She watches him sleep, his hair spilt across the pillow case, breaths low and sharp. She watches the rise and fall of his chest, how his eyes flutter and watches as he twist in his sheets, words muttered quietly under his breath. He is much different from the thin withdrawn boy from so many years ago. Physically at least, but inside he is still that scared child who yearns for his mother. She can only do her best to fill that void he has.
The sounds of his distress become more pronounced, the words almost audible now. Sighing, she stands from her seat and walks over to him, her hand wavering over his frame, unsure wether she should wake him. He turns, his back to her then, pillow gripped tightly in his hands.
"Rei..." he whispers in a low voice. "Rei...don't leave me..."
The tears run down his cheeks, his fingers digging into the covers, back hunched over and tensed as if he were an overgrown thirty year old infant, with his knees tucked up near to his chest. Rei smiles, parting the hair from his forehead. She leans down and kisses him lightly on the forehead.
"I am here, my love. I will not leave you."
"Rei..." he says once more, the rest of what he says becoming a jumbled mess. She wonders if he is still having his night terrors from that incident but his body relaxes, the tension easing. She nods when she hears the baby crying from the other end of the room.
Not wishing to wake her husband, she walks over to the crib, lifting the baby out and unbuttoning her blouse, exposing her breast so that her child may sup. It takes him a moment to find her teat with his stubby little fingers, but once he does he grips her hungrily, supping from her life giving nutrients. She looks down at her small child, her little Gendo, so different from the madman who died so many years ago trying to destroy all of humanity. Her original creator. The one who combined the blood of angel and human to create her. A living being made of the flesh of both, but so flawed as well. Because of what she was she came out with a nearly nonexistent color of blue to her hair, pure white skin and eyes a startling red. A being in the world but with no concept of it. With no heart or thought of her own until Shinji came into her life.
She takes a seat, rocking the child back and forth in her arms, memories running through her mind. It has been years now, she thinks. Years since the second perished to save him, burning alive in that flash of explosion, the pain an instantaneous thing and then the third when she gave her flesh to bring back all life, simply dissolving in another type of explosion. And now the fourth.
She remembers... remembers the pain, as if it were fresh and raw. Her hand instinctively goes to her spine where the freshest memory reminds her of her agony and she quickly withdraws her hand, biting at her nails, holding back the tears. She will not let herself break down again, let herself remember. Shinji has been through enough already, he need not know this as well.
Dr. Akagi said this will be the final body that she will be able to provide her, that all the others are too far gone and deteriorated and will not hold up for more than a few years. That is fine, she thinks. She doesn't want to come back again if she has to keep holding these memories inside of her all the time.
She remembers the last time, the last time as the fourth died. The accident as Suzuhara had pinned her to a tree after a night of arguing with Hikari and then spent it drinking. It had been a terrible mix of coincidences. That he'd just had his fight with Hikari and she and Shinji had been exiting the theater just after celebrating their anniversary at that same moment. Then there had been that flash of light, the burst of speed as the vehicle had come bearing down on her, the hot metal rushing at her with the hard bark of the tree meeting her spine. The sound her bones made as they crunched like so much glass had been as horrid as all the sharp needles rushing up her body. She remembers how she had lost all feeling in her legs as she felt the blood rush out of her body, covering the floor beneath her.
Worse than the numbness though, worse than feeling as her life left her, was his face. How Shinji had rushed to her and held her hand, screaming her name, telling her uselessly it would be alright when she knew, and he knew... that it was not. It hadn't been his fault, she thinks. He hadn't had time to react. The vehicle had come out of nowhere so suddenly and then hit her with just as sudden a jolt. But Shinji... he held her hand so tightly, and yet... she could feel nothing at all of his warmth in the end. Nothing. Her body's senses were already fading at that point. First, the sound disappeared, his voice gone to her forever and then his face. Those eyes, so full of pain, disappearing into the darkness, all the features of his face and skin blurring into blackness etching an image of misery into her mind that she would take with her into this life.
She'd woken then in the lab with the older woman looking down at her, her face a glum thing, lips a thin line with eyes cold and hard with thick bags under them, the once lustrous blonde hair having turned into a dull grayish thing. Smoke filled the air, entering her lungs which could now expand and contract. She let out a fit of coughs, turning over and away, the numbness of her last life still clinging to her so desperately, Shinji's pained face still etched in her mind.
"So you're awake," Dr. Akagi had said. "You'd better go to him. Tell him nothing of what transpired here. It won't matter anyways. I can't bring you back again. The others are too far gone."
Rei had gotten up quickly and looked into that woman's eyes. They were old. Seemingly empty, as if they'd receded far back somewhere she could not reach. The lines at the ends of her eyes added to that look. A look of defeat. She doesn't know what initially possessed this woman to bring her back as the fourth the first time, there having been a small batch of clone vessels not having been destroyed back in her madness to get back at Gendo who had betrayed her. Guilt perhaps? But why then bring her back now as the fifth? She'd turned away from the woman and whispered a hollow "thank you." Wether Dr. Akagi had heard or cared, she never said. There had been no reply back as she'd left the room in her new dress, learning to walk and stand anew.
She'd walked out, the numbness still clinging to her as she'd meandered the hallways before finding the one she was looking for. It had all been so new to her and yet memories flooded like railcars into her mind so that none of it was new. It was all old and painful. And then she saw him, head bowed in a seat, tears streaming down his cheeks as he had lifted from those pale hands to look into her eyes. A face matching that etched into her mind.
Shinji had rushed to her, gripping her hard in his arms, nearly crushing her, his emotions so strong. The second had been with him she'd noticed as the third embraced her. Long red hair coming down to her waist, eyes cold and distant with chin held high. The second, seemingly as cold and distant as ever.
"Welcome back, wonder girl. Can hardly tell you were in an accident a few hours ago. Wish we could all come back like that."
The emotions had been too much then, the tears coming unbidden and she'd broken down, screaming, barely able to hear anything or respond appropriately, her hands digging into Shinji's shoulders as she buried her face in his chest. That's the last they saw of the second. Shinji had broken off contact with her not long after, telling her she was being irrational and anything but supportive considering what had happened to her. Rei suspects Soryu knows. No woman should be able to come back from an accident that mangles her lower torso into a barely discernable mess. No one should.
Soryu had thought she'd come back perfectly fine and well, but on that matter she couldn't be further from the truth. The scars, the memories... they always remain. They always.. The tears come unbidden, as do the sudden screams, drowning out the sounds of her own child held against her chest. She screams, letting out the pain she's been holding so long, the loss and despair eating away at her. She is not Rei. She is a clone. A mirage. A fake carrying the memories of the fourth and those before her. It is not fair! It is not...
Strong arms wrap around her shoulders, a strong chest pressing against her back, stubbly hairs from a chin rubbing against her cheek.
"Shhh..." Shinji whispers against her ear. "It'll be alright. I'm here, Rei. You don't need to cry."
She holds his arm with her free hand, leaning her head against him, not realizing when it was the tears came, only that they did. She can never let him know, never let him find out. Soryu is right. She is not the woman he initially married. She is simply a vessel for those memories. Of the agony of those years of happiness and love after the war ended. She is only a carrier of that. And nothing more...