[FFML] [NGE] Before and After - Chapter 5

[Michael Clark]

"Before and After" is a story I started a little over a year ago.  The
story is rooted in NGE continuity but the action generally takes place
off-screen compared to what we saw in the anime.  The piece is my vision
of a possible path for Rei's character development, an attempt to
explain that which went unsaid.  The first chapter begins shortly after
the events of Episode 16, and you can peruse the first four chapters
from the fanfiction.net archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5863795/


"Before Arael"
Chapter Five


"Take Takashi!"

It was late morning on the athletic field, the time when the earth
starts to reradiate heat and becomes just as oppressive as the sun
above.  On that dry, warming soil, the class divided into two camps.
The teachers had assigned a pair of captains to form teams.  The first
choices had been made quickly; each captain knew to pick off the most
athletic, skilled, or experienced of our number first, lest the other
take them instead.  After that, the selections slowed.  There was
debate, controversy.  I dislike controversy.  I dislike debate when it
takes place not in a wide, spacious lecture hall but a muddled pile of
human bodies, all whispering to keep their thoughts and opinions secret.

"What do you mean I'm flat-footed?" said one of the unchosen.  It seemed
the deliberations weren't so secret after all.

We waited in those two groups, in our plain white shirts and gym shorts.
For the moment, the dilemma was with my party.  One of the boys in
the group had the captain's ear.  His name was Saotome, and he was an
outfielder, short but quick on his feet.  He was an early selection, but
he had an interest in another--a taller, lanky child.  Kunikida Takashi
was his name.  I think he usually plays outfield, too, but he is slow,
and when the ball flies toward him, he covers his head with his arms and
crouches.

I'm not sure this is an effective catching technique.

"Like I said," Saotome-kun repeated in hushed but forceful whisper,
"take Takashi!"

The captain, Ono-kun, was reasonably tall.  I'd seen him play before.
He takes pride in hurling the ball past the batters, as much as the
mandated underhand throw would allow.  When he shook his head, the locks
on the back of his head swayed.  "Not a chance!" he said.  "Takashi?  He
doesn't swing the bat; the bat swings him!  Let's get Nakamura, see?
He's big enough to catch.  Would _you_ try to run him over?"

Saotome-kun looked away.  I don't think there was a logical counterpoint
to be made, but then, the source of his argument wasn't logic in the
first place.

"To win, you do what you have to," the captain, Ono-kun, assured him.

"I don't care about winning; Takashi's my friend.  I want him on our
side!"

"Don't care about winning?" said the captain.  "What kind of guy are
you?"

"Behave yourselves, gentlemen," said the teacher stiffly, wiping the
sweat from his brow.  "Or I will choose your next teammate instead."

"Nakamura!" said the captain, and he welcomed the burly catcher over
Saotome-kun's unhappy whine.  He had reason to be unhappy, I'm sure, but
I thought the captain had made his motives very clear:  Saotome-kun and
Kunikida-kun may have been friends, Saotome-kun and Ono-kun may have
been friends, but friendship isn't transitive.  It doesn't extend from
one to the other.  Where Saotome-kun, were he captain, could be expected
to favor a friend, Ono-kun was in no such position.  He took the action
best for his team.  It was a correct action, and the events of the game
that followed proved it.

It was the second inning.  I was content to defend first base while
a runner occupied second.  Aida-kun batted and hit a line drive over
me, into the vast expanse of right field.  The runner on second
broke slowly, but he picked up speed around third.  Saotome-kun,
the right-fielder, cut the ball off quickly.  He hurled it over me,
one-hopping Nakamura-kun about a meter up the third-base line.  The
runner contorted.  He tried to dodge Nakamura-kun, but he slipped.
His feet skidded on the dirt, and amid the cloud of dust, the catcher
calmly tagged him out.  The runner pounded the earth in frustration,
and Saotome-kun too sat in right with a sigh.  The game was over; that
was all that would fit in our physical education time.  Our team had
won, but that hardly comforted Saotome-kun.  He'd thrown out his friend,
Kunikida-kun, on the last play at home.  The teachers soon called us in,
and Saotome-kun wandered behind us.  Ono-kun went to raise his spirits.

"Come on!  Told you we'd win it, huh?"

Saotome-kun merely stuffed his glove into his captain's arms and walked
away.

Friendship.  I think it must be a difficult concept even for people,
or else there would be no fighting, no wars, save for the one we make
against the Angels, the one they make with us.

Our class had thinned somewhat.  Tokyo-3 had been attacked a dozen
times.  The children and their families were right to be frightened.

"Stand."

The class representative leads us when teachers enter and leave, but as
the class has emptied, I believe she's lost something.

"Bow."

The edge to her voice has softened.  Her commanding presence for chores
and assignments has long since waned.  She does her duty as instructed.
She leads us, as required, but--

"Sit down."

There was a time when she would be the first in and out of her seat
by a wide margin.  Now, the gap between her and the rest of the class
is smaller, more reasonable, more... ordinary.  I'm not sure why that
is.  Is it possible to enjoy such a duty?  No, I don't think it's that,
either.  Perhaps I cannot understand it, cannot explain why the class
representative is different now.  I can only observe that which is no
longer there.  Where others would see light, I spy only its absence,
what was left behind.

