Patrick was left sitting in the laboratory's office for several hours and Foch and Beatrix worked on Rei in an adjoining operating room. Dylan had sat with him for a little while but then went back to meet up with the other team members while another other agent briefly appeared with the remainder of Patrick's and Rei's belongings and clothes from the hotel room. Patrick got himself better dressed and then kept the rest of the items with him while he waited.
He didn't know what to think. For months all he had wanted, all he had used to motivate himself to get through the hell of winter training was to be Rei just like he was this night. But nature wouldn't allow it, so it seemed to him. Now he was not even sure if she would survive given that Foch was spending several hours with her in the operating room with no word. She would not be the same again, that was for sure.
At about One o'clock Patrick heard footsteps down the outside corridor and stood up, and Erin came through the doorway. She was wearing a tan-colored winter coat and white scarf over a sweater and blue jeans and high boots. They immediately embraced on seeing each other.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I think her implants got messed up," Patrick told her. "It's not good."
Huddled next to each other, the two of them silently waited another hour until Foch came out, blood smeared on his hospital gown. The expression on his face was hard, his face drained with exhaustion.
Erin spoke up first. "Is she…okay?"
Foch paused and then spoke to both of them. "I had to remove the implants," he told them solemnly. "Apparently there were rejected by her body."
"Why now?" Erin asked. "She had the surgery a couple of months ago."
"I understand and at this early stage I'm unsure of the causes, she did look quite well even yesterday."
"It was my fault," Patrick spoke up. "We were gonna, well you know…"
"I wouldn't blame yourself, boy," was Foch's response. "We're dealing with many unknowns here, the science is very groundbreaking in and of itself. It's simply possible that the organs just failed."
"Will she be alright?" asked Erin.
"She'll go into recovery and we'll watch her carefully, but right now she's stable."
"Can I see her?" Patrick asked.
"Not now. I need to keep her under observation here at the lab for a little while. I suggest the two of you go home and rest, and I'll contact you later in the day as to what we know."
The twins spent the morning and the remaining day in their apartment, as Patrick paced the living room floor while waiting for the phone. Most of the afternoon had passed until Foch called, and only to say that Rei was stable but still unable to see anyone that he would try to bring her back home soon. Erin then called Misato to keep her informed, explaining everything that had happened so far.
"I'm sorry to hear all of this," was Misato's reply. "I know that meant a lot of her."
"Yeah. Uncle Bernard still doesn't know the actual cause but says they would have to start from the beginning if Rei's willing to try again."
"Have you seen her?"
"No, and Uncle Bernard tells us it's not a good idea right now. Patrick's tearing his hair out over all of this, he had just come back from training."
"That's terrible," commented Misato. "I'll see if I can contact Rei directly through Foch-sensei, and hopefully she'll be able to at least talk to me. But let her know that I want to reach her if you see her first."
"Will do, Misato-san."
"If she's not feeling up to school I might just take her back to Japan once she's able to travel, let her rest at home for a while. Keep me posted, okay?"
"I will, thanks again!"
Erin hung up and looked at Patrick who had stopped pacing on the carpet and was now collapsed on the living room couch, his eyes boring holes into the ceiling. Erin went over to him and sat on the couch, cradling his head in her lap as he lay there.
"I just don't understand," Patrick said with a weak voice. "Why could this happen now?"
"There's no real answer for that," Erin told him. "Everyone just needs to hang in there."
"I'm beginning to get the idea that maybe the heavens aren't so keen on Rei having a kid after all."
They received another phone call from Dr. Foch the next morning, saying that he would be brining Rei back to his house later that afternoon. Patrick and Erin left early, and spent an hour waiting in the Foch's living room along with Beatrix until the two of them returned.
Finally by five o'clock Foch's car pulled into his garage and he entered the house, gently guiding Rei along with him. Patrick stood up and faced her as did Erin and saw not the Rei they had gotten to know over these last few years, but instead a distressed and limp-looking girl with straggly blue hair plunging downward who was taking very unsure steps into the house. She was dressed in her blue pajamas and a dark red bathrobe, and had on a wool cap and scarf to keep her warm in the winter cold.
"We're home, Madame!" Foch called out as Beatrix rushed from the kitchen and then helped Rei make it into the house. Patrick wanted to embrace her but after seeing her and seeing the trembling of her whole body as she walked, he knew she was in fact very physically weak, a stark difference to the Rei he saw three nights prior.
"Rei, are you alright?" Patrick asked. "How do you feel." Rei looked up at him, her deep red eyes quivering with emotion.
"I…I" she struggled to speak and was unable to even finish the sentence.
Patrick took her by the hand as Erin took her other hand, and they both looked to the old doctor. "Will she be okay?" asked Erin.
