"Rei," they said "can you hear me?"

His mouth was dry. He felt woozy if not outright nauseus. The sync-test had gotten so weird right before he... blacked out...

"Rei," someone grasped his hand, "are you alright?"

Confused, he forced his eyes open. Father's eyes were filled with... concern?"

His traitorous heart leapt (for joy?) in his chest. "Father..." in his moment of weakness, he forgot his resolution never to give father the satisfaction of knowing how much he...

He tried to reach out to father, and father drew back - releasing his hand. Father frowned, and the concern was overriden by a calculating look.

"Father?"

He could hear his voice - hoarse and strangely high - crack as he felt the weight of father's rejection.

Father brushed passed him and entered the plug, scooping up... Rei... Rei was with him for the test...

He was too busy feeling dizzy, sick, and emotionally devastated to noticed the deep sense of wrongness.

He only really noticed it was there when father pulled her out, and Rei's face - brown, with black hair - passed just a few centimetres from his own.

That's...that's my face...

His overtaxed mind gave out.

"Rei," said The Commander "are you alright?"

"Yes, Commander." Her voice was hoarse, and deep. She focused on him.

He spared her further words, and gave her a mirror. Inferring his meaning from the gesture and a motion he made with his eyes, she used it to survey her features.

They were Shinji's.

She held the mirror back out to The Commander and he took it from her.

"Doctor Akagi needs a month beforing attempting a reversal. Now, we must see if you are still compatible." He held a hand out to her, and she took it as she slipped out of the bed and onto the floor. Shinji's plugsuit was laid out on a table.

"Report to the cages."

He would want to know if she was still compatible with Unit Zero. If Pilot Ikari was alive...

The Commander had already left, so she discarded the idea of asking after his son. If he had survived, then he would be there too if his condition allowed it.

She needed a moment longer than usual to adjust the suit around the crotch area, but otherwise had no problems.

"Shinji?"

It was Misato.

"Misato...?"

His voice was hoarse, but felt strangely light.

"So it's true."

"What's... true?"

He forced his eyes open, and saw her standing over him. She looked... grim. "How d'you feel, champ?"

"Fine," he said, voice still funny. "I think my throat's a bit dry." He sat up, slowly.

He appeared to have breasts. He giggled. It was one of those dreams, huh? He giggled aloud at the ridiculousness of it.

Misato... was oddly mundane, considering, in both appearance and behaviour. "Shouldn't you be more dream-like or something?"

"Er...?"

"LIke riding a unicycle and juggling seals or something."

She seemed about to say something, but he could see her decide to dismiss it. She came up with something else, but dismissed that just as quickly. In the end she simply said "You're in Rei's body."

She looked serious. She produced a mirror, still straight-faced. He looked into it.

Rei's blood-red eyes looked back. He looked to Misato.

He looked to Rei.

He fainted.

"I can't believe you... he was naked, Ritsu!"

"Orders. If it wasn't me, it would've been someone else. Besides, what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Haven't you ever heard of this itty-bitty thing called 'dignity'? We're kind of big on it in non-Sciency-La-La-Land!"

"So I stuffed his junk into his clothes, big deal. I'd have thought you'd be more worried about the fact that I've got him back in my clutches quite so soon."

"I have no idea whether to be pissed about that or not, frankly. But I do know you could've waited for him to wake up, for God's sake!"

She shrugged. "Difference of opinion. I've seen more during his medical check-ups, if that's any consolation."

She looked up from her terminal for a second. "Oh, don't give me that look. You've probably stolen more than a few glances yourself."

"That's different. Shinji is my ward! You're just his..."

"Doctor, yes. Now if you could just let us get on with this? The sooner they finish, the sooner we can let them go." She paused. "After a bit more testing-"

"-Enough tests for one day, Ritsuko. I'm taking him back after this, and that's final. You can run along to The Commander if you want, but I know what he'll say."

Do you, now?

She stopped herself from smirking and sighed, theatrically. "Oh dear," she drawled as flatly as possible "you have got me. Oh curses, my evil plan is foiled." She sighed. "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids."

Misato frowned. "You just quoted something, didn't you."

"Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer or to take up arms against a sea of troubles... probably."

"No-one likes a smart alec."

"Boer."

"Snob."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. "This is pretty Fuyutsukin' weird, though." Ritsuko marvelled at her use of a name as an expletive. "You can fix it, right?"

I have absolutely no idea.

"Of course."