"What was left behind in the aftermath of the Revolution and the
Napoleonic Empire should be familiar to you," said Teacher.  "For three
decades, France was a place of constant strife and fragile governments.
There was no continuity.  There was order, from time to time, but it
could console you one day and abandon you the next.  What should strike
you, though, is that it was a calamity entirely brought on by the
inability of men to leave peacefully with one another, to govern fairly
and without bias or prejudice.  It took no act of God to throw France
into turmoil.  In that, I think we can take solace.  We were victims of
something beyond our control, so maybe yet there is hope for this world
after tragedy.  Perhaps man, having had no hand in this disaster, can
rise above it.  It is a comforting thought."  Teacher sighed to himself,
shaking his head.  "It is likely also unrealistic."

The only thing that seems unrealistic is a lecture that doesn't tie
into Second Impact in some way, but that is what I've come to expect
from Teacher, and I would not call him on it.  As the others took
studious notes on the wars of Indochina and their similarities to
Nineteenth-century turmoil, I looked out the window.  It's habit for me,
from when I came here to follow the Commander's word, but those orders
have long since been rescinded and forgotten.

I was there by choice, yet I looked out the window.

As did Ikari-kun.

I could see him faintly, in the reflection of the laptop screen.  The
cursor blinked; the fields were blank.  Ikari-kun sat back, his hands
on the keyboard, but his fingers wouldn't move.  Since he returned from
within Unit-01, Ikari-kun had been... preoccupied.  That's an imprecise
word, but I cannot explain it further.  I've seen him be childish and
petulant toward his father, toward his duty.  I've heard him espouse the
belief that life is a futile thing, meaningless and without direction.
Conversely, I've felt his touch through my plugsuit glove as he told me
never to say goodbye, for it made him too sad, sad for me, hardly more
than a stranger.

The Ikari-kun who came out of the plug was none of those, however.  I
cannot conceive of what his experience must have been--gone for weeks to
return to what, the cares and worries of living?  I don't know I would
want to come back.  Perhaps that is what he yearns for, to drift into
nothing and never return.

No, I can't say that.  I shouldn't say what I desire and presume people
would want that, too.  What weighs on Ikari-kun may be that complex, but
it could also be painfully simple.

"Why do you feel like it's always your business to get in other people's
way?"

It was earlier today, before first class, when _she_ made her presence
known with her unbridled ranting.  I'm sure the class could hear them
coming before they even reached the door.

"But I make lunch for you every day, remember?" Ikari-kun had said,
walking in behind her.

"That's not the point!" said Soryu.

Ikari-kun winced.  "I'm just saying I could make your favorite tomorrow,
if it'll make you feel better."

"Why would I want you to do that?"

"I just thought--"

"Why would I want you to do anything?  You're always doing, even when
you complain about having to do things!  Try stopping once in a while.
Try getting out of my way!"

Ikari-kun clenched his teeth.  "Well, sorry for making a simple offer!"

"Asuka, Ikari-kun, stop that!" said the class representative.

"Why?" they both shouted back.

The class representative flinched, but she stood her ground, glancing at
the back row desk next to Aida-kun.  "If not for classroom order," she
said quietly, "then..."

Soryu had sat with a huff.  Ikari-kun followed the class
representative's gaze, looking dour, and I dare say he wore that
expression for the rest of the day.  What was it?  Disillusionment?
Weariness?

Pain?

If anything could raise Ikari-kun's spirits, I'd thought it would be the
quarantine.  Unit-01 is a being of godlike strength now; with the S2
engine, a limited power supply can no longer keep it in check, and there
are people who fear that.  _I_ would fear that, and so, the task falls
to the pilot of Unit-02 and me.  Ikari-kun joins us for synchronization
tests.  He stands at the ready, but if all goes well, he won't join us
in battle.  Is that not enough?

Evidently not, for Ikari-kun leaned back, resting his feet on the chair
in front of him to an audible squeak.

"I hope my lecture isn't boring you," said Teacher, facing the window.

Ikari-kun sat upright.  "No, sir!"

"Good.  Now where were we?  Ah, yes, the Reign of Terror, a time not
of panic in the streets but still a mass hysteria, a collective thirst
for blood, for vengeance, but more importantly, for understanding and
blame.  We search to blame someone or something for our misfortunes.
The revolutionaries blamed their king, and so they abandoned him, just
as when, in the days after Impact, people all over rebelled against
their governments, calling the response and aid inadequate..."

The only thing inadequate was Ikari-kun's attention span.  His eyes
drifted to the window, as mine have done, but there was a difference:  I
know why I wish to be out there, on the other side of the glass.  Why
Ikari-kun should want it, too--that was a mystery to me, and I felt
something: a drive, a compulsion.

I think I felt worry.

The computers we're given to take notes are red.  They're sophisticated.
They're networked.  You can send messages between them, and only the
sender, the recipient, and some administrator in another corner of the
building would know.  At least, that was what I'd been told, for when I
turned my head and put my hands to the keys, I realized the sensation of
that plastic beneath my fingertips was unusual.  The keys were cold and
inert.  I pressed them, and the computer--

BEEP.

The computer was not supposed to make that sound.

Teacher stopped by the window, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging
open.  "Is there," he said at last, "something you need help with,
Ayanami-kun?"

I looked down, into the screen.  Behind me, the stares and glances of my
classmates fixed on my computer, on my seat.  I shook my head slowly,
and after a fashion, their attention wavered.

"All right," said Teacher.  "Hopefully we've had enough bizarre
occurrences for one day, yes?"

