be big.  They hadn't come out and said that they were planning
something, but their body language and they way they tried to switch topics
whenever he brought up things to do; there was no way of hiding their plan
completely from him, he was too good at doing that himself.
        'Removing me as Commander?' he thought but quickly dismissed it.
They needed him for the project.  Then he tried to think about who they
didn't need.  'Fuyutsuki, Major Katsuragi, Maya, Makoto, and company.  What
pilots?  Rei is expendable, Unit 0 is not.  Toji they don't need.  Asuka?
Perhaps, but Shinji they need with Unit 1.  How to use that?'  He dwelled
on the topic for a few minutes before he decided he needed help, both with
this problem and the one with his son and Unit 1.  He looked back at the
monitor and knew who he needed for help, the one person who is intimitely
connected to both.  He picked up his phone, called the hospital, and asked
them to have Shinji sent to him when his son woke up.
        Hours later, Shinji had no idea why he'd come to the door before
him.  He had never been inside his father's office before, and was wary of
changing that.  He was begining to like his biological family the way it
was, and he'd replaced the lacking that followed with his friends.  Misato
was the mother he hadn't had for so long; Rei the sister he never had; Kaji
as an uncle; Toji and Kensuke as friends; Asuka... well... he didn't know
where Asuka fit into the scheme of things.  He wondered how Kensuke was
doing, and smiled at the thought.  The little freak had gotten himself
admitted to a Military school, whose graduates immidiatly entered the armed
forces of the United Nations.  He'd have to look him up one day, Shinji
thought while standing outside the door.  He still couldn't make up his
mind as to whether he should knock, just walk in, or leave.  Then he made
up his mind; he _had_ to know why his father suddenly changed behavior and
started taking an interest in his life, such as it was.  He raised his
knuckles to rap on the door, but before they could move to their target, he
was interuppted.
        "Come in," his father said, and Shinji opened the door and walked
into the gigantic room.  He crossed the floor, keeping his eyes on his
father, and stopped a short distance from the desk.  His father made no
move to rise, nor did he ask Shinji to sit down.  "I know what's going on
with you and Unit 1.  Do you want to know?"  Shinji kept a straight face,
though his mind churned.  He nodded slowly.  The Commander picked up the
remote and showed Shinji the recordings of Unit 1's eyes.  Then it all fell
into place.
        "I know, too," he said.  "I now understand what's happening to me.
However, I wonder if _you_ really understand."  Though his father would
never show it, or admit it to anyone, he was proud of Shinji then.  For the
first time in so long, father and son had actually worked on the same
level.  Shinji had deduced what was happening to him, and even figured out
that Commander Ikari couldn't know all of it.
        "We'll see.  What do you think is going on?" Commander Ikari asked
while pressing a switch on the remote.
        Misato and Kaji, pressed slightly together because of the other
people around them, cursed silently.  Everyone in the control room,
including Fuyutsuki, was wathcing the screen at Maya's station, making
space a commodity in short supply.  She had patched her screen into the
security tapes, so they could watch everything that occured in that room.
However, when the Commander pressed the switch, he shut off the sound.
Nothing could be heard from that large room.
        Now the only way they were going to learn what was happening, and
why Shinji came back, would be if either Ikari told them, and Misato had a
sinking feeling that that wouldn't happen easily.  They watched the meeting
between father and son with morbid interest.  They couldn't see what was on
the Commander's monitor, and the couldn't tell what was being said, so they
could only speculate by their actions, or lack thereof.  In the whole
meeting, Shinji didn't sit down, nor did he change body position.  The
Commander did the same, the whole meeting spent with his fingers steepeled
in front of his face.  'Two statues,' Misato thought.  'A family of
statues, that's all.'
        The meeting lasted for two hours, and when Shinji turned around to
leave the room, apparently disgusted with something, Misato, Kaji, Asuka,
and Ritsuko all ran to the office door and stood outside in the hallway.
When Shinji finally opened the door, he walked out only to be attacked by
the people waiting for him.
        "What did you do?"
        "What took you so long?"
        "What were you discussing?"  Shinji could only look around for
help, with none in sight.  They were so intent on finding out about what
happened that they forgot the door was left slightly ajar.  Asuka repeated
her question, "What were the two of you discussing?  Well?"  She was
getting mad.