She'd secured a month to bullshit her way through to an ad-hoc solution, but that really wasn't enough. In reality she was looking at three months' work at the least, and most likely 'never'.

Misato spoke into the microphone. "Just... try to relax, okay, Shinji? Not long now."

She looked to the camera feed, where she could see him - her? - fidgeting in the plug. "Yes, ma'am."

Her charge let the phone ring for far too long. Misato knew it didn't take her that long for her to take the damned thing out of her bag.

"Hey sweetie-pie, how's it going?"

"Cut the crap Misato, what do you want?"

"N'awwww, you're such a little petal-blossom of sunshine-roses you know that?"

"What is it," she growled - with no real animosity. That's just the way she was.

"Shinji's had an accident, so we'll be running late while Ritsuko makes sure he's okay. We'll be back later tonight, don't wait up. Get take-out or something, okay?"

"What kind of accident?"

She'd put a lot of thought into how to put this to her, exactly.

She gave up. "You'll see. He's fine, so don't worry your little sugary-bumplekin heart out, okay?"

She would tell her to cut the sugarplum-fairy crap, but Asuka knew it would only spur her to even greater heights of teasing as honed by years of bitchy sniping among female company. She could practically hear that thought ticking over in Asuka's head as the silence dragged out. "Love you, sweetie."

"Eurgh." She hung up.

"His weekly pack." Ritsuko presented the... package of little compartments and pills to her.

"So how does this work, exactly?"

"Just read the instructions."

There was a neat, carefully-labelled box for after each meal on each day. There were a lot of pills. "Jesus, Ritsu, Rei's been taking... what, fifty pills a day?" she gawped at the bewildering listing on the back of the package. "She's on horse tranquilisers! Why the hell is a little slip of a girl like her on...?"

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow. "How do you know-"

"-Uni'."

Fair enough.

Anyway. "I'm just the Chief Science Officer, I don't do specifics. I doubt anyone besides her physician knows exactly what she's on." She plucked the package back out of Misato's unresisting hands, scanning the precription. "Though she is on rather a lot of medication, it's true. Looks like most of it's just there to negate the effects of the others." She handed it back. "Anyway. Just make sure he takes these, breakfast dinner and supper. If he doesn't, he'll be in serious trouble. Serious medical trouble, moreover. Got it?"

"Got it."

She hesitated. "You really can fix this, though, right?"

"Of course," she lied. "Maybe not in a month, but it's just a matter of time."

She waved her only steady friend goodbye, and inhaled a cigarette in record time as wondered just how she'd managed to cock things up quite so spectacularly. The Commander had been distant enough lately as it was...

She sighed.

Sucks to be me.

Her eye fell on the psych-readings for the First and Third children.

Could be worse, of course.

"Feeling alright?"

"Y-yeah." He was wearing Ayanami's uniform.

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Well. Let's go." She congratulated herself on managing to almost completely ignore the fact that he looked and sounded exactly like Rei. She'd never really paid much attention to Rei's body language, but she thought she could see Shinji's mannerisms shining through. She liked to think it was noticeable, but the difference was perhaps more subtle than she'd have liked. As far as changes to the familiar went, sometimes the more dramatic the change the more easily accepted it was.

For instance, it had very nearly been Asuka in the plug with him and not Rei - the engagement with the Pacific Fleet had sparked this series of experiments. If it had, and the same thing had happened... the change would certainly have been more dramatic, though now that she thought of it she wasn't sure if she'd have found it any easier to deal with or not. It was weird enough dealing with just the one accident-happened-to charge, thanks.

They spent the trip home in silence. Originally they were supposed to have been home by sunset so Shinji could prepare supper for the three of them, but they still hadn't eaten and it was too late for take-out. In fact, it was nearly bed-time - they'd best break out the instant-noodles.

He was still frazzled, and tired. Ritsuko's tests said he was alright but he still looked like he was in shock. He didn't normally stutter like that, for instance. She remembered the pill-package.

"Uh, Shinji..." she blew off her reservations, and apprehension, and the general air of weirdness, and spoke freely. "Rei is...was... heavily medicated. Ritsuko gave me a neat little package thing so you can take all the right pills at the right times, it's in my work bag so don't let me forget to give it to you okay?"

"Okay."

She sighed, figuring it was best to capitalise on their 'alone time' before they had to deal with Hurricane Asuka - frankly, she had zero idea how the foreigner would take this. Knowing her she'd probably think it was just some big joke at first, though she had no idea how easy or hard it might be to convince her that, yes, this really was Shinji.