There would be fewer, surely, once I reasoned out how to work this
computer.  The first thing I looked for, however, was the mute button.
Only then did I dare look at the prompt again, with its blinking cursor.

      rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$_

It's an ominous sensation, for anything can go where the cursor lies,
but I put aside my doubts and typed at the prompt.

      rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ write sikari3
      Did you feel something inside the Eva?

I watched him in the reflection of my screen.  He leaned forward,
blinking, and looked my way.

      rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ write sikari3
      Did something inside try to speak to you?

He frowned.  He put his fingers to the keyboard and typed slowly,
deliberately.

      Message from sikari3 at hakone-mid-2A on tty8 at 11:56 ...
      Yes. It was some kind of comforting presence.  It was trying to
      keep me there.

So she did reach out to him, and for a person like Ikari-kun, that
sensation would be difficult to forget--difficult, I think, to resist,
too.  Why are you here, then, Ikari-kun?  What is it that convinced you
to come back?

      Message from sikari3 at hakone-mid-2A on tty8 at 11:57 ...
      Do you think they're all like that?  All the Eva?

Are they comforting, protective of us?  Perhaps for you, Ikari-kun.
Perhaps even for _her_.  For me, when I sit in the entry plug, it feels
like the other me, the Thing inside the Eva, is always smiling its
wicked grin.

      rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ write sikari3 No.

That was the best answer, the safest answer to give.  It was also a lie.
It was inadequate.  It might give comfort, but that feeling would be
false.  No, I was dissatisfied with that.  I kept typing.

      But the Eva are alive.  I don't know how much they know of us, how
      much they think or see or feel, but I'm certain of it--they are
      alive.  They have souls._

I left the cursor there, at the end of the line, and my ring finger
hovered over _return_.  What good would this information do him?  It
would stir more questions, more wondering, more confusion, and each
question would be harder to answer, harder to satisfy, than the last.

      Message from sikari3 at hakone-mid-2A on tty8 at 11:59 ...

What?

      Was there something else you wanted to say?

He stopped me.  He interrupted me.  What I typed out, what I would've
said, lay stranded several lines up the screen.  I'd never hit _return_,
and now, I was disconnected from those words.  It was as if they never
came from me at all.

I hit _Control+c_, and the blinking cursor at the command prompt greeted
me.  I had only one more thing to say:

      rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ clear

And as the eight chimes of the school clock echoed through the halls, it
was like none of it had ever happened.

"Stand!"

I closed the red laptop and put it inside the desk.  I do not usually
need to eat lunch.  I tend to stay in the classroom and watch the sun
trace its path, but that day...

"Bow!"

I would've been uneasy there.

"All right," said the class representative, "dismissed for lunch."

Ikari-kun stepped away from his seat, into the aisle between us.

I made for the door.

"Ayanami!"

I had to stop.  The door was closed, so I slid it open.  I stood there,
unable to move forward, and Ikari-kun--he caught me.  He had momentum.
He snuck past me and blocked the exit to the hall.

"You didn't answer me," he said.

There was a hush in the classroom.  Surely they were watching us,
staring at us.  Never mind that Teacher had his bag of notes and
materials in his hand, waiting for us to clear the way.  I looked to the
floor and whispered the only response I could muster.

"Not here," I said.  "Not now."

Ikari-kun tilted his head.  "Then where?  When?"

I told him the place--a location we both knew that was close by.  I told
him the time--later in the day, when school had long since closed.  I
should've said nothing.  He couldn't stand in the doorway forever, but
I do owe Ikari-kun something.  I owe him for coming back, even if this
wasn't the life I meant to hold on to.  When Ikari-kun is near, I feel
sometimes that walking, breathing, feeling are tolerable things, that
I can bear them, that the burden is somehow shared, though I know that
not to be true.  That's why I owe Ikari-kun what truths I can spare,
whatever the Commander hasn't explicitly forbidden.  He gave himself to
pilot Eva.  He gave up what he wanted, what he hoped to get away from.
When I have the choice, is that something I should reward with only
lies?

Of course, Ikari-kun did not give himself only for me.  The Inspector
said so--he saw _her_, too.

"You."

I'd gone to the roof.  From up high, I saw the mountains and the ocean.
I watched my classmates mill about the school grounds, but I saw little
more than the hair on their heads.  People are small when seen from afar
and above.  They're tiny and insignificant.  Their laughter and giggling
fade quickly, for they are transitory things.  Happiness is fleeting.
Pleasure is brief.  A person can devote his energies to greater goals
instead, abandon his friends to achieve victory in a game of softball.

But _her_ voice wasn't so faint.  Her footsteps were quick and forceful.
It was the pilot of Unit-02.  Asuka Langley Soryu.

"I want to talk to you," she said.

That's a rare moment.

"You thought you were being so sneaky, whispering to stupid Shinji in
the doorway like that?"

I believe it was Ikari-kun who caught me.  Perhaps _sneaky_ means
something different in Germany?  No, I wasn't being inconspicuous.  If
anything, I came here to avoid attention.  I don't like it when people
look at me.  I don't want to be the target of their scrutinizing gazes.
I came here to disappear.  Apparently I didn't succeed.

"What is it you see in him?" she asked me.  "How talented he is?  How
skilled he is with Eva?  It's beginner's luck, I tell you.  It won't
last."

Those things aren't important to Ikari-kun, nor are they important to
me.  For me, piloting Eva is necessity.  For Ikari-kun, it is a duty
without a choice.  There's only one person here who puts all her pride
in Eva, and it's not me.