"As you can see, she's walking but that's about the best of it," Foch said. "There's wounds that need healing and not simply ones on the outside. She needs rest and care and lots of it."
"Rei?" Patrick asked her. "Do you want anything?"
"I…I want to be alone," she got out in a soft, whispering tone. "I want to be alone."
"Okay, okay, we'll let you rest." Patrick was deeply unsettled by all of this and looked again towards the old doctor. "Don't worry, my boy," Foch told him. "We'll do our best with her, but it's best if you can leave her here with us for now. Madame, let's get her upstairs and let her sleep please."
"Of course, darling." Beatrix then gently helped Rei up the staircase as she took her upwards, and Patrick and Erin could do nothing but watch. The entire experience of seeing Rei's spirit so broken was draining enough to bring both to tears.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Erin pleaded with Dr. Foch.
"Her body will heal in a few weeks," said Foch, "but her heart's broken. That may take the most time of all."
For three days Patrick remained in the apartment or nearby either his own place or the Foch's house. Erin still had school courses and took them, but with resignation and not enthusiasm, as her own mind was elsewhere worried with Rei's fate.
It had been Patrick's hope that after returning to the campus he could persuade Rei to take a few days off school and actually go travelling together somewhere, perhaps Europe or the Mediterranean. He had thirty days leave from the service after his intensive training before he needed to report to AIS headquarters in Tokyo-3 and wanted to spend as much of that time as he could with both Rei and Erin. The episode with the failure of Rei's fertility organs had brought all of that to a crashing halt and now he spent his leave in frustration and worry.
Making matters worse was Rei's incommunicado: she had switched off her mobile phone and didn't reply to any other attempts to reach her, including directly going over to the Foch's house and asking to see her. He would make a short trip to the house twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, to see how Rei was doing and each and every time he would ask to see her. Usually Beatrix was alone in the house and each time she went upstairs to check on Rei, and every time she would return Rei's message to Patrick: No.
Patrick determined that he simply needed to be patient despite this, so while he was back at their apartment he kept at puzzles in his bedroom and catching up with Erin in the meanwhile, but also asked the security detail to let him know if Rei ever left the Foch's house for any reason. He wasn't trying to stalk her per se but knew that maybe she was still shell-shocked from the defeat she just had and that all that might be needed to break her out of it was some sort of face-to-face interaction. Patrick also knew that Rei's incommunicado also applied to her extended family, as both Misato and Shinji had related to him that she wouldn't take their phone calls as well as not reply to their emails, and it was concerning enough to Misato for her to plan a trip to Cambridge within the next couple of days to check on her health and return her to Japan if she was healthy enough to travel.
After a fourth day there was finally a break in the routine, as Dylan related to Patrick that Rei would be moving from the Foch's house back to her loft. Once he heard this Patrick darted from their apartment and then practically ran over to the Fochs' in order to see her.
Partrick just barely caught her, as Rei, bundled up in a knit sweater and scarf with a long plaid skirt and boots and a wool cap over her head, slowly made her way up the stairs to her loft behind the Fochs' house. Her hair was still straggly and to Patrick looked like she had barely brushed it.
"Rei!" Patrick called out to her as he reached the wooden stairs leading up to her loft. Rei, who was nearly at the top, slowly turned around. Patrick saw her face and could tell she was still not well rested, with dark circles under her eyes and a drained look overall. He couldn't ever recall seeing her worn out in such a way since he had known her.
"Rei?" he asked. "Can I come up?" She didn't reply and didn't say anything as he walked up the stairs to reach her.
"How do you feel?" Patrick asked when he made it to where she was standing. "Are you alright?" Rei didn't say anything at all, instead just looking at him, her red eyes quivering.
"Can you at least talk?" he asked again, nearly whispering. "Everyone is so worried about you."
"I cannot do this," Rei replied in a soft tone.
"Do what?"
"Be human," she told Patrick. "I wanted to. I tried to. But I am unable to."
"Because of this? Of what happened?," he replied as he took her hand. "Angel, there's more to life than just being able to have kids."
"It is not just because of this matter," Rei said, "But I am incompatible with you, and with everyone else."
"That's not true! You're…"
"I can no longer pretend to be something that I am not," she declared as she withdrew her hand from his. "I wanted to be happy, and for a time I was. But this body will not allow me to fully reach this."
"You suffered a setback, a big one no doubt," Patrick said in trying to be encouraging. "But that's no reason to give up! We've faced worse troubles than this, you know that."
"I don't think I'm in the right place," she told him. "I don't think this is suitable for me."
"You just need to rest and recover from this. And then we try again."
Rei looked at him sadly with her red eyes. "I no longer wish to have a relationship with you."
Patrick paused at that and knew that it wasn't the lack of emotions but rather overflowing emotions that was causing Rei to make such a statement. Don't fight, don't be aggressive, just try to understand her.
