Misato stepped through the door and let it close behind her before letting out a sigh, she took a moment to just enjoy being back in her quarters and away from everyone else. She wasted no time in unzipping her jacket and unceremoniously tossing it onto a nearby chair.

She glanced over at her desk and decided that tonight would definitely be the night. It had been five long days since she had spoken to Ritsuko and started to learn a little bit about what was going on here. Five days since Ritsuko had informed her that there was a payload of documents and reports waiting for her on a secure channel but naturally Misato had had little time to get around to reading through any of them.

Every day had been filled to the brim with other duties. She had been down at NERV pretty much constantly, looking over repairs to the Evangelion, making arrangements for Shinji to have regular tests in the ship and trying to sort out some sort of training plan for him as well as other duties. She then had to communicate some of this to her senior staff and crew, a task she still hadn’t fully done.

Shinji had been at the forefront of her thoughts for most of the time. He was still only a young man, around the same age as a number of the academy graduates aboard her ship. He was at a time in his life when he should be happy. She saw the new Ensigns aboard the Tokyo, to her that was what Shinji should be like. Spending time on the holodeck or just enjoying the company of friends. Not worrying about having the fate of the galaxy in your hands or a father that had abandoned you.

‘Because I had a use for you.’

Those were the words that Gendo Ikari had said to his son last week when Shinji dared to ask why he was here. She could remember clearly just how angry she felt on hearing them, but she could only imagine how Shinji must have felt.

‘If it was up to me, Shinji would be on his way back to Earth right now… but it isn’t up to me. It’s been made clear to me there isn’t a choice, and I can’t protest this. He’s the only one who can pilot that damn thing, so if so… then we’ll make sure we help him as much as we can.’

She let out a sigh of resignation. The box had been well and truly opened and Shinji was the one stood in the middle of all the hell that had been let loose. He was no longer a civilian, in fact as of today he was an enlisted member of this crew. Crewman Shinji Ikari. It definitely wasn’t unusual for a Starship like hers to have enlisted members aboard it, not all who served in Starfleet were academy graduates but even then, they all came in with some form of basic training.

Shinji was starting from the very beginning, there was going to be a lot of work involved. Yet, she could see the potential in him and having read his reports she knew the potential was there, it just had to be brought out of him.

‘He needs to want it as well though, he needs to have the right attitude. He can’t just do things because he is told to do them. I need him to be capable of following my orders yet, but I also need him to understand and interpret them properly. I need him to even… go against them… if it’s the right thing to do.’

Before she could get around to any of that she had to think first about the very basics. Shinji needed a crash course on a fair number of things. He was someone who didn’t know his port from his starboard, he didn’t know how to operate a starship and whilst the Evangelions controls seemed to be radically different, it would surely still benefit him to learn how to pilot a basic shuttlecraft.

Frustratingly, Misato knew she had someone on board her ship that would have been perfect to pilot a craft like the Evangelion. Someone who she had requested specifically from the academy due to her talents as a helmsman.

‘Sure, she might have a little bit of an arrogant streak in her according to her instructors but sometimes a troublesome thing like that can help a person excel. If she wasn’t so fresh and green, I could even get her to train Shinji… Actually…’

Misato let the thought roll around in her head for a moment. It certainly wasn’t a conventional idea but if this girl was as talented as she seemed then why couldn’t she train Shinji and teach him a thing or two? It’s not as if it’d be breaking any rules, technically she outranked Shinji and if anything, it’d be an opportunity for her to learn and start her path to command.

‘I’ll hold onto that thought, for now… let’s see what NERV is really all about.’

She felt a little pang of excitement as she accessed the secure channel Ritsuko had mentioned. She hadn’t thought about this method of communication in a hell of a long time, not since she and Ritsuko were back at the academy. She wondered if any of the little messages they used to stash for each other were still there.

‘Probably not… it was a long time ago and besides… we’ve both moved on since then.’

This situation wasn’t what she had wanted for her first command. She was expecting the first few assignments to be simply patrols or a research expedition. Something befitting of a Galaxy Class ship. She was not expecting to come all the way out to the far edge of Dominion space to combat a galaxy-wide threat.

The first part of Ritsuko’s cache finished downloading to her workstation. Misato immediately opened it and saw that it was accompanied by a note ordering its immediate retraction and eventual deletion. Which begged the question, why did Ritsuko have it?