"Hey!  I'm talking to you, First!"

It would be better for my ears and your vocal cords if you stopped.
Please.  Stop.

"Listen to me!"

She grabbed at me; she took my wrist.  She spun me around.

"Come on, say something, you doll!  Say anything!  You pale, quiet
thing--you're like a corpse!  What do you think when you look at me,
huh?  Look at me!  I'm a person!  I'm vibrant and alive!  I'm the
opposite of you.  What do you think of that?"

I think at times I've wondered what it would be like--to be more than
a reflection or a shell of a person--but I looked upon her, that girl
before me, with her hard blue eyes and her red hair waving in the
breeze, and I knew--she was as much an outline of a person as I was.
Eva drew the trail of ink that defined her.  She may pilot Eva, but it
was Eva that controlled her.

"You two!"  A female teacher poked her head out the rooftop door.
"What's the commotion up here?"

Soryu turned, clicking her heels together.  "Nothing!" she said
politely.

"I see," said the teacher.  "Why don't you both come down?  Lunch is
almost over.  You need to get back to your classroom."

"Yes, ma'am!" said Soryu.

That was fine.  I wouldn't need to be told twice.  I walked ahead of
Soryu, but she growled behind me, and her footsteps kept pace.

"I'm not done with you," she whispered.  "Maybe for today we're
finished, but I'm not done.  I hate people.  I hate the world.  I hate
Eva, and I hate being a woman.  I hate my mother and father.  I hate
Shinji; I hate Misato.  But most of all..."

She took three quick steps, catching the door where the teacher held it,
cutting in front of me.

"I hate you."

Why?  What is the purpose of hatred?  What is the meaning of such
rage?  I don't understand what it accomplishes.  I don't understand why
someone would want to feel that way--to scowl and shout and scream.  I
admit there are things about people I still don't understand, and it's
possible I've felt hatred and not known it, not realized what it was,
but I don't think so.  I don't want to feel those emotions, let alone
display them for all to see.  I detest that.

Perhaps if I could hate someone, it would be her, but I'm not interested
in that.  I wasn't interested.  I had... other matters to fill my mind.

The hours passed.  The schoolday concluded, and I walked to the spot
I'd told Ikari-kun about--a place where people come and go but seldom
stay, a place to disappear in the crowd of humanity.  It was a train
station with a windowed view of the city, and among the travelers and
commuters, I picked out an empty seat.  It's difficult to get a sense
of people from my apartment window.  Sometimes, I catch glimpses of
construction workers as they wipe their brows, munch on sandwiches, or
dig their shovels into the soil, but more and more their jobs are done
by machines, with only the odd foreman or operator to oversee the task.
I know how people work.  I know how they come together to accomplish a
goal.  What I don't understand is everything else.

"Come on now..."  A man and a woman sat beside me for a time.  The
man--I think he was a university student--touched his partner's bare
arm, running his fingers between her shoulder and elbow.  "Don't be so
frigid," he said.  "Japan is an eternally warm place now."

"Stop that!" said the woman, shoving him lightly, but she did nothing to
stay his hand.  "Not in public," she whispered.

"I'm sure it's been done before."

"I'm sure, but honestly, you're so impatient."

"You think so?"

"When our train's pulled up and you're not even looking?"  The woman
rose.  "Yes, I do."

The man smiled wryly.  "Where to, then, my sweet?"

"Maybe my place?"

"Oh?  It's not even dark."

"Lucky for you, then.  You won't fall asleep so quickly."

"I do not--"

"You do..."  The woman's giggling carried over the noise of the crowd,
of the waiting passengers in the rail terminal.  The pair caught their
train, racing inside as the sliding doors closed.  I did not see them
again, and that was fine.  Their behavior was confusing, contradictory,
a mix of resistance and acceptance, compliments and insults.  Is there
meaning in the saying of one thing and the doing of another?

Yes.  I knew because I remembered the Commander's words at that
candlelit table.  "It would be natural," he'd said, touching my hand,
"for us to take comfort in one another..."

I shivered.  There was nothing natural about that.

"Ayanami!"

The sun had long since set.  The lights of the city, risen from the
earth once more, shone through the terminal windows.  Ikari-kun jogged
to my seat, panting, and doubled over to catch his breath.

"Sorry about that," he said.  "I got a late start.  Did I keep you
waiting long?"

In the strictest sense, I'd been there for several hours, but I only
told Ikari-kun to meet me after dark.  So, as far as he knew...

"No," I said.

"Oh good, I'm glad."  He stood upright.  "It would've been bad if I
were late.  It's rare that we get to see each other outside of Nerv or
school, isn't it?"

"Thirty-eight days."

He blinked.

"Since we last saw each other in a context unconnected with Nerv or
school activity," I said.

"You... kept track?"

"I remember."

Ikari-kun looked up, frowning.  "No, it can't be.  We talked just
before... in the cell block."

"That is part of Nerv," I said.  "That doesn't count by your criteria."

"Oh, that's--I guess that's so.  Then this is the first chance we've had
to talk since, I suppose."

"Not so."

"Eh?"

"We spoke on the computer."

Ikari-kun made a face.

"I realize," I said, "that I'm being too literal."

He brightened.  "Oh!  It's a joke."