"But I'm still here for you," he told her. "Despite everything. I'll always still be here for you."
"I know that you will keep trying to be. That is in your nature. But my nature is incompatible with you, and that will never change. It is time for us to end." She told him.
"I'm not going to give up on you!" Patrick said.
"You should consider a relationship with Illustrious-san, she is more compatible with you," Rei told him. "Please do not contact with me further."
"And what about Erin, and Shinji and Asuka and Misato?" said Patrick? "Are you going to close them off too? None of them have heard from you and they're worried sick. Misato's even coming out her to make sure you're okay. What about them?"
"It is time for me to go the way I was meant to, so please leave me alone" Rei told him, then turning towards her front door she opened it up and stepped inside. "Sayanora," she said to Patrick and then she closed the door suddenly before he could prop it open.
Oh, no, she's really plunged downward. It's like her old self just showed up again. Patrick stood at Rei's front door, debating with himself if he should try to open it and continue to attempt to reason with her, or just leave her be alone as she requested. It's not the first time she's been like this either, although that was a while ago. Rei's really strong but has her weak spots and when those get hit she just plunges downward.
Unsure of what to do but not wanting to abandon the field just yet, Patrick sat down on the stairs in order to wait and to think, and he stayed there for the remainder of the day.
As her surgical scars were still healing Rei could not take a shower, so she instead stripped down naked and knelt in the bathtub with a pail of water and gently cleaned herself with a sponge. The apartment was eerily quiet, with only the sound being her dunking the sponge into the pail.
While she washed up she saw the scar on her abdomen where Dr. Foch had needed to remove her implants. The sutures had since healed but the red stripe marks were still there. She carefully took the sponge and cleaned around the wound but stopped when she reached the scar itself and put her hands over it.
It almost worked. We spent two years researching how to make this body conceive a child, trying different methods and therapies. It almost worked, but in the end this body rejects the effort.
Was I a fool to think that I could do this?
The logic behind this is simple. I and the EVA are one. The EVA was never made to have children. It was made as a vessel for humankind, but not to be a person on its own.
I thought I could be human. Instead I am more EVA than human, and always will be.
Rei thought deeply in her mind about what would it have been like to have a child. She had lived with Misato while she was pregnant and saw how her child grew inside of her. It was a burden to her, as Misato had to carefully watch her health, and as she became larger and larger it was more cumbersome to her. The birth of her son Akira was very painful, more painful than Rei had ever observed anyone else enduring, but the result was a living child, a human being connected to his mother by flesh and emotion.
Watching Akira grow from a tiny infant to a toddler had been an experience, and Rei had helped with his upbringing considerably while she lived in the Kaji's household. She found that she enjoyed having Akira around immensely, finding it quite fun. Rei felt very comfortable around children, especially small ones, enough to make her reconsider from time to time her career goals into something more mundane than genetics. She had also confirmed that she wanted that experience of childbirth for herself. She wanted to feel it live and grow inside of her, to feel the sucking of the child drinking from her breasts, and to know the love of the child for its mother. Rei had never wanted much for herself, but she knew that she wanted this. But now it was out of her reach, perhaps forever.
Rei knelt in the bathtub and looked at her open hands.
This body is cursed. And I hate them for putting me in it. It would have been better to just let me die.
An image came to her eyes of herself. She could see her younger self, tiny yet with short blue hair and red eyes, standing in front and looking up at her. Was it her younger self, the first Rei? No, this image wasn't her, she realized. It was the Rei that will come after, the Rei that I would create for myself.
Rei looked at the image of the little Rei that appeared in front of her, close enough to reach. The little Rei looked up at her and then asked 'Mommy?"
She reached out to her but the child suddenly disappeared. Was it a ghost or just a fantasy her frazzled mind had created, or something else? The image had felt real somehow and Rei didn't know why, but seeing her vanish proved too much for her. Rei looked down at her hands again and saw teardrops landing on them.
Oh no, I wanted this so much. Oh God, why?
The feelings inside of her proved too much to bear and she plunged her face into her hands and sobbed.
Outside her front door Patrick could hear the crying and knew Rei's heart was broken, perhaps completely. In the years he had known her Patrick had never before seen Rei so sad. He wanted to go to her, to burst through the front door and to hold and comfort her but he could not. There were just some things that Rei needed to be alone for and this was one of them. Instead Patrick remained there on the steps, leaning against her front door but closing his eyes as tears of his own formed. He would give her the solace that she needed, even at the price of his own heart.
Patrick remained at the door until he quite literally fell asleep, awoken a few hours later only by footsteps up the wooden stairs. Erin, dressed in a winter coat and jeans, was coming up to see him.
"Didn't your training teach you not to freeze to death?" she asked him.
"Oh, um, sorry," Patrick whispered. "I guess I just knocked out."
