"Good afternoon, Shinji," she said. It was cheerful, and for once, I had an attitude to match.

"Good afternoon, ma'am."

"You're in a good mood. Ready to have that mood ruined by another session?" The bemused tone in her voice almost completely obscured the sarcastic rhetoric of the remark. I nearly answered the poor woman, but managed to cover it with a half-hearted snicker.

"... hmm. Shinji, you've come a long way in these months since your sessions began. Today is your final session. After today, you'll be issued a clean bill of mental health."

"That's amazing-"

"... if you can stand to talk about your father."

"... -ly depressing!" I attempted to recover.

She set her clipboard and pencil down upon her lap and stared at me in an easily transparent show of interest. Silence permeated the room as we stared at each other, and it lingered for a full five minutes before either of us deigned it our responsibility to speak up.

"My father is dead. What is there to talk about? Any issues I haven't resolved with him can no longer be resolved through the common courtesy of closure, and history has shown that I am no good in resolving my problems through any other means."

"Shinji, history has shown that you're no good at resolving your problems through any means," she countered.

"My point exactly!"

"Surely there's something about him that you wish you could get off your chest."

I sighed. "Another session filled with wishes, eh? Okay, fine, I'll humor you. I had several face-to-face confrontations with my father, and not a single one of them resulted in my favored conclusion."

"What conclusion was that, Shinji?"

"My inward anger building large enough that it overcame my fear of him and allowed me to sock him in the jaw, and damn the consequences."

"Violence is not the answer, Shinji."

"I don't know about that, doctor," I replied with the blankest face I could plaster upon my skull. "It solved our problem with the Angels rather exquisitely."

It was her turn to be silent. Her face rang loud with feigned offense, however.

"Look. My father had his favorite and non-favorite children. His favorites just happened to be artificially created in a lab and held more usefulness in his eyes because each one was a replacement for the previous one. I suppose if one were truly desperate for paternal affection, one could say that he pushed me away to protect me from losing my life in some freak EVA-related accident, but then how does one explain his insistence that I come pilot one anyway?" I paused to take a breath.

"Maybe he-"

"... what? Maybe he 'finally had a use for me'? You sound just like him. He was a control freak with a god complex, and almost enough technology to make that a viable outcome. His only flaw (and he would agree with me on this one and only point) was that he had to use mentally unstable teenagers, ones who were close to their mothers when said mothers died in horrific circumstances, as pilots of his monstrosities because their minds were more easily connected to the creature(s) the Evangelions were built upon in the first place. If the dummy system had been more viable as a starting option, he would have left me where I was, and I would have never needed this therapy in the first place! That bastard of a man is the reason why I'm here!"

I was out of breath from my explosion. It was a conclusion I had come to many years ago, while the Angels were still attacking.

"Shinji," she began, keeping her voice low so as not to provoke a second emotional outburst from myself, "when the dummy system didn't work, and Rei's use of Unit 01 didn't work, who was his first choice?"

"Ah, trying to appeal to me as the 'first choice' are you? That would normally work on any other patient, but not on one that was often referred to as the Third Child."

I seemed to have finally stumped her.

"I wanted to hit him. I wanted to swing my closed fist at his face. I wanted to connect with his nose. I wanted to shatter his olfactory capabilities, and perhaps break a couple of my knuckles doing it. How dare he abandon me when I needed him the most! How dare he call for me as if I were some socket wrench sitting in his toolbox! I was not a tool to be used for his machinations! I was- no, am- a human being! I deserved to be treated as a human being! Even if I wasn't worth his attention, I was at least worth his damned respect!"

"Stop."

I paused in my diatribe. "What?"

"Stop."

"I heard you the first time. I mean, what for? This actually feels like it's helping!"

She laughed. "You already hit upon that which I was aiming for: respect. Do you respect yourself?"

I thought about the question. "Back then, I didn't respect myself. Well, not in any emotional capacity. I bathed regularly, I ate right, I exercised, but I closed myself off from most people in a pointless attempt to keep from failing those whom I felt I mattered to most. I felt that if I did fail, and we were all still around after I failed, they would abandon me in much the same manner as my father had.

"Now, I really only care about how I feel about myself. I've no social skills to speak of, and have reconciled with the fact that any form of relationship I might attempt to have would need to be arranged. I have a job to which I devote 90% of my self and my time, and the other 10% is divided equally between minuscule home-based hobbies, and therapy appointments. I accept that I am emotionally damaged, and respect my lifestyle choices because of it."

