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1.
“Hey, have you seen the new girl? You know, the one they say—”
“The transfer student? Oh right, that’s today—”
“—and damn, those legs! Like, she was pretty far away so I could barely see them, but wow—”
“I heard—”
“Is it true? You know, that she’s—”
“—what? Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t know— “
“A pilot? Really? You’re not just messing with me?”
“—in our class, too!”
“Ayanami-kun,” the teacher asks, smiling, “why don’t you introduce yourself?”
Rei Ayanami—eyes AI red and hair the blue of frozen tundra—stands in front of the room, posture perfect as she stares pasts the faces before her.
“Rei Ayanami,” Rei says. She does not smile. She does not blink.
2.
Twenty-two days remain before the date foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls, twenty-two days before the Third Angel will arise from the waters and bathe Tokyo-3 in red. Twenty-two days before it all begins, this grand cosmic game they have spent years preparing and waiting for.
Fuyutsuki a steady sentinel by his side, Gendo sits at his desk and watches the pieces come into place.
Below, Katsuragi and Akagi are talking, discussing sync rates and risk factors, all those small, necessary details for preventing an apocalypse. Their voices carry, echoing in the cavernous space, but Gendo is only half listening. His eyes are on the faintly translucent image floating over Unit 00. Rei’s eyes are closed as she sits inside the entry plug, waiting for the tests to begin.
“Rei,” he says, voice soft over the private intercom, “are you ready?”
Slowly, Rei opens her eyes. Against the harsh fluorescent of NERV headquarters, her eyes flicker, twin pinpoints of color.
“Yes,” Rei says. Quiet as always, efficient and to-the-point. Unnatural, the other officers whisper, as though Gendo does not hear everything that happens in NERV, does not catch every stray doubt and errant attempt at insubordination. They do not see—cannot see—what Gendo does, the palimpsest of images that rise up when he looks at Rei Ayanami. Her hair, her eyes, that slow, quiet way she has of watching him—
In the end, Yui kept her promise; it had taken some work, and perhaps more time than he had expected, but she never left, not really.
3.
Waking to the scent of antiseptic and the dull blue of hospital walls is almost routine these days. Rei does not know what time it is or why she is here, but as she stares at the familiar cracks in the ceiling, she knows where she is.
Above her, the ceiling fan’s steady whirl cuts through the cries of summer cicadas.
Her left arm is in a cast, Rei observes when she turns her head. Recently broken, with an ache that suggests drug-accelerated healing; in a few days, the bone will be set, whole and almost just as good as new. Rei lifts her arm just a few inches, to see if she can. A little sore, but that is alright, that is only temporary, and all other parts are accounted for. A broken arm, in the calculus of the greater good, is hardly worth mentioning.
Rei has broken and she will break again—in training, in combat—and there will always an after, doctors to set bones and stitch her back together, because that is how it is, her body a million pieces of pre-made flesh to be clicked and set in place. She has a purpose, was built for one and one reason alone. Rei knows this; Rei has always known this, the central fact of her existence imprinted into her as deeply as the color of her hair or the blood in her veins.
It is alright. She will heal, and she will enter her Evangelion again, because that is what she is made and has always existed for: to be the First Child, to pilot Unit-00, to train and fight and protect
Tokyo-3, this city of things and people she cannot quite understand.
4.
As the cleanup crews begin collecting the scattered pieces of Ramiel’s corpse from over Tokyo-3, Shinji lies awake on his futon and stares at the ceiling.
He should sleep, he knows. He has school the next day, Tokyo-3’s near destruction papered over with a facsimile of normality, and beyond that, Shinji is tired, post-battle muscles sore and more than ready to collapse into sleep.
And yet the images keep coming, flashes of sense memory jerking him awake. Blistering heat and blinding light, an endless vista of blue and an unearthly hum in his ears, the air vibrating with the Angel’s—song? Cry? Could Angels cry, sing, hurt? They could certainly bleed. Always a shock, the blood—the sheer quantity of it, drenching buildings and streets, a thick, viscous stain with a scent that never quite fades, no matter how many times the clean-up crews rinse and scrub. And the color, the slick glistening redness of it, the way it spread and browned just like human blood—
Shinji rolls over, pulling his pillow over his ears. Through the window, in the absolute darkness of Tokyo-3, the moon shines bone-white, a silent sentinel in a field of scattered stars.
NERV had sent the pilots to the hospital after the mission, more for Rei’s sake than his. Her injuries had been light—almost miraculously so, the doctors informed them. If Shinji had gotten to her a few seconds later, the LCL inside the entry plug would have begun to boil her alive. Shinji had glanced at her then, but Rei had only nodded, a mere dip of her head with no change in expression. Bandages on one arm and hair falling like a helmet around her bruised face, she had seemed in that moment like something not quite earthly, some solemn-eyed yuki-onna or Western saint of old.
