After a while, the grin faded. Rei looked suitably serious, for once. Well, contemplative anyway.

"How is one supposed to tell these things? To me all the days are very much alike."

Rei was window-gazing now, Misato's raised brow going unseen.

"I suppose I have been thinking of things differently this past year or so, not that I would expect my monitors to notice. Even now, thanks to you, they will not notice."

Chin resting on her hand, Rei sighed. Like a normal teen-aged girl. The motion was somehow alien to her.

Or rather, come to think of it, it only seemed to be. That Rei might ever exhibit even the slightest trace of normalcy had not occured to her.

"Getting back to your question, I can see how you might have arrived at it. That doesn't make it any less half-baked and apparently silly."

Rei hadn't finished; there was a 'but' to come.

"But," Misato prompted.

"But there is a logic to the question."

Seconds passed, and Misato frowned. "You still haven't answered me."

The visible corner of Rei's mouth twitched upwards again.

"To answer your question, no. I noticed no sudden changes in my mental state."

"And your emotional state?"

Again, the twitch.

"It is strange for you to ask. You are the first person to do so."

Not for the first time Misato's thoughts returned to the girl's supposed lack of a life story.

"Have you experienced any changes in your emotional state in the past couple of months?"

Rei shifted her palm-cheek arrangement to meet Misato's eyes as she responded, calmly but emphatically.

"Yes, of course. I was severely injured in combat. It is a life-changing experience, to realise one's mortality."

Mentally, Misato wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or, better yet, kick herself in the mental-hypothetical balls. For all that she had privately vilified Ritsuko for not thinking of Rei as being really human, she had actually done much the same herself.

"Do you have any other questions, Major?"

Rei took note of Misato unclenching her fists. "Yes. Why do you keep calling me 'Major'?"

No twitch this time, but there was a certain lightening - a twinkle, dared she say - in the girl's eyes.

"Your dedication to your work is admirable, your efficiency commendable, and your skills sound. It is only a matter of time before, in this most public of combat theatres, you earn a promotion."

The thought hadn't escaped her, but anyone who knew her - barely a handful of people, in other words - knew, or could guess, that the lure of promotion wasn't what had brought her here. That said, a higher rank might make it easier for JSSDF forces to swallow her ordering them around and commandeering their assets, if nothing else.

"Thank you for your time, Rei. Get well soon."

"You are welcome, Major. You too."

She eyed the girl. "What?"

"Get well soon."

Did she just-?

"Don't look so astonished, please. Let us pretend that never happened."

But her failure was just so cute.

...not that she felt close enough to the girl to say as much. Some other day, maybe.

She waved the girl goodbye and left as swiftly as she had entered. But not before she had whirled around to stop by Shinji's bedside for a long moment.

He was getting thin. Well, thinner. Just look at his cheek... you could feel the hollow forming.

He stirred under her touch.

It was a long, hopeful moment.

Rei joined her.

"He gets close, sometimes. I'm sure of it. But wherever he's gone... I'm not sure he knows how to get back."

She stared at Rei.

Rei continued to hold her gentle, pitying gaze on Shinji's sickly pale form. Her own pallor and the deep crimson of her eyes detracted from what would otherwise have been a rather picturesque pose.

She'd missed something.

"Rei," she started. The girl didn't stop looking at him, but her eyes sharpened.

"Did Shinji contact you?"

"I have to ask." she added.

"No." she said after an appropriate interval. "My respone may have been tailored for Ritsuko's consumption, but it was not untrue."

Rei brought a hand up to gently... caress (!?) his cheek in a tender but not, Misato realised, age-inappropriate gesture. They were teens, after all. Misato noted that her own hand had been drawn back some time ago, probably when Rei had appeared -she didn't remember doing it.

"Beyond that, I confess that sentiment plays a role in my continued presence."

Misato was glad, proud even, that this latest statement didn't phase her. In fact, it was about time that she turned the tables on the girl...

"And what sentiment is that, Rei?"

Rei didn't reply. Her impassive expression offered no clue as to whether she was refusing to answer, or simply didn't know. Misato prompted her.

"Cute, isn't he?"

Broken and emaciated as he was.

A thoughtful moment later, Rei nodded.

Misato still managed a small grin of petty triumph. The girl's skin was far too pale for even that tiny measure of blood-flow to ever go unnoticed.

So, it was a real-life case of 'sleeping beauty'. With some slight differences. Shinji probably wouldn't be giving birth to Rei's children anytime soon, for instance. Pregnancy was a hell of a thing to wake up to at the best of times.

Before things got too personal she ruffled Shinji's hair and slipped out for real this time, waving goodbye to Rei as she did so.

Halfway out, she stopped herself again. A question remained.

Standing in front of Rei she took a breath and looked the girl in the eyes, asking:

"Why did Shinji jump?"

Rei's eyes drifted to one side for a moment before snapping back to hers.

"How do you know he jumped?"

Misato blinked, her brain taking a moment to spit out the details again.

"He... landed...too far from the building. He must have taken a run-up."

Rei blinked. Her features darkened. "Or he was thrown."

Misato blinked.

Rei didn't know their living and security arrangements, so it was a natural conclusion. That said, it was a silly one. The two of them had the building to themselves, Section Two aside...

Her eyes tightened around the edges.

Section Two were, if not incompetent, untrustworthy. Kaji had said as much, not that she hadn't already noticed it herself.