‘I probably shouldn’t be reading this… too late now I suppose…’

What Misato read at first was further confirmation of what Ritsuko had already told her. Twenty years ago, Federation Scientises found a unique bioship that they nicknamed ‘Adam.’ The report spoke about the theory that ‘Adam’ was from a race of cybernetic beings that pre-dated the Iconians. Curiously, it seemed that ‘Adam’ was still alive but in a state of dormancy.

Like all good scientists they wanted to learn more about the ship, it’s capabilities and the race it belonged to. It was understandably an exciting time for them all, and ‘Adam’ was taken away to a colony on the far fringes of Federation space under the name of GEHIRN.

Further study revealed it made use of an incredibly advanced power source which was referred to as an S2 Engine. They hypothesized that if they could harness this power, then perhaps it would lead to the next major technological leap for the Federation.

Studies were done on the bioship for the better part of two years, with little in the way of any major breakthrough. Until one day, an attempt was made to awaken the ship from its slumber. The actual details of how and what transpired were hazy, Misato presumed that no one was really taking notes during a disaster but that was exactly what had happened. They awakened the ship, and it initiated some sort of self-destruct, leaving the planet the colony was on, entirely scorched.

Just as Ritsuko had said, the attack was blamed on the Borg. The story was that a lone cube had passed the colony, and it was theorised that it was testing Federation defences. Similar attacks had happened in the past that had been thought to be Borg related, so it was easy for it to be believed.

At the foot of the report was the mention of the transmission sent out by ‘Adam’ only moments before its destruction. It was a transmission made up of three decipherable words, ‘Awaken’, ‘Reclaim’ and ‘Destroy.’

‘So, she was telling the truth, it did signal others… Who in Starfleet actually knew about this? This happened almost twenty years ago. The Federation was about to face its darkest time, the Dominion War, the issues with the Maquis and the Cardassians… Were they scared of adding more fuel to the fire of fear? Is this why it was all covered up?’

She moved through the reports, trying to find out more information. She had an idea of what had happened all that time ago, but she wanted to know who was involved in it. The report mentioned there had been no survivors from the incident, but it did reference a number of people that had left the colony only days before the destruction of ‘Adam.’

Even more trouble was that these people would go on to reform under the GEHIRN name elsewhere on another secretive project. Led by the same Admiral that was ordering these redactions.

‘Key personnel… Gendo Ikari… Yui Ikari… Kozo Fuyutsuki… Koyko Soryu… This isn’t… that can’t be right! Also… Naoko Akagi? Ritsukos mother was involved… did… Ritsuko know about this when she was at the academy… is this why she hated her mother?’

None of those names were unfamiliar to Misato. Gendo and Yui she had heard those names a lot when looking up information about Shinji. She had just met Kozo Fuyutsuki in NERV. Kyoko Soryu stood out to her, unless it was a coincidence then her daughter Asuka was serving aboard this ship.

Naoko Akagi, that was a name she knew but knew nothing about the woman. Ritsuko made it known quite early on to Misato that she did not like her mother. Misato never really knew why and never pried further despite how close both she and Ritsuko were.

‘Me and my father… Rits with her mother… Shinji with his father… Asuka… did you have an issue with your mother too? What the hell is it with this damn place and parents?’

She continued to read, trying to absorb as much information as she could. It seemed that the second incarnation of GEHIRN would have one purpose. To analyse the transmission sent out by ‘Adam’ and prepare for any incoming threat. To achieve this the development of the Evangelion class ships was started. It was thought that whatever was coming, would likely be as powerful as ‘Adam’ and therefore they would need a ship of equal power.

By the time of ‘Adams’ destruction, they had learned a few more details about its functionality beyond the S2 engine. Primarily the shielding which they dubbed the A.T. Field. It was a unique type of shielding that seemed to be impervious to anything they tried except in one instance, if they were able to generate an opposing A.T. Field to nullify it.

Efforts to produce this via existing Starfleet technology didn’t go anywhere, until someone had the idea to use one of the remaining samples of Adam to try to create their own bioship. It was a controversial idea, but they agreed on it and this led to the first attempts to create the Evangelion.

‘My god… What the hell were they thinking? Did they not learn from their experiments on it before?’

She continued reading, learning that the first two Evangelion class ships were created in tandem. 00 was the initial prototype and 01 was the test type. It was during the activation of 01 that tragedy struck GEHIRN once again. The ship required a test pilot, and the first volunteer was Yui Ikari. She had been the lead on the project and thus seemed a logical choice.

The reports seemed vague on what had happened, but it seemed a power surge occurred as the ship was brought online. The colony was almost destroyed in the process, but they managed to shut down everything before there could be another disaster. Unfortunately, there was one death, that of Yui and her body was never recovered.

