Before her eyes first open, Rei is already drawn to him. She smells on him, unmistakably, the heavy scent of tragedy.
Commander Ikari's son also carries the scent of tragedy. But whereas the tragedy of Commander Ikari bears the weight of bitter resolution, the tragedy of the boy is light and delicate; fragile. She looks into both of their eyes and sees the common burn of yearning.
The tragedy of Commander Ikari, she tastes it when he presses his mouth to hers in his moments of stupor. Bitter. Desiring. Like her own heart but by a different way. It sinks deep into her and she feels his void open up in her own void. It sinks so deep that some nights alone in her apartment she wakes up cold and shivering.
The tragedy of Shinji Ikari, she feels it when his fingers brush against hers. Soft and moist, the heat from the contact spreads onto her skin like a balm. Her own fingers are cold and slide away like silk.
Rei spends nights seated upon the dingy bed in the dingy apartment, Commander's glasses held in her lap. She rolls them over and over, inspecting them. The metal frame is cold. The glass is cold but also sharp, where the broken shards have fallen out. She traces the irregularities of the surface, inflicted by the heat of the Bakelite solution from The Incident. She cradles Commander's glasses delicately as though there were a living, beating soul inside. On nights like these, she is almost content. Objects do not demand. Objects do not radiate despair.
She remembers the day when Commander Ikari opened the hatches of the entry plug with his bare hands. As the artificial light of the test room flooded in, as the excess LCL poured out, the smell of burnt flesh seared her nose and suddenly he was there, strong arms lifting her to a safer, warmer place. In the hospital bed, dazed and half-conscious, she recalled over and over again that singular moment: the Commander's stone face cracking into a brief and tender smile. She conjures that smile again and again, etched into the deep circuits of her brain.
And then there was that other time, during that other day in another experiment, when Shinji Ikari did the same. The boy's arms trembled as they pulled her away, away from the darkness once more. Could she trust those thin, shaking arms? Shinji Ikari's smile quivered with uncertainty as he shed fresh tears. It it moved her that a boy she barely understood would risk his life for hers. It was different from when the Commander saved her. She could not explain why. Which time made her happier? She could not say.
Rei does not like to be in Eva yet she knows that, with it, she is one. She does not like Eva because in the metallic tang of the LCL it is her own despair that she tastes, looks through, breathes. In the static permeating through to her brain waves, she picks up the frequencies at which the souls of Commander Ikari and Shinji Ikari scream their hopelessness into the universe. Her own hopelessness mingles with theirs until she can no longer distinguish which pains are hers and which are theirs.
So when the shadowed ceiling of the apartment intimidates with its blankness, Rei reaches beside her and touches, gently, the case that contains Commander's glasses. The material is mostly smooth, but jagged at the edges where the synthetic outer layer has begun to peel. She caresses the case, as though seeking some sort of validation. The glasses lie within, like in a small womb. Cold, unanswering.