It was more of an experiment, a test of being as confusing and
perplexing as people can be, but Ikari-kun smiled to himself, and I
thought better than to explain it any further.  I will have to remember
this: a person can choose to misunderstand, and somehow, it turns out...
funny.

"Ayanami..."

"Yes?"

"Wasn't there something else you wanted to say to me?"

Something else, yes.  Something I knew how to say?  No, that was more
difficult.  It wasn't that I was at a loss for _what_ to say, either.
I knew what Ikari-kun would want to know--about Eva, about Angels,
about the dreams that came to him while he slept in his mother's womb,
but to state such matters as simple facts--they would feel flat and
empty.  Like a drawing on a page, they'd have no depth to them.  What
Ikari-kun wanted to know was different from what he sought.  People, I
think, don't seek knowledge.  They want satisfaction.  The Commander
wants satisfaction; he hopes to cure his need.  The pilot of Unit-02 is
the same.  I know what they desire.  What Ikari-kun hopes for--praise
and respect, perhaps?--I don't know he can get.  I don't know that his
actions, his deed, have earned him either, deserving though he is of
both of them.  Ikari-kun defended the Nerv pyramid.  He saved us, and
many are thankful, but that is not new, and I don't think that gratitude
would be enough for him.  I wondered if it even mattered.

It seemed there was a question on my mind after all.

"When we spoke that day," I began, "you said you wouldn't return to
pilot."

"You're asking why I came back?"

I was.  I did.  I knew of a theory, posited by Inspector Kaji, but I
preferred to hear it from Ikari-kun himself.

He frowned again, struggling.  "It's, well... I didn't have a choice!"

Ikari-kun, you don't want to tell _me_ you didn't have even the capacity
to choose.

"No, no," he corrected himself.  "I guess that's not true after all,
is it?"  He sighed, put his hands in his pockets, and glanced at the
roof.  "Do you remember," he asked me, "the first day I was here?  Back
then, I didn't know how hard it could be to pilot, so when Father forced
me to, I didn't know what to prepare for, how much to fight it.  Now I
understand how much it hurts, so I won't say I didn't have a choice.  I
did.  I made it, and I almost chose the wrong thing.  You and me and
Asuka--we're the only ones who can pilot right now.  Much as I thought
I could walk away and pretend there were no consequences, I was wrong."
He sighed.  "Pain is something inevitable, I guess.  I learned that as
soon as I got here."

That day--I wouldn't know when it was if I hadn't gone back, looked at
a calendar, and reconstructed the timeline of my life, hour by hour.  I
was in pain then.  I was in so much pain that I shook.  I can't speak
to that kind of pain.  My body knew how to react to it, how to express
that agony.  Even now, I can't put it into words, but with that pain
came... clarity?  Focus?  The Commander meant to put me in Eva again.  I
was needed.  There was no choice, but I had no way to know, not then,
what might lie within Unit-01.  If it had been anything like the twisted
mirror that was the core of Unit-00...

I think I feared that more than dying.  Not difficult because I don't
fear death at all, but there was something else, too.  There was this
boy on the catwalk.  I'd known he was coming.  I'd heard the vice
commander speak of him, but there he was--standing aside, and for that
moment, as the nurses moved me out on the trolley toward Unit-01, I
watched him.  I judged him to be selfish.  I disliked him, but then, the
catwalk swayed.  I was thrown to the floor, Ikari-kun--he touched me.
I was vulnerable.  I was in agony; it was like the me inside the Eva
had come out to stab me every place a blade could sink in.  That's when
Ikari-kun convinced himself to pilot.  He told himself he should.

He told _himself_, so why did he say... ?

"What do you mean?" I asked him.  "That your father 'forced' you to?"

"Because that's what he did!  Wheeling you out like that, when you could
barely sit up, let alone stand!  He couldn't have thought I'd let you
do it!"  He made a fist at his side, shaking his head.  "Or maybe he
did..."

"I was a stranger to you."

"That doesn't matter.  I knew if I ran away from that, I'd be scum.  You
were half-dead!"

And what of the people above ground, who fled from the Angel futilely?
I see now the inspector was right: it _is_ easier to be moved, to
do what is necessary, when you can see those who will bear the
consequences, when those victims can look back at you or lie helpless in
your lap.

"Besides, I thought maybe I was supposed to."

Supposed to?

"When I saw you in the cage, it wasn't the first time."

"You were there earlier?" I asked.

"No, it was just before the Angel attacked," he said.  "I was at
a public phone, waiting for Misato-san, but all the lines were
disconnected.  I looked down the street, and you were standing there, in
your uniform, watching me."

"You're mistaken," I said.  "I was at Nerv, injured, bedridden.  It
couldn't have been me."

"I know!  That's the thing--I know all that, but still, I'm sure of what
I saw!  How many people look enough like you for me to make that kind of
mistake?"

I looked away.

"But it's like I said, I know you couldn't have been there, so I thought
later, looking back on it, that maybe I just saw what I needed to see,
so that when Father sent you out to pilot instead, I'd know I shouldn't
let him.  I'd know I _had_ to do it.  Piloting Eva has been hard and
painful, but that one day I wouldn't take back."

I was glad for that, truly.  I still am.  I can imagine if Ikari-kun had
left what would've become of me.  I might've died fighting that Angel,
or if I'd survived, I wouldn't have wanted to, but take that all away, I
know I'd be a different person.  I'd be sitting at the train station by
myself.

"Thank you," I said.

Ikari-kun smiled.  "It's nice when we get to talk, Ayanami."