Before tonight, Shinji might have believed it too. Rei Ayanami, the First Child; Rei Ayanami, the chosen child, the ideal pilot. His father’s ideal child.
Shinji knows better now. Rei is quiet and calm and brave, has perhaps never cried herself into unconsciousness or clawed at her arms until blood beads up on skin, but that does not mean she does not hur, cannot feel. Buried beneath all the icy detachment, something soft has still survived—frozen and half-alive, but still there, still alive. That slight soft smile, Rei’s quiet thanks, cool palms in his—there is a beauty to those moments, rare and small as they are. Like the pale light of dawn catching on dew, the first tentative flowers peeking out of snow.
5.
Ten days after her transfer from Germany, and Asuka comes to a conclusion: Japan is a terrible, awful country full of terrible, awful people, and she hates it.
Well. Not everyone, she supposes—certainly not Mr. Kaji, and not Hikari, and maybe not the floppy-haired boy at the bakery who slips extra dorayaki into her bag—Asuka is willing to concede, on the whole, that the entire nation of Japan was not an entirely lost lot cause in terms of human decency. By some stroke of luck, however, Asuka has managed to get stuck living with the absolute worst people in Tokyo-3. Misato, who leaves her clothes all over the apartment and who somehow managed to start a fire heating up leftovers in the microwave the other day; spineless Shinji, who has never looked anyone in the eye and apologizes to walls when he bumps into them; and of course her, Miss Perfect Pilot and teacher’s pet, the wunderkind who could do nothing wrong. Rei Ayanami.
God, Rei. Asuka hates everything about her—the way she stands and walks and never talks, like being the First Child made her so much better than everyone else. Those ice chip eyes staring through you like you were nothing, a nuisance so faint it was barely worth registering—that quiet yes she gives to everyone, the way she does whatever the other officers tell her, following Commander Ikari around like some sad, mute dog—
Asuka has always built herself up from bruised knuckles and blood-speckled spit, spite and stubborn anger and determination sharp as a freshly whetted knife. Asuka is too loud and too much, no manners and all the wrong things for a girl, but she has built herself strength from that, a brazen person who is Asuka Langley Soryu. Who is someone who cannot be taken and bent, someone who has and will always exist in herself.
Rei is nothing of what Asuka wants to be, and yet. There is something in her silent compliance Asuka can’t stop thinking about, the way Rei bends so easily to orders yet remains so unaffected. Rei does not need to succeed the way Asuka does, good-better-best a constant buzzing burn beneath her skin, and yet Rei is a good pilot—without trying, without caring about it in the least. And it infuriates Asuka, that casual apathy with which Rei views all that she has been given—how dare piloting and fighting come so easily to her when they mean nothing to her, when Rei has never fought and broke and bled for the chance to be worthy of being wanted, to be good that she is irrevocably needed—
And yet. And yet.
6.
It’s early evening, after work but not yet dinnertime, when a knock comes at the door. Slouching in front of the TV in a post-work tank top and sweat shorts, Misato calls, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” as she unwinds herself from her nest of floor cushions.
On the doorstep, Rei stares up at her. Over the months, Misato has noticed that Rei does not blink much. “Is Shinji here?”
“He’s studying with Toji and Kensuke. Asuka says they have an English test tomorrow, though she didn’t seem that worried about it when she left...was there something you wanted him for?”
In response, Rei reaches in her pocket. The object she pulls out is a familiar one to Misato, the worn plastic and fading logo a regular sight in a household that includes Shinji Ikari. “I found it after sync tests.”
“Thank you, Rei,” Misato says, taking the SDAT player. “I’m sure Shinji will appreciate it.” On an impulse, uneasy with sending Rei small and alone to walk back in the dark, she adds, “Why don’t you come in and wait? Shinji should be back soon, and you can give it to him then. I can make us tea—there’s sencha, barley, houjicha—”
“Barley, please.”
“O-K!” Misato says, faux saluting as she heads to the kitchen. Laying on the cheerfulness perhaps a little too thick, the way she always does around these kids, but she can’t help it. Misato has never had much in terms of parental figures, and the process of acting as one has been a process of trial and stumbling error.
She wants to try though, Misato thinks as she takes the tea out of the cupboard and fills the kettle. For Shinji, for Asuka, for all these lost and motherless children conscripted into their war.
For Rei, who perhaps needs human warmth most of all.
An odd girl, Misato knows the other NERV staff think about Rei, nice enough but no way of understanding her, that child. An understandable response, all things considered; unlike Shinji or Asuka, Rei has never acted like a child, and Misato can see how that would lead to nervousness, unease for adults with a certain concept of childhood.