She'd never really appreciated just how red Rei's eyes were. Or, rather, had been.

She broke the trance and whipped her eyes round to focus on the road. She was driving, for goodness' sake. She coulda got them all killed...

She stole the occasional sideways glance, though. Rei was... striking, for want of a better word. Shinji was striking, that is. She'd never been this close to the girl before.

Perfect skin. Perfect hair.

Pallour aside, Rei was the very picture of human vitality, health, and perfection.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

He didn't answer. "I mean, this is kind of a unique thing. Nobody... and I mean nobody, has ever had this problem before. Not even trans people, cos they... you know, want different bodies. They set out to make it happen. But this... this is something else, you know?"

Shinji being Shinji, he was almost certainly still freaked out, and would be for a while.

...as anyone would be, for that matter. But Shinji being Shinji, he didn't talk about it. She didn't know why she'd expected him to actually discuss something that was bugging him just because she prompted him to.

"I guess I'm just saying that you have the right to be confused, and nervous, and maybe even a little angry because I sure as hell didn't know this kind of thing could happen when, apparently, Ritsuko did, even if it was one of her '0.00000001% chance' things that keep happening..."

"Sorry. I'm doing all the talking. But I think I got my point across, right?"

She threw him a smile. The next time she glanced his way, she saw that he was looking at her. "Thanks," he said, in a whisper. He was smiling a little, but in the dim light she couldn't tell whether it was a genuine one or one of those wistful smiles he wore instead of a blank expression.

"Heya, we're home!"

There was no reply. Asuka had probably been asleep hours ago. She took her shoes off. "Do I..."

She paused to give him her full attention. "Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

She knew this'd come up. "How about you tell me, Shinji?"

He practically withered under her gaze, and she looked off to one side to make the exchange easier on him. She filled the silence while he seemed to think that over. "It's your choice to make. Just make sure it's the right one, okay? I wouldn't want you to lose touch with your friends just 'cos of a little..." unwanted-body-swap-come-sex-change "accident."

He nodded. "But... how could we keep it a secret? Pretending to be Ayanami would be easy but... I don't think Ayanami could..." he looked startled as she snorted.

"I didn't even think of that to be honest. But if you want to try," she said conspiratorially "you will have my full support."

She knew the smile was genuine this time. It was infectious.

She broke off their exchange rather abruptly as the weirdness of the moment hit her full-force. "Instant noodles?"

"Sure."

Ayanami, the girl who never... anything-ed... had smiled. And it was beautiful. If she was feeling soppy she might even have said it'd warmed her heart. But it was Shinji doing the smiling, the talking, the moving, the... everything... all of it was just so... unsettling...

When she got to the kitchen the first thing she did was take a generous swig of the rice wine Shinji sometimes used in his cooking.

She thought of the day to come as she set about preparing the noodles (the beer could wait). Her thoughts kept returning to Asuka, and for a moment she seriously considered getting up early to explain the situation to her.

...the more she thought about it, the more she decided he might need her intervention to get through that introduction in one piece. Assuming Shinji even came out of her - no, his(?) - room.

But she'd had less 6 hours' sleep in the last 48 hours. She'd planned to catch up on sleep tonight/tomorrow morning.

Don't hate me for this...

I am a proud whore for reviews, among other things. You know what I want from you, oh satisfied reader...

Thanks again for your patronage, various people who seem to take an interest in whatever I write just because it's me that's writing it (don't worry, I can assure you that [as you may have guessed] you have excellent taste).

Speaking of which, the first thing I ever wrote was a cringe-worthy rewrite of Evangelion set in...1984? GobHobblin, of EvaSessions fame, is currently working on an AU Evangelion story set in 1991(?) which is pretty much everything I'd ever hoped my first fic would be (and wasn't). For those who don't know already, I've also helped our fellow history buff Archangel38 with his AU Evangelion story set in 1915. While I don't agree with aspects of his world (a British Civil War over the royal succession and neither Irish Secession nor Socialism? A Germany afraid of French and not Russian economic/military modernisation [when Germany has twice as many people as the former and 1/3 as many as the latter]? German shipbuilding firms deciding to fund the establishment of Japanese shipyards and buying ships from them rather than setting up shipyards in Germany and selling ships to the Japanese?...

Ahem. So, yes. Some world-building errors. But both works and their authors are well worth your time if you like a good story.