hey there again - this fic's still not complete, but i was a
bit uneasy about my characterization, especially of Fuyutsuki,
so i decided to ask for C&C, if only on that part of the story.
umm...if you need part 1 of the story, it can be found at
http://students.vassar.edu/~meerobin/eva.last_temptation.txt


Eva fic - spoilers clear though the end, i think. . .

Neon Genesis Evangelion belongs to the Gainax people and
AD Films, not me at all. . .

The Last Temptation of Ikari

Part 2

fanfic by Mee Robinson


     Fuyutsuki Kouzou sighed as he took another sip of coffee, 
trying to force meaning back into the numbers on his monitor. 
Bioengineering was an exciting field, full of exploration and 
mystery, but on some days, when he was tired, the numbers would 
cease to make sense, and the world would seem empty and gray. 
Sad to think that one could be blinded to the wonders of life, the 
intricate beauty of humanity itself, by the monotous repetition of 
human tasks, even if only for a few moments. 

     The numbers began to swim in front of his eyes, so he stood 
up, walked to the lab window, and looked out at the sky. . .the red, 
red sky. The trees withered and sickened in the now perpetual 
twilight, but they had been blossoming and bearing fruit for
an abnormally long season, throughout the fall and what should 
have been winter. The earth was paved with decaying petals. 
Even so, this new world  had long since ceased to surprise him. It 
seemed as if the entire Second Impact - the flooding, the death, 
the silence and the lack of birdsong - were the only reality that had 
ever been, and yet were somehow unreal in spite of that. But the 
desk, the window, and the endless printouts continued to exist 
as they always had. Even at the brink of the apocolypse, 
life goes on. 

     And there was Yui-kun, crossing the courtyard, a small parcel 
in her arms. In the midst of the crazy landscape outside his window,
she was the only real thing, sane and comprehensible with her pale 
pink blouse and neatly pinned hair. Fuyutsuki watched her enter the 
building, then returned to his seat and refocused his attention on the 
data before him. A few minutes later, he heard a knock at his door.

     "Professor?"

     He looked up. "Yes, come in, Yui-kun." 

     She entered, smiling. "It's lunch time, Professor."

     He nodded. "So it is."

     She busied herself in setting up the meal, purchased mostly at 
the lounge vending machines: sandwiches gone slightly stale, instant 
soup that had been heated by microwave, and canned coffee - no 
one had time to cook these days. He accepted the sandwich that 
was pushed toward him and took a bite. It was bland, 
but he had been living on such food for the past twenty years and 
didn't notice. Meals with Yui were infrequent and unexpected, 
especially in the past few months. But, despite preoccupations 
with her work, her husband, and her unborn child, she insisted on 
spending time with her fellow scientist and former teacher.

     Perhaps, if he had thought to look at her, it would occur to 
him that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. But he 
was too entranced to wonder at the slight acceleration of his heart, 
the faint spreading of warmth into his own pale face and hands. 
He would feel but never quite notice a strange, echoing ache when 
she was gone. Her heart belonged to another.

     She giggled softly as he stared into his soup.

     "You should eat more, Professor," she said. "You've gotten so thin 
lately! It's because you're always working, and forget to eat, isn't 
it? My husband is the same way."

     The cold feeling returned at the mention of her husband - what an 
angry and unpleasant man he was! - but he managed a wan smile 
for her benefit neverless. "I suppose you're right," he replied slowly.

*****

     <I remember this.> Gendou thought as he walked through the 
building complex, breathing in the scent of rotting leaves. It was 
appalling, the familiarity of a world that he thought he'd forgotten - 
that he'd forced himself to forget. In the past few years, he'd 
gotten used to the carefully programmed geofront environment; 
he left it very rarely, perhaps a dozen times a year. But here there 
are no geofronts, and the buildings are all of the old school, square 
and unpleasant to look at as modern ones, but hopelessly unsafe 
in this age of earthquakes and floods. 

     There were three buildings, all gray and of unremarkable size, 
surrounded by a low steel wall, that formed the lab complex. 
Seele had other such resources, of course, scattered throughout 
the countries of the world. But this one he recognized. It went 
with the red sky, the stifling heat, and the woman he'd woken up 
to that morning. His wife. 

    <But Yui is dead.> Gendou frowned. Of course, that was impossible. 
She couldn't be dead, he had seen her only a few hours before, when 
she had driven them both to this research facility, to work, as she 
did every day. But she must have died, his mind nagged at him. Hadn't 
he been trying, in one way or another, to resurrect her for the past 
ten years? And in the end he had failed, hadn't he? Why else would 
the very sight of her cause him to feel such a cold twinge of fear 
and loss? 

     Could this be a dream? Or a possible effect of the Human 
Complementation Project?  Had it already occured, or was it still 
in the far distant future? He reached out and ran his hand over the 
rough brick of the building. It felt warm and damp and solid. Ikari 
Gendou was a man who trusted his senses, and very little else. It 
was real. Best to get back inside then, to the labs, and get some 
work done. He turned back, and was about to enter the building 
when something caught his eye. A human figure, a flash of pale 
blue that vanished when he turned to see it. 

     "Rei?"

     He raced to the wall behind which it had disappeared.

     "Rei?"

     The girl behind the wall was clearly startled by his sudden 
appearance. She jumped and gave a small shriek of surprise, 
dropping her book on the damp earth. But she wasn't Rei (of 
course not! his wife was alive; there had never been such a 
person as Ayanami Rei. There had never been a fourteen year 
old girl with crimson eyes and silver hair, his wife's face and 
the voice of a ghost.), but this girl looked familiar, somehow, all
the same. She looked like she was about fifteen, thin and gawky,
with an intense expression, dark eyes and hair. She was trembling.

     "Who are you?" he demanded, unable to place her.

     "A-Akagi Ritsuko. . .sir," she replied, stammering. "I'm Doctor-"

     "Akagi Naoko's daughter," Gendou finished softly. 

     Yes, it was her, fifteen years younger, and with dark hair. But 
he could see his future lover, his past lover - brilliant, beautiful, 
and doomed from the start - peering out from this child's terrified 
eyes. 

     "Yes, sir." she whispered. 

*****