On the stove, the kettle has begun to whistle. Misato lets it, watching for the first signs of steam.
Misato has made a life for herself since Antarctica, those hazy days of numb cold and hospital gowns, but even now, fifteen years later, there are still so many things about Rei that pull her back to that girl, Misato Katsuragi at age fourteen. The way Rei speaks, eyes down and voice low; the way she walks, small, silent steps as if careful not to take up too much space; the way she sits, limbs drawn in as if trying to make herself small, unnoticed and unnoticeable. The habits of a girl not quite comfortable in herself, never quite relaxed or fully certain about existing in the world.
But Misato has seen too, over the last few weeks, the way Rei lingers when Shinji is near—never commenting, barely even there, but a presence nonetheless. It has only been a few months, but there is something beyond apathy in the way Rei watches Shinji and Asuka now, a hint of curiosity, just the slightest whisper of wistfulness. And if Misato can be a part of that—if she can, in some way, somehow, help Rei along her road towards that—
Well, she will. Well, Misato thinks as she pours steaming water into two chipped cups, she wants to.
Playing house, Ritsuko’s voice teases, but Misato simply brushes it away as she walks back into the living room, two cups of barley tea in hand.
7.
“If it’s a boy, Shinji. If it’s a girl, Rei.”
8.
Rei wakes from dreams of blood and stars and dead white land, dream limbs pulled apart and slowly crumbling into a sea of sickly orange. Rei wakes in her bed, sheets tangled on the ground and hair wet with sweat, a hitch in her throat and the sense of something—a nightmare, a vision, some fading premonition—lapping at the edges of her mind.
(If she closes her eyes, Rei can almost see her again—the curve of a smile, the gleam of of dark eyes, the camera shutter flash of brown hair. Who are you, Rei wants to ask, but in these dreams the air is thick and viscous as LCL and Rei cannot move, can only stand and mutely watch as the world splits apart before her.)
(Shh, the woman with Rei’s face whispers. It’s alright, you’re okay. It’s almost over now.)
9.
Armisael descends on a cloudless day with tidings of great joy, the stratosphere humming with its song of hope and new life. All of its siblings have failed so far, but Armisael is buoyant in its faith, that need to finally finish what the other Angels have not.
After all, She is still calling.
The Lilin resist, of course. Mechanical hands clench around Armisael, squeezing as though trying to break foreign flesh into so many points of light, but Armisael is a child of flesh and touch, the angel of new beginnings and potential futures, and so: Armisael adapts. Sinks itself into the almost-Adam creature bent on its destruction, whispering soft promises past metal and wire until it can taste the acrid sting of synapses firing with fear-fear-fear.
Hello, Armisael says to the soul, and oh, this one is different, this one is new. Not quite Lilin, for all that she has the shape of one. Something of Her there, their lost never-mother.
Join with me, it tells her. We were meant to be, and when we are one, when we are together, there will be no more of this distance between us, no more of this pain called loneliness.
Little sister, join with us.
And yet she will not. For all that Armisael is already there, a shadow-soft shape inside her heart, she struggles—refuses, putting up AT fields even as Armisael reaches to embrace her. She is not quite Lilin, this little sister, but her heart is still the shape of one, a stubborn steady beating of I, I, I.
Such strange creatures, these Lilin. All that darkness, all that sadness, that yawning empty space between them, and yet still this resistance, this inexplicable stubbornness to cling to apart-apart-alone.
Why, Armisael tries to ask, tries to know. But the not-Lilin is no longer listening, attention caught by the new Adam creature rising from the ground, but that is alright, that will only be temporary.
They are lost and sad, these children of Lilith, but with Armisael’s help, they will soon be saved, every one.
10.
The doctors let her out early. There had been no real reason for Rei to be in the hospital in the first place—the sling and bandages purely aesthetic, set dressing to fool the nurses and prop up the fiction of her miraculous rescue. Rei aches, but it is the ordinary pain of rebirth, the tenderness of a soul struggling to situate itself in a new home. Go home, the doctors had told he, just go to school and work like you normally do, a steady routine and familiar settings are the best way to adjust.
And so here is Rei now, not the first of that name and perhaps not the last, standing in the middle of a sparse room she has been told is home. This is me, Rei thinking, touching the corner of the bed, the textbooks on her desk. This is what Rei Ayanami means, the things she has (I have?) chosen to keep close.
There is not much. She remembers a little of each of them—the chalky taste of the pills on the counter, the scratchy cotton of the socks drying above her bed. There is cotton stuffed in the toes of those shoes, bought months ago yet still not quite grown into; that book is from the school library, due date long since past and neglected; those papers on the dresser are from the class representative, reminders of a test last week or the week before—
Those glasses are from Commander Ikari.