        "The Ikari family trade," Shinji replyed cryptically with a small
smile.  That only served to make Asuka even angrier.
        "The _what_?!  What the hell is _that_?!"
        "Business," a cold voice boomed from behind Shinji.  Commander
Ikari emerged from the large office, closing the door solidly behind him.
Father and son made no motions to even acklowedge each other's presence,
the Commander walking by his son without a word; Shinji replyed with the
same thing.
        The Commander only made a few steps before he turned around and
gave orders.  "In two hours Asuka will try to synchronize with Unit 1," he
said.  When Shinji turned sharply to look at his father, the others knew
something wasn't...right.
         "Is that wise?  After what's been going on?"
        "This test will either prove or disprove that theory," the
Commander said, slightly annoyed that Shinji would let his compassion for
others colour his judgment.  Shinji started to nod when Asuka spoke up.
        "Hey!  As this involves me, shouldn't I be told?" she said, and
Shinji was suddenly overcome by a felling that he had to take her into his
arms, to comfort her, to tell her everythi... *slap* *slap*.  He mentally
smacked himself in the face a few times.  He thought _that_ about _Asuka_?
'I must really be loosing it!' he thought.
        "No.  This will have little or no affect on you, should everything
proceed according to plan.  In the event that something goes amiss... you
might be informed," Commander Ikari said.  Ritsuko and Misato were shocked
to hear this from that man.  Never before had they heard him divulge so
much about an experiment to someone involved, never! He just didn't do
those things!  "Two hours," he warned them and then spun around and left
everybody speechless.
        And so Asuka found herself inside the entry plug of Unit 1, and for
the first time in nearly three years she found herself with the idea of
actually activating the giant machine.  'If I can do this, I finally show
him who's best!' she thought, then she changed them slightly.  'IF? IF?
_When_ I do this!' she amended.
        Maya looked up from her station in the control room.  "Doctor, the
entry plug is secure.  We are ready to begin," she said.  However, it
wasn't Dr. Ikagi who answered her.
        "Good.  Proceed," Commander Ikari said, and the activation
proceeded as normal until Asuka and Eva 1 were synchronised.  For the first
time in three years Unit 1 had accepted a pilot other than Shinji; and
there was cheering from inside the control, most was coming from Maya, who
had the agony of trying to find what was wrong Eva Unit 1.
        Soon the cheering settled down and people got back to their work,
Asuka on the inside of the war machine, couldn't understand what all the
excitment was about; it was almost like they _doubted_ her!  Asuka was
insulted that they could ever think such a thing.  She was perfection
incarnate!  'Now if only I can convice Shinji and Wonder Girl that!' she
thought with a smile.  While her mind was focused on Shinji, she found
herself feeling sorry for the poor kid.
        What, with all this going on, those headaches, his hatred for his
father, the complete and total lack of feeling from said father, the
reactions of his schoolmate...
        "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!" Asuka screamed as her mind threatened to
explode.  She put her hands to her temples, and kept screaming.  The robot
stopped moving and everything went quiet except for Asuka's screaming over
comm channels.  Then Ritsuko took action.  Reaching over Makoto, she
crushed the glass case with one blow and pulled the emergency entry plug
ejection handle out of it's case.  One shart twist later the entry plug was
ejected, and Asuka ceased her screaming as the pain abated, but her tears
filled the void, her body racked with shudders of pain.
        "Well, that proves it," Commander Ikari calmly said.
        "Yes, it does!" Shinji said savagely, "At Asuka's expense!"
        "There will be no permanate physical damage.  The rest is up to
Asuka," he replied, still unearthly calm.  Then he spun on his heel and
started to leave, then he stopped and turned back.  He saw Shinji looking
out of the window, in the direction of Unit 1; but he could have been
looking at Asuka for the Commander knew.  Then Shinji turned his head to
stare at his father.  For a brief moment the outside world faded from view.
There were only the two staring at each other, and in that instant Gendo
Ikari, not the Commander of NERV, knew that he'd made a very powerful
opponent in his son.

Cory Holmes
gholmes@stardate.bc.ca

Thanx to:Mark Eymer, HARIJUBAL, Nat Hrynuik.