GEHIRN was promptly shut down after this incident. There was no official reason given but it seemed the higher ups that had sanctioned it all got cold feet. Perhaps it was the other threats to the Federation at the time that caused this or maybe it was just moved to even more hidden channels.

Misato sat back, letting herself have a moment to process it all. It was a hell of a lot to take in and her head was starting to spin. She still had a lot of questions, when did NERV begin? What happened to Gendo, Fuyutsuki, Ritsukos mother and Asuka’s mother? Why did Shinji get left with his aunt and uncle and did he know about any of this?

She considered coming back to this later. Maybe going for a walk around the ship or to the canteen to clear her mind. She even thought about visiting the holodeck but then before she could make a decision, something new flashed up on screen. It was accompanied by a picture of a sleeping cartoon cat which suddenly woke up and chased something off screen. Misato recognized the animation immediately. It was the same one Ritsuko had used for their extra special transmissions at the academy.

Curiously, Misato opened it holding her breath. She didn’t expect the contents to be the same as those transmissions and had to admit, she was slightly disappointed to see that it wasn’t. Instead, it was another report, from the same Admiral she had seen mentioned a number of times. Keel Lorenz.

888

We are of course sad to confirm that the incident at GEHIRN Station Alpha resulted in the loss of life of our chief scientist, Dr Akira Katsuragi. His loss will be felt, not just within the Federation but also for our project which has already faced a number of setbacks.

Fortunately, not all is lost. This outcome was one we expected and as such we were able to get samples of Adam off world. They are being moved to a secure location until it is time to proceed with phase two of our operation.

Regarding the single survivor, Katsuragi’s daughter. It would appear that she has no memory of being at the facility, nor of the incident itself. I have instructed those monitoring her to ensure we keep it that way. I believe that it is for the best she does not remember this place. We will continue to monitor her condition and recovery and present a cover story. As the sole survivor of this incident and one who came into contact with Adam, it is important we keep a close watch of her and her mother. If needed, we will take drastic action.

Dr Katsuragi's loss will be felt, but his was a sacrifice that needed to be made. Finding Adam was phase one, now we move forward. We must prepare for their arrival. Eden awaits us all.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

888

NERV Command Centre

Ritsuko took a deep breath and stepped through the door into Commander Ikaris office. It was a cold and unfeeling room at the heart of NERV headquarters. She always disliked coming here, everything about it seemed to be crafted with the sole intention of intimidating whoever was visiting. It was dimly lit, barely furnished and oversized.

He was of course, sat at his desk at the far end of the room. Those dim lights reflecting in his glasses and Sub Commander Fuyutsuki by his side. Her stomach churned as she stepped forward, she never liked being here, even more so now.

“Dr Akagi, I trust that the task is done?” He spoke as she approached the desk.

“It is.” She nodded, “Captain Katsuragi has the redacted communication from Keel. She knows the truth, that her father was involved, and she was the last survivor of the expedition. I daresay this should be enough for her to extend her stay.”

“Very good.” He replied, showing no hint of emotion. His face, partially obscured by the hands folded neatly in front of him, “As you know, we cannot afford any mistakes at this stage. Keel has ordered that we progress with Project Eden now that we have repelled the first of their ships. The committee's gaze is upon us, they will be scrutinizing us more. We have our own scenario to adhere to, Katsuragi and her ship are crucial to its success.”

‘Your scenario, you mean.’ She thought bitterly.

“I am aware Commander.” Ritsuko answered, “I may not have seen Captain Katsuragi for the best part of a decade, but I still know her, she is still the same person she was back then. She will remain here, and she will aid us.”

“Good.” He nodded, “And I trust I can rely on you as well, after all- “

“Any feelings I had for Katsuragi are in the past.” She cut him off, “I will not let our history together interfere with what needs to be done.”

“I am glad.” He replied.

“Will that be all?” She asked, the churning in her stomach growing by the minute. She hated every bit of this. It hurt her to know what she was doing to Misato, but she had little choice. Not even her contacts at Section 31 could help her now.

“Not quite.” He replied, “I wanted to ask about Rei, how has she responded to the new treatment?”

“She has responded well.” Ritsuko confirmed, “She will require one more day in the regeneration chamber to heal physically, but I am quite concerned about the mental contamination from the accident.”

“Will she be ready to pilot soon?”

“Well… in theory yes.” Ritsuko replied, “But- “

“Anything else is irrelevant right now. Give her the extra day and then prepare her for another activation test. We must get Evangelion 00 ready should another attack happen.”