Her eyes narrowed.

This new, unpalatable explanation looked all too plausible. He had been so... well, she wasn't really sure, but he definitely hadn't been suicidal when he had rushed out.

Her eyes narrowed further.

Kaji... had he been trying to tell her something?

"Thank you, Rei."

For the final time, she left.

Misato realised as she started her car that Rei hadn't actually answered her. Not that a straight answer was Rei's style, of course. And not that she could have known anything either, of course; the girl had been in hospital the whole time.

As she drove, she couldn't help the feeling that she'd missed something. She just couldn't think what.

She'd tripled the pilots' security detail, which wasn't as impressive as it sounded as it brought them to a grand total of nine. Nine men, guarding their only pilots. They'd moved them to another room and drawn the blinds... it was a Nerv hospital, but if her worst fears proved true...

Well, fingers crossed it would be enough. It was all she'd been able to do without drawing attention to herself.

That done she'd gone straight to the Commander, and to her surprise the man had agreed to stop what he was doing and hear her out, immediately.

And hear her out he did.

There was no evidence, she rounded off saying, but the price of action was nothing next to the potential cost of inaction. Even if it was just one man, if he could find a rifle and a place to fire from, then he could kill them both without ever being caught. And if it wasn't just a lone gunman... well, either way she didn't need to spell out the implications.

What could be seen of his face behind his steepled hands and his glasses remained unmoved. Silence reigned as she waited for him to respond.

Shinji and Rei - well, just Rei really - were their only pilots right now; the new pilot wouldn't be arriving for another week. If something were to happen in that time...

He had to blink sometime. He probably had, already - no, he must have. Everyone blinks... it was just hard to see it in this lighting, and with those damned sunglasses...

He lowered his hands to the desk, where they remained clasped in front of him.

"I see." He said it precisely, calmly.

Without saying anything further, he soon dismissed her with a simple gesture to the door.

Two minutes later, she received a phonecall. It was someone from security; the Commander had assigned a squad of his most trusted personnel to transfer the pilots to a more secure location within the Geofront, where they would remain under guard for the forseeable future.

Call over, she breathed a sigh of relif.

A small sigh. The danger hadn't passed; in fact, she still didn't even know what it was.

...

Kaji.

She made for her office at a swift pace.

Apparently, Kaji had disappeared again.

The moment the girl, Shikinami, was in the ground he had just vanished. His file was still on the system, ergo he was still a Nerv employee - but his location and his role within the organisation were not listed, and that was just...

Well. Just look at the word security had used. Not competent, nor best.

Trusted.

Her eye flitted to the catch on the door. It was locked.

Which, if there was a clandestine faction operating in Nerv's midst, probably meant nothing.

She ignored the siren's call of her flask, and the indignant outcry from her in-tray. There was important work to be done.

She drummed her fingers on the desk-top.

So, a rogue nutter at best. An intra-organisational faction couldn't be ruled out - if there was one, there was no reason to suppose it stopped at section two. At worst, it could be an outside organisation pulling the strings - the national government, or foreign powers with their own shadowy agendas. Maybe both.

She continued drumming.

Okay, so maybe one or all of those was the case. But where to start? And who was supposed to be working on this kind of thing, anyway? Nerv didn't have a bloody detective office.

...though Nerv did have MPs. They were, as they were everywhere, universally despised and very few in number.

They were also, if larger forces were at work, almost certainly not to be trusted. From his actions, it seemed that the Commander found the idea of a pilot-killing conspiracy plausible.

She laid her hands flat on the table.

So. Where did she begin?

She was still thinking it over when the phone rang. She picked it up, unthinkingly.

"Captain Katsuragi?"

It was the Sub-Commander.

"Yes, sir?"

"I advise you to move home. We have new accommodation prepared for you."

"Sir?"

"In light of recent events, we thought it a necessary precaution. You are excused from your duties, a squad will be over to assist you momentarily."

She didn't know what to say. Things were spiralling.

Except... a question leaped to mind. The only issue was the phrasing.

"Is this about the conspiracy, sir?"

There was a pause. The question wasn't a firing offence. Not that, if there really was some sort of plot in motion, they could afford to fire her right now.

"Yes. There is a risk that this will set things off, but I don't think it likely. This is only a precaution."

There was a knocking at her door. On a whim, she decided to push her luck.

"Was this your idea, sir?"

A pause.

"We agreed that you had best move, but let's just say that the personal touch was, yes. Good luck, Captain."

He hung up.

'The personal touch'...

i.e. her getting the chance to pack her own stuff.

Did Ikari not realise how rude he'd been, or did he just not care?

"One minute!" she called through the door. She heard a muffled "Yessum" from the other side.

She checked her sidearm and her ammunition. All in working order.

She took a deep breath, and unlocked the door.

Apologies for the delay - suffice to say summer school is proving rather difficult. The grammar is killing me, but it's all good fun. (Learn Mandarin! The characters are way cool!)

'ahem'

So, yes. Effecting an self-importantly dignified manner, I assure you that the next chapter - next month's chapter - should be nice and beefy to compensate.

...should. No promises!

Thanks to EJ, and... well, you lot! You've made this 'writing' business quite fun, actually, you (insert affectionate diminuitive adjective e.g. 'little' here) rascals, you!

'patronising cheek-tug'