Without a Shadow of a doubt

Chapter 4

"Priority Seating"

Shadow strolled casually through the medical wing, ignoring all the staring, pointing and murmuring around him.

He stopped in front of a door, and, after a moment's hesitation he warped inside. The door's label read "Ayanami Rei".

If the girl was surprised by the sight of a tall hedgehog suddenly materializing in her room, she didn't show it. Shadow crossed his arms as he appraised her. Rei simply stared at him blankly.

"So then what happened?" - Shinji asked, intrigued.

"Nothing" - Shadow replied. He seemed troubled by something, silently mumbling to himself.

"What is it?"

"… Nothing"

The mumbling ceased. The troubled look remained. Shinji shrugged. 'He'll tell me eventually'

The rest of the day was uneventful. They had a visit from Ritsuko and Misato; the former for a regular check-up and to tell him that he should "stay here until tomorrow"; the latter to see how her new star pilot was doing. Shinji opted to stay in his dorm, sleeping or chatting to Shadow. Of course, Shinji was doing most of the talking, with Shadow simply nodding, frowning and replying with single-syllable remarks.

The next day Shinji was discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health. The next step was figuring out where they would live and… well… on what money. The latter will have turned out to be a surprisingly sizeable salary. As to the former…

"Here to give us another tour, Captain?" - Shadow inquired sardonically as Misato came to pick them up.

"Hey, Shinji, glad to see you're already up and about" - Misato opted to ignore the ever-present spiked source of her irritation - "I'm here to take you up for accommodation assignment" - and with that they headed for the elevator.

As the elevator doors opened, they revealed none other than Gendo Ikari. Time seemed to freeze. Then the doors closed again. Shinji took a deep breath. Then he turned and headed for the stairs. Shadow's mouth curled into an evil grin and then he was gone.

It took the staff a solid couple of hours to get the esteemed Commander Ikari out of the elevator that somehow inexplicably got stuck between the two top floors of the hospital.

"Are you really alright with this?" - Misato just refused to accept the notion of a young boy like him living on his own.

"To be honest, I wanted this" - Shinji explained - "I'll be damned if I have to live with my father, and-"

"-We don't trust anyone at this place" - Shadow interjected - "Nothing personal. Just kind of hard to have warm fuzzy feelings for people who would willingly put children into combat"

"Believe me; we are not doing it by choice…!" - Misato bit back all the curses that immediately jumped into her mind. She was always sensitive to that particularly unsavory, if necessary, aspect to their operations.

"I believe you, Captain" - as he and Shinji turned to leave, he added over his shoulder- "Do you?"