She smiled. "So, no spontaneity?"

"How do you mean?"

"You can't see yourself going out to a bar, having a couple drinks, and engaging people in a social setting?"

I sighed. "The mere idea of such a scenario scares the absolute shit out of me in more ways than any Angel ever did."

"I guess it's good, then, that your social ineptitude is something that only you can train out of yourself. You have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zones and engage other people in a public setting. Doing this on a routine basis should help you conquer your fears of failing, but you have to want it."

I chuckled. "The only thing I truly want is the ability to go back in time to when the Angels were attacking, while retaining the knowledge I have now, and acting on some of my impulses. I always was pretty good at suppressing my impulses."

She was still smiling. It was a genuine smile, something I had finally gotten used to since the beginning of our sessions. "Well, Shinji, I believe we're done here."

That was odd. "Really? Kind of an abrupt ending. You really feel that there is nothing left to discuss?"

She nodded. "We have covered, closed, and concluded upon everything that I am able to help you with. Some of the biggest changes in your life are things you have to do on your own. I do have a few suggestions, though.

"Firstly, now that NERV has finally been disbanded and all of their most secret information has been released to the public consensus, I think you should write a book on your experiences with the Evangelion program as a child. Not only do I believe this will help with your closure on the events that took place, you may even be able to make enough money with it to quit your job."

I pouted. "But I like my job."

She shook her head. "Nobody likes a cubicle job. Writing a book will let you work from him. And I'm sure you could write volumes upon volumes of books relating to your experiences with the Evas and the Angels. I believe you would make a fine writer."

"I keep your suggestion under consideration. Anything else?"

"Yes," she continued. "This Saturday, go out and have a drink."

"This Saturday?"

"Yes, this Saturday. Try to loosen up and mingle. It's not nearly as scary or complex as you might think, Shinji, and science knows you could use some social interaction." She paused. "Your former roommate Katsuragi went out drinking often and look at how much social interaction she got."

I got it. "Oh... so this is some psychologist's way of saying I need to get laid."

"I didn't mean it like that, but if that's the only logical conclusion that you could come up with then I'll step back and let you answer for yourself."

I gave her the most blank stare I could muster.

"Look, hermitism isn't a mutation; it's a disease. It's a chemical imbalance in the brain, and allowing that chemical imbalance to run rampant denies the very core mechanisms of the humanity upon which you have been built. In layman's terms: go out, get drunk, relax, and have some fun. And damn what anyone else thinks."

I breathed deep, and nodded. "Anything else?"

She stood, crossed the room to her desk, and brought out a medium-sized box. It flipped open to reveal a cupcake tray, with two cupcakes sitting upon it. She picked one of the cupcakes up and brought it over to me.

"What is this for?"

"It's a cupcake."

"I know what it is, but what is it for?"

"It's for you."

I sighed. "I mean, what is it for? Am I celebrating something? Did I miss your birthday? Is there weed in it?"

She laughed. "The second option, Shinji. This is for a successful bout of therapy, after which you can claim you have a clean bill of health. Take it and be merry, Shinji."

She checked the clock on her wall, and then stood and pointed me to the door. "I apologize for rushing you out this way, but I have a dentist appointment in fifteen minutes and I'd prefer to not be late. My dentist gets rather cross with me when I'm late."

I thanked her for her help in settling the problems that she could settle, shook her hand, and exited from the room with my eyes downward, concentrating on my cupcake. That whipped peanut butter frosting on top of a swiss chocolate cake... it was absolutely the moistest thing I'd ever-

"I see your appointment went well, Third?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin, and dropped the cupcake. It's eventual settling upon the ground was of no consequence to my current predicament; indeed, in the presence of that red-haired demon princess in front of me, nothing else could garner my attention. I hurriedly wiped my mouth clean.

"Well enough, I think. How are you, Asuka?"

I looked straight at her, into her eyes, and was surprised not by what I saw in them, but by what I did not see. There was no more anger, no more self-righteous pride. Her eyes were by no means gentle, but she no longer gave off the air of a predator stalking its prey. She even ventured a genuine smile in my direction.

"I am about as well as one can expect to be, given the circumstances." She rose to meet my eyes, and the smile never left her face. "It has been many years, Ikari. Those years have been good to you."

I didn't know how to answer her. To be honest, I panicked. Those bright eyes of hers flashed, and I was overcome with weakness, so I did the first thing that popped into my head; I kissed her.

Then... well... that's a story for a different time.