Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book Two)

Deleted Scene: the pitch

Misato's Apartment. Earlier that morning.

"Asuka?"

"Huh? Whuzzut?" With a start, Asuka lifted her head off of the table. Bleary-eyed, she let the world come back into focus. She was in the kitchen. Shinji stood a careful distance away from her, a cup in his hands. Early morning sunlight filtered through the open living room door. Which meant --

-- oh, Gott, the homework! In a panic, she looked down at the worksheet in front of her. Still not finished. She'd seriously fallen asleep?! -- This was a nightmare. Not only was her work not done, but she was vulnerable. Her makeup had to be smudged. Hair most likely a mess. She could see a small puddle of drool -- drool! -- on the table where her head had been. What the hell was she going to do?! She must look hideous --

"Long night?" Shinji took a sip from his cup.

Asuka forced herself to relax. It's okay, she told herself. It's just Shinji. It's not like it's Mr. Kaji, or someone actually important, right?... "So what if it was? What's it to you?" she snapped.

"You know we don't have school, right? We've got those tests at the base scheduled today..."

"Oh. Yeah. Of course," Asuka lied. She ran her hands through her hair. "It's -- it's just the principle of the thing, you know?" Which was true enough. She'd really wanted to get the whole thing done in one night, just to rub it in the Doctor's face...

She'd almost pulled it off, too. She remembered now. Most of the problems hadn't been too bad, really. Even the elliptic curve cryptography stuff had been simple enough, once she'd figured out what the question was asking for. She'd just about wrapped the whole thing up...

... all except for that problem, of course. She glared down at the same stupid one-line description and picture -- an old-timey woodcut of a city built around a forked river -- that she'd been staring at for hours. It just sat there on the worksheet. Mocking her.

"That's the thing the Doctor gave you, right?" Shinji craned his head over the piece of paper. "'See if you can plot a course that passes over all seven bridges without crossing any of them more than once'... doesn't look too bad."

"Well, of course you'd think that." Asuka shook her head, a smirk on her face. "Trust me, cupcake. It might look simple, but it's way beyond the likes of you."

"Uh... well..." He shrugged.

"Oh, what?" Asuka's eyebrow twitched. "I've thrown every trick I can think of at it! Calculus, trigonometry, graph theory, you name it. If none of that got an answer, what makes you think an idiot like you can?"

"I don't know if it's the answer." Shinji scratched the back of his head. "I just think I know what the Doctor would say, that's all."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, really. And what's that?"

"He'd say to take one of the little boats."

"The little -- what?" Asuka looked down at the map again. Actually... now that she examined it more closely... she could see what looked like a sail or two in the midst of the river... one of which even looked like it'd been penciled in...

The full, horrible truth slammed down on her with the weight of a thousand bricks. She put her head back down on the table with a moan. "You've got to be kidding me..." This is it, she thought. My life is over. I can't go any lower than this. Someone, kill me now.

She felt something get placed down a short distance away from her head. Asuka looked up through the mass of bristled red hair in front of her eyes. She saw a cup on the other side of the table. "What's that?"

"Green tea." Shinji pushed the cup over closer to her. "Here."

Reflexively, she sat up and took the cup. She stared at it in her hands, the steam from the water rising into her face. She glanced over at Shinji, who turned towards the rice cooker.

He... doesn't even get that he doesn't have to be nice to me, does he, she thought. It's... like... he doesn't even realize that not being nice is an option. That he has a choice. He's that conditioned by his culture -- Japanese politeness or whatever -- that it doesn't even occur to him.

In a way, it was almost kind of sad, really. Asuka hesitated, then took a sip.