I enjoy it, too.

The terminal vibrated and rattled.  A crowd of passengers gathered at
the platform, rising from their seats.  A train rolled in, discharging a
handful of riders and taking on dozens more.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Ikari-kun.  "Am I keeping you from something?"

"No."

"But you're all the way out here.  Aren't you waiting for the train?"

"No."

He frowned.

"This place is different," I said.  "From my apartment."

"Oh."

"You may leave if you like."

Ikari-kun's expression changed.  I don't know how to describe it, and
I dared not study it for too long.  Ikari-kun was the one to call this
meeting.  I only set the time and place.  If he felt satisfied with it,
if he could put aside his anxieties over the events of the past month or
two, then we would both be pleased, and we would need nothing more from
each other.

That's what people do, isn't it?

"Ayanami."  He was still there, standing in front of me.  "Let's go on
the train."

"Where?" I asked.

"Anywhere.  It just seems like a waste to be here and not take a ride
someplace.  Come on; it'll be fun."

It will?

"I promise," he said, offering a hand.  I took it, and he pulled me to
my feet.

"We'll need tickets," I said as we left the waiting area.

"Yeah, I guess.  I wonder if there's just a blanket pass to--" He
stopped, looking at me.  No, looking past me.  He stared at the platform
across the tracks, his eyes searching for something.

"What is it?"

"Maybe nothing," he said, taking a short step.  "It's just..."

"Just what?"

He frowned.  "I thought I saw Asuka."

There was no trace of Soryu on the other platform, not that I saw, and
Ikari-kun put aside his anxieties, purchasing tickets for both of us.
I must confess some trepidation on boarding the train that night.  It
wasn't concern for safety--the car was well lit.  It wasn't unease with
the passengers, either: we chose a car at the rear, so there were few
others to notice or bother us.  I'd taken this train before in daylight,
and then, it hadn't troubled me, but that was before I visited this
place in my sleep.

The circumstances were different, of course.  Ikari-kun and I sat on the
same side of the car.  It was night, and the shine of the city lights
through the window hardly changed the brightness of the car's interior.
No, I quickly understood this was a much different situation; indeed, it
was so different, I hardly knew what to do.  There were Ikari-kun and I,
sitting quietly in the corner of a sparsely-packed traincar, with naught
but silence between us and Ikari-kun's intense--and troubled--stare.  He
looked through the windows, as if his gaze could pierce the night.

"Are you well?" I asked.

He jolted to attention.  "Hm?  Oh, I'm sorry.  Were you saying
something?"

I shook my head.

"Sorry, that was rude, wasn't it?" he said.  "It's just you and me, but
my mind's elsewhere."

"You were thinking," I said.  "About Eva?"

"No, no."

I looked forward.  "Her, then."

Ikari-kun's eyes widened slightly.  "Asuka?  Yeah, a little bit."

"She seemed agitated, even more than typical."

"That's it, isn't it," he said.  "I guess, you know, I didn't even
realize how long I'd been gone.  I thought I could come back, and
everything would be the same, but it wasn't.  Like with Misato-san--the
other day, I saw her crying over the telephone, and I didn't know what
to do.  I couldn't do anything.  I wanted to change that with Asuka, but
she's so angry now, and she won't tell me why."

She wouldn't have, in my opinion.  It may be difficult to understand
people when they won't tell you what ails them, but Soryu had told me
much, even if she didn't know it.  She mocked Ikari-kun for defeating
the Angel where she couldn't.  She... resents him?  She detests him?
With that, I didn't know why Ikari-kun should be so concerned.  Why
show kindness to someone who gave only animosity and shrillness in
return?  But then, I guessed it was easy--or easier--when the object
of one's worries shows they care in return.  I couldn't say I knew the
relationship between the pilots of Units-01 and -02, but for my part,
Ikari-kun's presence was comforting.  It was safe, and I was tired.  I'd
done more thinking, more wondering, than I'd wanted.  I closed my eyes
and watched the formless reds and blacks of my retinas, my eyelids.  It
was the closest I could be to not being at all.

"Ayanami?"

There was light again.  The void is formless, but it's also fleeting, at
least for now.

"You must've been tired," whispered Ikari-kun, but his voice was loud to
me.  It was close.

My head rested on his shoulder.

"I didn't want to wake you," he said as I pulled away from him, "but the
train's starting to go places I've never been to."

Indeed, we'd gone far--in both space and time.  The train had
emptied--our car, the car adjacent, and the car after that.  We pulled
up to a desolate, above-ground station, where stray pieces of newspaper
and chewing gum wrappers littered the floor.

"I guess we can head back the way we came," said Ikari-kun.

That would've been wise.  Expedient, even, and I would've agreed, were
it not for the pair of men in black suits and ties who paced about the
far platform with their fingers pressed against their right earpieces.
The Commander had yet to try "comforting" me again, and I doubted he
would consider it then, knowing Doctor Akagi was aware of it, too, but
the agents' eyes were his own.  He was watching me, always.

But he couldn't expect me to sit still.

"No," I told Ikari-kun.  "We should walk."

We left the station and descended to street level.  From the shadows of
street lamps we emerged.  We walked for a time in the dark, with only
that orange halogen glow and the collimated beams of headlights.

"Are you sure you know the way?" asked Ikari-kun.

"Do you mistrust me?"

His mouth opened, but no words came out.