“Of course, Commander.” She answered, knowing there was no use protesting further, “I will see to it right away.”

She turned and left the room, a heavy feeling of dread hanging over her and the beginnings of a headache coming on. She stepped through the door back into the corridor, feeling a single tear rolling down her check.

“I hate you Ikari.”

888

Misato wasn’t sure how long she had been staring at the screen, reading the message over and over again. Her mouth was completely dry and there was a tight knot in her stomach. It couldn’t have been true, and yet there it was. An official communication from a Starfleet Admiral, confirming that not one was her father the lead scientist on the Adam project, but that she was also the only survivor of that incident.

If that was the case though, then how come she couldn’t remember any of it? How come no one had told her about it? Why were her memories of that time so different to this truth present to her? She tried to search the deepest recesses of her mind to try and remember anything. She looked at the dates again, hoping that they might trigger some sort of scene from her memory.

There was nothing. It didn’t match up or make sense at all. She could remember learning that he had died. It was when she was a teenager, the two of them had gotten in a fight about something. Her father had always seemed so neglectful towards her and her mother. Always choosing work over family and Misato had called him out over it. She could remember calling him something bad and storming off.

That was the last time she had seen him. There had been an accident with the shuttlecraft she had been on. Misato had had to be put into a medically induced coma for a month and when she awoke, it was to the news that her father had been involved in an accident off-world and was dead.

At least, that was what the kind Starfleet Admiral had told her, and it was what her mother had told her.

‘Was it… a lie? Did my mother lie to me? What was that admirals name? Was that… him? Was that Keel?’

She finally rose to her feet, swaying as she did, her stomach churned, and she could feel the sting of tears in her eyes. She felt angry, angry at those that had covered this up, angry at her father and angry at herself for not remembering any of it.

Suddenly, the buzzer for her door sounded. She let out a sigh, of all the times for someone to visit her, it had to be now. She took a moment to straighten herself up, to wipe away the tears at the corners of her eyes before calling out towards the door.

“Enter.”

The door slid open to reveal, much to Misato’s shock, Ritsuko Akagi. Misato stared at her; eyes wide in surprise. Ritsuko stepped into the room, the doors hissing shut behind her. The two stared at one another for a while. Misato not quite knowing what to say, until finally she felt a tear rolling down her cheek.

“You’ve read it then.” Ritsuko finally said as she came closer to Misato, placing a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulders, “I’m so sorry.”

Misato didn’t know how to respond, both to Ritsuko’s hand on her shoulder or to her words. Instead, she let herself be guided towards the couch where she sat down. Ritsuko sitting down on one of the chairs next to it.

She took a moment to compose herself, “How long have you known?”

“About your fathers’ involvement? Three years.” Ritsuko admitted, “It was not long after I was approached for this assignment. I told you that I was brought here on request of Commander Ikari, didn’t I?”

Misato nodded.

“And then afterwards, that was when I was approached by a representative from Section 31. They were looking for an operative to keep an eye on things here, and report back to them. It was their belief that NERVs stated goal was only half of the truth and there was in fact something more sinister going on.” Ritsuko explained, “In order to persuade me to work for them, they revealed to me a few things Ikari didn’t. Amongst them was details of the experiment on Adam and subsequent cover up, as well as the names of people involved.”

“That’s when you saw his name, wasn’t it?”

“Both his name and my mother’s name.” Ritsuko confirmed, “I found out your father had died in that accident, and you had… survived it. It flew in the face of everything you had told me at the academy and then I saw my mother’s name… and that she had died.”

“Ritsuko I’m… so sorry…”

“Don’t be. I wasn’t close to her, you of all people know that.” Ritsuko shook her head, “I hated her and she… wasn’t very keen on me either.”

“Ritsuko…”

“It’s not my story you want though, is it? It’s your fathers and of course yours and I… I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could say in my three years of being here I’ve uncovered more about him and you but I can’t.” Ritsuko sighed, she didn’t quite know what she was doing here telling these half-truths to Misato, sending the transmission was all she had to do.

“It’s okay…” Misato smiled weakly, “You’ve told me what you can and… that’s enough.”

Ritsuko shifted uncomfortable in her seat, in her jacket pocket she could feel the small bottle she had brought with her and wondered what to do next. It felt like a mistake her coming here. She didn’t really know what she wanted to get out of it. A part of her wanted to confess everything she knew about NERV, about Gendo and the so-called scenario. She had hoped that maybe being here would trigger something, allow her to just push through and do it. Until of course she remembered what would happen if Gendo found out.

