EVA: Emotion

Dedicated to my brother and existential angst in general.

If you asked Asuka, or just talked to her long enough, she would proudly tell you that there was nothing she couldn't handle. If you tested her, you would find out this was only mostly true. The only exceptions were people and their problems. Give her a weapon and she'd happily tell you the best way to kill with it, but ask her to deal with a personal problem, her own grudgingly included, and she would be stumped, which is why she was currently having issues with the crying Rei in front of her.

Well, Asuka was pretty sure Rei was crying. It was hard to tell with the other woman, especially since this was Rei-Three, the post third impact model that had lost all of the character development that had led to the previous Rei deciding that she was no longer going to be a tool of Gendo or S.E. and pulling the godly equivalent of telling them to go fuck themselves. Her eyes were clear, her face was calm, and her voice was even, but Asuka was sure a normal person would be crying right now.

"Come again?" she asked, trying to stall for time.

"Very well," said Rei. "As I said before, I am becoming increasingly concerned that despite what Shinji tells me, and what the official records say about Rei-Two, that I am incapable of actual emotion or connecting to people on an emotional level. With the dissolution of N.E.R.V and the EVA program, it seems of utmost importance to find out if this is actually the case so that I can correctly integrate myself into society."

"I got that part," said Asuka, "but why come to me? Wouldn't Shinji be able to help you better?"

Rei shook her head. "After taking a look at both your psychological tests from recent years, I have determined that Shinji's unresolved issues with his parents, and the fact that part of my genetic structure comes from his mother, make him an unwise choice. He needs to resolve his own issues before he can help others."

"If you've seen those reports, then you know I'm not exactly considered the picture of mental health either," she pointed it. It stung to admit that she wasn't good at something, but it had been years since Third Impact, and she was getting better at telling her pride to stuff it.

"This would be a logical conclusion," agreed Rei, "but humans have a tendency to react to the same traumas in completely different ways, so much so that many fields having to do with predicting human behavior are still considered theoretical or unscientific. Thus, unlike Shinji, you are very good at displaying emotion and have displayed more than half of the major emotions in recorded reports alone. I consider you an expert on emotion, and the most able to help me deal with this problem."

Asuka's head was hurting from trying to follow Rei's thought process until she decided it wasn't worth it. All that mattered was that Rei wanted her help, and nothing good would come from saying no.

"So what makes you think you don't feel emotions?" asked Asuka carefully. Years ago she would never have even considered that Rei could have feelings. She had considered her a doll, a tool, but Shinji had shown she was wrong and brought something out of Rei. Now it was her turn to do the same. "I know what the official reports say, but Gendo proved to wrong about a lot of things, and no one who couldn't empathise would have done what Rei-Two did, and if she could feel, then so can you, right?"

Rei nodded her head. "I have considered that, but for all we know Rei-Two was suffering from a flaw caused by over-exposure to the angels. I myself am constantly stumped by other humans and their actions. I do not understand what it means to fall in love, to be scared for something other than your life, or why people can go from being happy to being sad to being mad nor what any of those actually feel like."

"Don't be so dramatic," snapped Asuka, momentarily losing her cool. "I know for a fact I've seen you happy, scared, and sad."

"But how do we know that I have actually felt such, and am not just mimicking the people around me and how they expect me to act?"

Asuke could tell, somehow, that Rei was starting to panic, even if nothing about her had changed. A normal person would try to talk to Rei calmly and carefully, but Asuka was all out of calm and decided to handle things how she usually did: by raging at the problem until it went away, or was fixed.

"Stop making things so difficult!" she snapped. Rei just stood there, but Asuka thought she saw a tiny flinch, which was exactly what she wanted. "If you think you've felt happy, sad or scared then just believe you have. You're obviously scared right now, scared that you're not normal just because of how you were born. But I've known you longer than you've known you, and I can tell you what happened with Rei-Two was no flaw. She actually felt emotion and cared about others, and so do you."

"But how do you know that?" asked Rei, an undertone of desperation in her voice. It was that little bit of worry that gave Asuka her answer.

"Because, if you didn't you wouldn't be asking me these questions. You told me you want to feel emotion and connect to people, and I believe you because I can tell you're scared. You're scared that you can't be happy, and that makes you sad. You're obviously mad at N.E.R.V. and Gendo for putting you in this position, and you're frustrated not knowing what to do for once in your life. All of those are why you are a person with emotions and feelings. Because if you weren't. you wouldn't care. You would never ask the question, and you wouldn't care what I or anyone else had to say about it."

After her tirade Asuka took deep calming breaths and looked at the other woman to see if she got through to her. Once again, Rei's face was passive, but in her eyes Asuka saw a small mistiness that she knew was as close as Rei could get to crying. Throwing all caution to the wind, Asuka walked up to the smaller girl and pulled her into a bear hug.

"See?" said Asuka, "you can feel. In fact, I bet you are more empathetic than most people out there."

"That makes no sense," said Rei. "How could someone who barely understands emotion or how to show them be empathetic?"

"Because," said Asuka, "you actually try. Feeling and understanding comes so naturally to most of us that we take it for granted. We assume we always have the right answers, that we can understand the emotions of others better than they can, but thats just a deception so we don't have to connect with them more than necessary. Trust me, I'm an expert on this," she said with a wry smile.

"I think I understand," said Rei slowly as they separated. "Thank you Asuka. You are a good...friend."

Asuka blushed. "I'm only helping you because like you said, I'm the expert. If I let someone else help you, like Shinji, who knows how much they could screw you up."

Rei's lips curled into the faintest of smiles and Asuka knew that Rei had never been happier in her short and complicated life.

"Then maybe you can teach me about love sometime," said Rei, and Asuka blushed even harder at Rei's wording. Then she took a deep breath and put on her trademark smirk.

"Of course."