"I know the way," I said, and it was so, but what I knew were patterns
on a map, geometries and paths and diagrams.  What we walked through I
couldn't have imagined.  We passed by restaurants and bars, followed by
the scents of grapes and ale.  We pushed through lines of people who
crowded to enter a den of thumping subwoofers and cascading lights.
Children and their mothers ran around us, crowding a corner shop for
scoops of French Vanilla and Rocky Road.  These things, it seemed, were
what people did with their time, and though long I'd heard of people
fleeing Tokyo-3 for safer havens, those who remained indulged themselves
in pleasures.  They thought they had something worth living for: the
taste of food and drink on their tongues, the beat and rhythm of music,
the flashing lights of machines, at which children and adults alike
funneled endless numbers of coins.

"What is it?" asked Ikari-kun.

That was the question, and at the time, I was at a loss to understand.
I stopped before the establishment, a building of five stories.  Inside,
children played on joysticks, moving three-pronged cranes to grab at
stuffed bears.  Older boys and girls rode mechanical horses and plastic
bikes, racing not in reality but on glowing, pixelated screens.  The
interior was dark but punctuated with flashes.  Sirens and chimes rang
out, echoing to the street, with the laugher of children close behind.

"Oh, it's an arcade," said Ikari-kun.

Indeed, but what was its purpose?  Simple amusement?  To be dazzled in a
cascade of light and sound?

"Yo, Shinji!"

The voice hailed us from behind.  It was Aida-kun, who pushed up his
glasses and sipped a pink, frozen mixture from a clear straw.

"Kensuke!" said Ikari-kun.  "What are you doing out here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," said Aida-kun. "You're a ways out from
your place."

"Ah, Ayanami and I were riding the train.  We may have missed our stop
by a station or two."

"Seven," I said.

"Oh really?" said Aida-kun, grinning.  "And just what were you two doing
that you were so absorbed in each other, hm?"

I was sleeping.

"What do you mean?" asked Ikari-kun.

Aida-kun laughed.  "Still, good for you.  I thought you only had eyes
for Soryu."

"What?  No, you've got it wrong!  Asuka and I aren't like that!  And not
Ayanami and me, either."

What were we not supposed to be like?

"Careful, Shinji," said Aida-kun, whispering.  "You want her to hear you
say that?"

"I'm serious!"

Sighing, Aida-kun shook his head.  "All right, all right.  I won't
insist there's a coconut if you keep saying it's a watermelon, but I
think everyone can see what's brown and round."

"I don't see any coconuts," said Ikari-kun.

"Exactly!"

I didn't see any coconuts, either.

Aida-kun sipped, but the pink concoction in his straw thinned, and
bubbles came through from the cup.  He shook the drink, looked down the
straw, and tossed the cup in the nearest receptacle.  "Anyway," he said,
"I've got a couple thousand yen to burn through.  See you two later,
eh?"

"By yourself?" asked Ikari-kun.

"Ah, yeah," said Aida-kun.  "Come on, you don't want me tagging along on
your date, do you?"

"I already said it wasn't--"

"It's all right; you two go ahead.  I'll see you at school."  With a
parting wave, Aida-kun jogged inside.  Ikari-kun slumped, letting out a
breath, and watched Aida-kun until he disappeared behind a row of game
machines.  Ikari-kun had said before how he was unable to comfort the
major when she cried.  Aida-kun did not cry, but Ikari-kun's dejection
seemed much the same.

"Ikari-kun."

He stood upright, looking at me over his shoulder.

"I've never been to an arcade before," I said.

His head raised slightly.  "I could show you?"

I nodded once, and that was all Ikari-kun needed.  We entered the
arcade, and I let Ikari-kun and Aida-kun be.  I had fulfilled a purpose,
after all, and I felt no need to intrude.  Ikari-kun and Aida-kun amused
themselves at various games.  For my part, I don't understand how a gun
that reloads when one shoots it away from the screen is realistic, nor
is it sensible that a stone gargoyle will come to life but display its
most sensitive point with an orange glow around its heart.  I suspect
there must be computer assistance involved in identifying such weak
spots, like the targeting scanners aboard Eva, but I can't be sure.

Then again, I did not think realism mattered much there.  When I heard
Ikari-kun and Aida-kun bemoan a particularly unfair spawn of a level
five zombie (I think that's what they said), I was sure their thoughts
were on the game more than reality, and that surely was the goal.  I
left them alone.  This game center, this arcade, was in itself an
unusual place.  That people would need or want so many different ways to
amuse themselves--from trains that spill coins off their tracks to sets
of flippers, bumpers, and metal balls that seem more about juggling than
anything else.  Perhaps the appeal is in learning the games, learning
how to win in an environment where losing costs only a few hundred yen
instead of a few thousand lives.

"No, miss, you're doing it all wrong."

I tried to learn one of the games myself.  I stood before a board full
of holes with a soft mallet in hand, but a stranger, a boy shorter and
younger than I, snatched the handle from me.

"See, look," said the boy, dropping a pair of coins into the machine.
"They come out faster and faster over time.  You can hit them in order
at first, but later on, it gets so fast you shouldn't try to, or else
you won't hit anything at all."

The boy did a round at the game, cursing himself when his mallet whiffed
and hit the hard plastic board.  Even so, his score was respectable, and
he took a half-dozen red tickets from the machine in one round.

"Give it a try," he said, offering the mallet back.

