Angelic Haven *COMPLETED*

All was as silent that morning, save for the sound of a hammer. The one wielding said hammer looked out of the newly-fixed window. Bits and pieces of the sky had lost all trace of the red that once blanketed it, ridding itself of the post-apocalyptic color of world they now lived in. Slowly, but surely, things were beginning to return to normal. Well, almost.

"Shinji..."

The former pilot looked at the girl standing in the doorway of the old, apartment. Her long, vibrant red hair was a bit messed from sleep and one of her shoulders were hanging out of the oversized white t-shirt she was wearing. Shinji could only greet her with a small smile and nodded his head.

"Good morning, Asuka."

She sat down at the kitchen table with a small yawn. She poured herself a cup of coffee, noticing Shinji had just finished putting up the window. The final adjustment out of a long process of restoration that had taken almost two years. In just two years, they'd come so far, especially after third impact. Yet, here they were, once again, living together in the apartment that had once belonged to Katsuragi Misato. Shinji joined her, picking up a newspaper on his way to the table. He sat down, yawned a little and looked at Asuka who seemed lost in her own thoughts.

"Um...Asuka?"

"What?"

"Do you plan on...um...? You know."

Asuka looked at him in slight annoyance, just not as strong calibered as she would have before third impact.

"I do. I plan on going down to the lake once more. What about you?"

Shinji shrugged, bringing the cup of hot coffee to his lips. Why was he still doing this? What was possessing him to even consider what he'd been doing for the past year? It's not like anyone was asking him this time around.

"I guess once Unit-01 is restored we'll have no choice."

"We have a choice, you idiot. We have many choices, but this is just the one we're taking. Besides,"

Asuka looked around the restored apartment before looking at the boy pilot across from her. In two years, the only thing that had really changed about him was the length of his hair. It was a little bit below his ears, though, not as long as Kaji's. Thank God, Asuka thought from time to time, otherwise, in some strange way, Shinji would resemble him and Asuka couldn't live with that. Not after all they'd been through.

"This is the only way to get back what we lost. Don't you want to see Misato and Kaji and everyone again?"

Truthfully, Shinji wanted to reply, he did, but at the same time, he'd enjoyed these two years alone with Asuka. Though third impact had broken her mind once more and the first thing she called him in this new world was 'disgusting', or atleast what she thought of the new world, he'd managed to help her as much as he could. Simply by staying beside her. They'd all be haunted by the ghosts of their pasts until the day they died, but even still, they wouldn't run from them any longer. They'd simply acknowledge them as bad memories. But isn't that what they were trying to do? Restore memories? A year ago, shortly after third impact, Eva Unit-01 had descended down from space, making an enormous splash they were positive would probably wipe out the rest of the earth. From the once burned-out apartment, Shinji saw the being fall from space, alerting Asuka who was still fresh with trauma. She called him crazy and insulted him for saying something so stupid, but it wasn't until the receptors Asuka still wore on her head began responding. The two made their way to the shore where Shinji and Asuka had first washed up after Third Impact. The splash had washed up the dismantled pieces of Eva Unit-02. Asuka and Shinji had watched in terror as the behemoth known as Unit-01 came to life, walking from the red waters and in front of Shinji. There, it stood carrying the pieces of the dismantled Unit-02. Slowly, bit-by-bit, the two monsters began to rebuild themselves. Two months later, Asuka and Shinji returned to the beach of beginnings. The two, fully completed Evangelions sat unmoving completely silent, completely restored. Ever since then, it'd been a huge debate wether or not to man them and why they had even come back to life when all Evangelions were supposed to have been lost or destroyed. Would they even move without umbilical cables? Almost a year and a half later, Asuka and Shinji found themselves still trying to answer those same questions. Asuka sat down her cup with a sigh.

"The answer to restoring everyone we know and love and the world is to use the Evangelions. If they can be used for destruction, why can't they be used to create? We've been sitting around way too long..."

"But how do you expect us to just restore humanity and with the Evas?"

Asuka stood up, looking at Shinji. Both were now sixteen, almost seventeen. They'd been through hell and were still living it in some sort. They were the only two beings on this planet. The new Adam and Eve. But Asuka would die first before they began having sex and repopulating Earth that way. Too much time, too much work, too much incest for her taste.

"I just know we can. So, are you ready? WE are the pilots, you idiot. They'll respond to our wills."

"Don't forget the Evas have will of their own. If anything, once we get in, it'll be THEM piloting US."

Asuka sat back down with a defeated sigh. She was surprised when Shinji stood up and looked out of the window. From where they were, he could still see the stationary Evangelions, sitting back-to-back. While he'll never understand why they returned, Shinji knew there were no longer dominant souls inside of the Evangelions. Both Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu and Yui Ikari's souls had been separated from the Evangelions during Third Impact when all souls were made into a single, entity in nothing but LCL. Shinji only knew that the Evangelions needed that dominant soul to function, but what would happen if they got back in the Evas? Would they be sucked into Eva's core and forced to the the new 'will' of Evangelion?

"I want to see them again, Asuka. Even if it means we'll get hurt again. Because I knew that back then...I was truly happy."

Shinji gasped, blushing a little when Asuka stood beside him, taking his hand in her own. She looked at him before turning her attention to the Evas on the shore of the Beach of Beginnings. They stood there, both silent. Even in these two years, there had been no romantic development between them. Just them. Asuka was catatonic for almost a year before Evangelion started calling to her a second time. It was then she awoke from her trance once more. She and Shinji had lived together for almost two years, both going about their own ways to find food, restore the old apartment and do their own thing. Slowly, they'd began to warm up to one another again to the point where Asuka would smile at him and he, her. Now, all they had built together, they'd be challenging. All for the sake of wanting to see their lost love ones again. This world they'd build together, no questions asked. They would find their happiness and no one was going to stop them this time.