‘He’ll destroy him, I can’t… let that happen. Even though he doesn’t know I exist, he doesn’t know a damn thing about me I can’t… let him die.’

“Ritsuko is that…”

Ritsuko looked down and suddenly realized that she had subconsciously taken the bottle out of her pocket and was clutching it in her hand. She looked down at it and the blueish liquid it contained, smirking as she did, “Romulan Ale? Yeah, I figured if I was going to come and support you then it’d be worth bringing this. Been saving it for a special occasion, not easy to get hold of the stuff since Romulus was destroyed, even harder out here in the Gamma Quadrant. Managed to get some through a Ferenghi at Deep Space 9.”

“At least it’s legal now.” Misato laughed, thankful for her old friends’ distraction. She got up off of her seat and moved over to the kitchen, pulling out two small glasses for the beverage, “Not like it was in the Academy, hell to get hold of the stuff and we had to get really creative to hide the damn thing.”

Ritsuko handed the bottle to Misato and half a minute or so later she had poured out a small amount of the liquid into each glass. She handed one glass to Ritsuko and took the other for herself, lifting it to her nose to give the liquid a quick smell. It was the first time she had smelled the liquid in what felt like forever. A nostalgic feeling washed over her, taking her all the way back to those long nights both she and Ritsuko would spend together. Daring one another to drink just a little bit more, hiding it all from their instructors prying eyes and waking up with an awful hangover.

They were happy memories that offset all the negative feelings she had been feeling over the last week or so. They were moments where she didn’t have to question anything, a time of no responsibility and true happiness. It was back when both of them were so happy, until Misato had, as she always did, messed it all up.

She took another look at the alcohol and tried to dismiss all the negative thoughts. She was actually a little bit apprehensive; it had been so long since she had had the stuff, and she knew it was a world away from the synthahol beer she was so used to having. There wasn’t really anything out there like Romulan ale. Many people weren’t even sure if they liked it but it was there as a novelty. More often than not it was a test to prove you could handle it, and there was a buzz from it that you just didn’t get elsewhere.

She looked up, still deciding whether or not to drink only to see Ritsuko grinning at her with an empty glass in hand. In all that time Misato had been nostalgic, Ritsuko had already seen fit to down hers, seemingly with no effect, “Been staring at it for quite some time, scared?”

“Hah, you wish.” She retorted and lifted the glass to her lips, downing the liquid in one swift motion. There was a sharp burning sensation that hit the back of her throat followed by a warmth spreading throughout her body. She slammed the glass down on the counter and looked towards Ritsuko, “See! Nothing to it!”

Misato wasted no time before pouring out two more glasses. She added a touch more of the liquid, and made a note to not knock it back quite as quickly this time. Already she could feel the light buzz as the alcohol took hold. She moved back towards the couch, handing a glass to Ritsuko before making herself comfortable.

“I’m sorry that you had to find out about things the way you did. I did want to tell you properly but…”

Misato nodded, “I know… your job… this place… us… it must be complicated.”

“Something like that.” Ritsuko confirmed, “Being here… doing the bidding of Section 31, and having to be my mother’s replacement… it wasn’t really what I had planned for my future. I had ambitions, I wanted to be on a starship, I wanted to travel the galaxy, I didn’t want to be confined to one lab like she was, I didn’t want to be her!”

“Rits…”

“Here I am though, director of Project E, living alone with only the ghost of my mother and that ex-drone for company.”

“Drone?” Misato questioned? ”You mean… Rei?”

“Yeah, Rei.” Ritsuko nodded, “I… don’t mean to sound annoyed at her, she’s alright but it’s just… try living with some of your only interactions being with a former Borg and see how long it takes you to get fed up.”

“What’s here story? What is a former Borg doing out here in the Gamma quadrant?”

‘Now that is a story…’ Ritsuko thought, ‘If only you knew… if only Shinji knew… what would you think of me for going along with it?’

“I don’t know.” Ritsuko felt her chest tighten with the lie, “I was told that he found her two years or so before I arrived. I don’t really know where, can’t say I’ve heard of much of a Borg presence in the Gamma Quadrant, I expect the Dominion keep them at bay. She… is a good person, she’s quiet and does what she is asked to do but I just… wonder if her life here is any better than it would have been in the collective.”

“You care about her?” Misato asked, a little bit surprised at hearing Ritsuko talk this way.