(If Commander Ikari asked to die, you would, wouldn’t you?)
Commander Ikari is kind, Rei thinks, picking up the glasses. Commander Ikari cares about Rei, asks her about school and invites her to dinner, not seeming to care that she is quiet and odd and off. Commander Ikari had saved her, not so very long ago. Commander Ikari has given her life, and how can she respond to that except with loyalty?
Commander Ikari had not saved her yesterday.
(For God gives, and God takes, and blessed be the name of God—)
Silently, unblinking, Rei watches the glass crack in her hands.
11.
The rising sun is a bloody coin against the gray morning, light spilling red and slow where sky meets sea. Standing alone on the shoreline, Kaworu Nagisa studies the sunrise and ponders the hearts of man.
Kaworu has interacted with Lilin before: milk-sweet caregivers when he was very small, tutors when he was older who had taught him language and history and music, and of course the scientists, a steady crew of white coats and mission directives, SEELE says and SEELE wants. But those were controlled interactions, planned in advance and meticulously monitored. His meals, his sleep schedule, the number of minutes he was allowed to spend outside or in the piano room—SEELE’s scientists spent hours calculating each minute of his day, perfect routines for their perfect specimen. Kaworu has lived fifteen years behind glass, and this last day—these last few hours—has been a revelation.
Lilin are odd, contrary creatures, Kaworu thinks as he watches the waves wash slowly over his shoes. Brave Misato, so certain and yet so lost. Angry Asuka, all spitting, spiteful fire now nearly burnt out. Shinji Ikari, all that fear and longing carried in one delicate glass heart.
And of course, her: Rei Ayanami, Lilith and Lilin yet not, the child of despair and a dead woman’s hope. That blank expression, those lost eyes, the careful way she weighs each soft word—Kaworu understands these things, the way a soul will ice over from loneliness or a heart wilt when given nothing with which to grow. Kaworu has felt that hurt, that aching isolation of being human yet not, and so he understands her, knows Rei as well as he knows himself.
If they had been truly Lilin, perhaps she would have been something like a sister.
But they are not. They are not Lilin, and that is for the best, for Lilin are such sad creatures, wounded animals lonely for so long that they have forgotten how to hold each other close. It is the way they were made, something in the shape of their hearts that makes them so vulnerable to hurt—but perhaps, Kaworu thinks, as he turns to face SEELE, black obelisks materializing in the ash gray air—perhaps, here and now, there is still something he can do.
12.
In a dark room down one of the hallways of her mind, the dark-haired woman walks towards Rei Ayanami.
Rei watches her. She sits neatly, the way Gendo had taught her to—legs together and back straight, hands folded on her lap and not a hint of a wrinkle on her skirt. The metal of the folding chair presses cold against her legs, but she does not move, only sits there, eyes following the stranger’s steps.
“Hello,” the woman says, stopping in front of Rei. Her eyes are brown, but they are the same shape as Rei’s, the arch of her eyebrows and fine cheekbones a mirror image of Rei’s own, elongated and strengthened by age. “It’s almost time, isn’t it?”
Rei nods. On her lap, her hands clench, loosen, clench.
Yui Ikari studies her. It is Rei’s face staring back at her, yet not: Yui’s smiles are kind and open, natural on her features in a way they could never be on Rei. Warm, in a way Rei has never known and could never be.
“And do you know,” Yui asks, “what you will choose, when he asks?”
Rei looks up. Her palms sting, where nails have unconsciously dug into skin. “What would you do?”
“Oh, Rei.” Yui Ikari (progenitor, original, something close to a mother) smiles. “What would you do?”
13.
There is an odd detachment that comes from observing your body break down. Even now, watching the unspooled viscera and loose limbs of other selves floating through LCL, Rei can feel the soft start of the collapse inside her, muscles slowly sluicing off bone and cells turning towards decay.
Where she is going, there will be no need for such sullied flesh.
“Rei.”
She does not move. In the tank, an arm floats past, fingertips ragged and black in the orange glow of LCL.
Gendo steps next to her, shadow stretching and covering hers. “It’s time.”
Rei looks at him. All her life, Gendo Ikari has loomed over her—still looms over her now, full head and shoulders taller and all sturdy muscle that dwarf Rei’s frame. Foster father, commander, creator—all her life, Rei has been looking up at Gendo, this man who seemed so often the center of her universe, a God arraying her life in perfect patterns and purpose.
But Gendo is no god, only a man a little more clever and a little more desperate than most. Under all that cold intelligence, a thing of soft flesh and deep heartache like all other Lilin, a sad, lost creature reaching for the sky and thinking itself impervious to the sun’s reproach.
For a moment, Rei almost pities him.