The boy was right, of course: once in the late stages of the round,
a smooth motion couldn't hope to transition fast enough to hit each
target as they appeared.  It would take more speed than a human could
reasonably muster.

Or an advantage previously unconsidered.

I inserted two coins Ikari-kun had given me.  I braced myself for battle
as I would if I sat in Eva.  I attacked the targets as they rose from
the board, one at a time, but where most players fought with only one
weapon, I borrowed another from the adjacent station.  Two hands gave
me twice the speed, twice the ability to strike, and while I'm sure I
lost some accuracy--two mallets were harder to control than one--it was
overall to my advantage.  Where the boy before me made off with just six
tickets, I took home twenty.

"Ah, Ayanami!"  Ikari-kun squinted, studying the score on the machine.
"How did you... ?"

"I whacked the moles," I said.  "Repeatedly."

He made a face.  "You used both mallets?  The other one is so you can
play with someone else."

"Oh."  I held the reward between my hands.  "Should I return the
tickets?"

"Ah, well, nobody told you, so I guess it can be forgiven.  Why don't we
see what prize you can get?"

I blinked.  "Prize?"

The prizes were many, but I settled on something simple: a plush gray
elephant--something small and easily carried.  We had a long way to go,
after all.

"But why an elephant?" Ikari-kun had asked, carrying the prize as we
walked.

"I've heard that elephants do not forget.  I do not wish to forget,
either."

"Forget what?"

For that one day, I hoped to forget nothing at all.

We said little more on the way back to my apartment, which we reached
an hour later.  Ikari-kun walked me to my door.  He did not need to do
that--the best route to the major's apartment had branched off a few
blocks before--but he insisted, though he wouldn't tell me why.

"I need to thank you, Ayanami," he said, standing in the dark hallway.
"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had the chance to talk to
Kensuke.  He'd invited me to go to the arcade a couple times--I didn't
know it was that one--but I guess he goes there regularly."  Ikari-kun
looked to the floor.  "He did, anyway, with Toji."

"I did nothing," I said.

He offered the gray elephant, a keen look on his face.  "I know we
didn't do a whole lot tonight, but I enjoy talking with Ayanami, and I
hope you enjoy it, too."

Why?  I don't know what I offer in that respect.  I say little, and
there is much I still don't understand about people, about living, but
perhaps that is the way of things--that you are as inscrutable to me,
Ikari-kun, as I am to you.  I'm inscrutable because I show little, too,
but that, at least, I knew how to change, if only for a moment.

"Well," he said, "good night."  He walked down the hall, and the boards
creaked under his feet.

"Ikari-kun."

He stopped.  He looked at me, and I did something to tell him, to show
him, what I felt.  His smile was warm.

I hope mine was, too.

I realized later that Ikari-kun had an obsession of sorts, a drive to do
things for people.  A cynical person might say he did good deeds to be
recognized, to feel wanted or useful, but that didn't change that they
were good to do.  As Ikari-kun worried over Soryu, as he reached out
to Aida-kun, he did something for me, too.  He could've left me in the
train station.  He could've left me alone, but he didn't.  He tries to
help his friends, and somehow, he came to count me among them.

It was daytime again, the Monday of the following week.  The cicadas
buzzed; the sun was bright.  We split into teams again, and this
time, Kunikida-kun had been chosen as captain.  His first pick was
Saotome-kun, as expected.  His second...

"Ono!"

The old captain from the week before jerked in surprise.

"You're with us," said Kunikida-kun.

While Saotome-kun jumped with elation, Ono-kun and Kunikida-kun eyed
each other carefully until the former bowed his head slightly in respect
and took his position in the group.  Ono-kun and Kunikida-kun are not
friends, but they came to respect each other and their mutual friend
in Saotome-kun.  Just as Ikari-kun did me a favor, it was time I do
something for him, too.

It was not easy, choosing the time and place for it.  Later that day, I
was at Nerv.  I met _her_ in the elevator, and at first, I thought it
better to say nothing, that knowing how she detested me, she would take
nothing I said to heart, but that was the easy path, and change isn't
forged by taking the route that is well-worn.  I know that too well.
Perhaps I was a fool to think anything would come of it, but I decided,
I made the choice, to speak, to Soryu.

"As long as your heart is closed to it," I said, "the Eva will not
move."

"A closed heart?" she said.  "Me?"

"Yes.  The Eva have souls."

"Those dolls?"

"You must know that by now," I said.

"Hah!  Fancy you being so chatty all of a sudden.  Maybe tomorrow it'll
snow!"

That would be unlikely.

"What?  Does it make you so happy that I can't pilot Eva?  Don't worry.
When the Angel comes, the great invincible Shinji will defeat it for
us!  We don't have to do anything.  They only need Shinji!  As long as
Shinji's here, everything will be fine!"  She sighed.  "First Shinji
tries to sympathize with me, and now the wind-up doll, too.  I really
must've lost my edge."

"I'm not a doll."

"Shut up!  You'd do anything if you were ordered to!  You'd kill
yourself if Commander Ikari told you to!"

"I would."

She glared.  Her hand whipped across my cheek.  The elevator doors
opened, and she backed out, seething.

"Then you _are_ a doll, just as I thought!  I hate you for that!"  She
trembled.  "Everyone--I hate everyone!"

The elevator doors closed.  I wouldn't follow her.  I made my effort to
reach her, and she refused it.  That was fine.  No one ordered me to.
It was my doing, and that's why I could be sure of it.

I'm not a doll.

Not anymore.