“I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I didn’t care about her. Ikari put me in charge of her care pretty much as soon as I got here. I do my best, but there isn’t a lot to do aside from make sure she attends her regular check-ups. I’ll make sure her implants function as they should; maintain her regeneration chamber. That sort of thing.”

“I see.”

“Physically she’s fine but her development outside of that concerns me. She was freed from the collective and given back her individuality but she doesn’t really seem to have advanced. She needs people but she isn’t really going to get them around here.”

‘I’m almost convincing myself with what I’m saying… actually no, it is true. No matter what Rei is, she could be more but he just won’t allow it. Maybe…’

“It doesn’t really seem like a very social place.” Misato mused.

“I tried recommending holodeck programs to her to help out, that sort of thing.” Ritsuko continued, “I even tried reaching out to Seven Of Nine, but I didn’t get anywhere. Was no one out there that could put me in contact with her, not even her former crewmen. Last I heard she had gone dark, joined some group of rangers.”

“Fenris Rangers?” Misato nodded, “I’ve heard of them. Consider themselves the law in a few Beta Quadrant systems. Command isn’t keen on them, but they’re content to leave them be as long as they don’t do anything too bad.”

The room fell silent once more as the two of them resumed sipping from their glasses. Misato was starting to get used to the burning sensation of the ale every time she drank from the glass. Every sip was bringing with it more light-headedness and an inability to keep her eyes off of her friend.

“You know… I have really tried to find out more about your father and even you. I wanted to reach out to you but they said I couldn’t, you were aboard the Buckland as well and were first officer.” Ritsuko suddenly spoke, “It… didn’t seem appropriate. Do you really… not remember anything?”

“Nothing.” Misato shook her head, “It’s all a goddamn blank. That entire period of my life is a blank, I just assumed that everything that happened to me, the coma and the scars I have…. Were because of the shuttle accident. I don’t remember going off-world, spending any time with my father or being in any accident.”

Misato wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol doing it or the emotion of the moment, perhaps a mixture of both, but she could feel the tears returning to her eyes. She stopped speaking to try and regain her composure only to nearly lose it again on feeling an arm now come around her. Misato looked up to find herself looking into the eyes of Ritsuko.

“Ritsuko…” Her voice melted into a sigh as she found herself instinctively learning in closer and closer. Her lips parting ever so slightly as the distance between them closed. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Suddenly, she stopped, and pulled her head back, “We… We shouldn’t.”

Misato instantly regretted her words on seeing the look of hurt in her friends’ eyes. It was something she had seen many years ago. Towards the end of their time in the academy, they were approaching graduation and had been in a relationship for most of their time there. On approaching that time Misato had began to feel fear creep in, she had called everything off, conjuring up a bunch of reasons and excuses and never being sure if Ritsuko had believed any of them.

“The alcohol… and everything else tonight… I… I’m a captain now. It wouldn’t be responsible of me.” Misato continued, her voice shaking anxiously. She didn’t know who she was trying to convince, Ritsuko or herself.

Ritsuko nodded and started to pull away. In a way she felt a bit of relief, rekindling this would have been a mistake. It would be a brief bit of selfishness, momentary pleasure before Misato inevitably learned the truth and abandoned her.

“You’re right I…”

Ritsuko had no opportunity to finish her sentence, cut off by Misato suddenly pressing her lips up against hers. She felt her eyes widen as a brief yelp escaped her lips before Ritsuko moved to return the kiss. Any doubt she was feeling a moment ago was quickly erased by the embrace of the woman she loved and had never stopped loving.

The kiss was eventually broken, the two of them looking into one another’s eyes. Misato spoke up, “I… I’m sorry. All those years ago when I broke up with you… I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”

Ritsuko didn’t say a word, moving in closer to Misato again. She felt Misato’s hand moving through her hair. Ritsuko let out a sigh into Misato’s mouth as she felt Misato’s other hand running itself up along her leg. Ritsuko let her own hands roam Misato’s body, soliciting a sigh from Misato.

“I’m sorry.” Misato tried to speak again but being cut off as Ritsuko’s hands got that little bit braver, with one of them grabbing at and squeezing Misato’s breasts firmly. The two of them shifted position on the couch. Misato positioning herself on top of Ritsuko, allowing the blonde to kiss her neck and chest and enjoying the touch of Ritsuko’s hands are they roamed and explored her body.

She forced away the negative voice in her mind, she didn’t want to listen to it anymore or answer to that fear. She didn’t want to apologize any longer or give any further words of protest. All she wanted to do was give herself completely to Ritsuko.

To hell with fear and responsibility, she was in love.