"How is she?" Erin asked.
"No good. I spoke to her once but she's not letting me closer. So Just figure I'd post myself as guard here. Best I can do." Patrick looked at the closed door of Rei's loft. "I think she finally went to sleep a while ago."
"She'll be okay," encouraged Erin. "Come on, let's go home." She offered him her hand and Patrick took it, standing up off the stairs. Tired and drained, Patrick led Erin lead him back to their apartment.
Inside the loft however Rei was not asleep at all. She had remained silent, listening to Erin retrieve Patrick from the stairs. Once she was sure that they were nowhere close to her apartment Rei then silently went to her desk and retrieved her laptop. She had already dressed into warm clothes after recovering from the bath.
Flipping open the laptop Rei booted it up and waited for it to finish the startup, then went to her school lab portal window. She opened up a private message and started typing.
The call came in at 2:58 AM, and it took two series of rings before Kaji was awake enough to answer it.
"Hello?" he asked. The voice on the other side was AD Stephenson.
"We have a situation," he told Kaji, using a word that had never come up before. The director immediately sat up in bed, shaking all of the sleep out of his head and rapidly bringing himself to Earth.
"Go ahead," Kaji told him.
"About two hours ago there was a major incident on the outskirts of Old Tokyo, at JHCI's former proving grounds. Do you know what Jet Alone is?"
"Yes. What happened?"
"According to witnesses, at midnight it turned itself on and broke out of its hanger, then started moving northwest."
"Did they notify the Japanese authorities already?"
"Actually the holding company for JHCI has yet to do so. We believe that they're trying to locate the robot and bring it back in safely before the authorities find out. We learned about this because of communication intercepts that we're not supposed to be doing domestically."
"Go ahead and let the Japanese Ministries of Defense and Interior know," Kaji ordered. "Is this all we have so far?"
"I'm afraid so. Can you come in? I think that we'll need all hands on deck for this one."
"Will do."
"Also, sir," said Stephenson, "Perhaps you can alert your friends at NERV as well? Considering they were the ones that resolved the prior time Jet Alone got out of hand they could be needed again."
"Agreed. I'll speak with the liaison from NERV right after I hang up."
"Thank you and we'll see you in the office soon." Stephenson then disconnected the call.
After putting down the phone, Kaji then rolled over the bed towards the NERV liaison who was conveniently sleeping with him on a nightly basis.
"Misato," he whispered as he gently nudged her. Misato groaned a little as she came out of sleep.
"Yeah, what is it?"
"Get up, your favorite robot's on the loose." That was more than enough to get Misato's attention.
"Wait, what?"
"Someone broke out Jet Alone tonight," Kaji told her as he left the bed and walked towards the closet to get changed. "You should probably call the Hyugas about this."
"I'm surprised they still kept that thing around," Misato muttered as she sat up from the bed. At that moment little Akira ran into the room followed by PenPen, both of them wearing the same blue and white Doremon-themed pajamas. "Mommy!" the little boy cried out, awakened from his slumber. Misato took him into her arms as PenPen squawked in unison with the boy's cries.
"Do you need to go to the office?" Misato asked Kaji.
"Post haste," he replied with a smile. "Think of this as a Kaiju film in real life."
"Too bad we don't have a giant flying turtle we can just call on."
"No, but we do have some other heroes waiting in the wings. I get the feeling we might actually see them in action again." Kaji put on a jacket over his shirt and slacks, then his mobile phone buzzed again. Misato took it in one hand from the nightstand and gave it to him.
"Yes? Ah, yes, tell him to land in the garden. Careful to mind the koi pond, thanks."
"Nice of them to send you a helicopter," Misato quipped, holding Akira as she stood up from the bed. By this point Akira had stopped crying but was curious about why the grownups were awake so late at night.
"Daddy go?" Akira asked his mother.
"Yup, Daddy's got work to do! And after he goes we can all eat ice cream!"
"Yeah!"
"And Mommy and PenPen can share a beer!" Akira had a confused look on his face after that but paid his mom no mind and then squirmed to get out of her arms and back on the floor with his playmate.
Kaji looked at Misato and grinned. "I'm off to save the world again," he told her. She put her arms around him and smiled.
"Well, here's your send-off, so good luck and I'll keep the bed warm for you," She then gave him a deep kiss, long and slow.
"That'll be my primary motivation, I assure you," he said as he smirked.
The group of them all went down the house stairs to the first floor, where Kaji moved toward the patio doors. In the middle of the house grounds a black-painted S-76J helicopter started to lower itself towards the large garden in the Kaji's spacious back yard, giving a strong wake of winds from the helicopter's rotors.
"Daddy, daddy!" Akira called out and Kaji took him in his arms. "You be good!" he said to him, gently rubbing him on his head and kissing the boy's forehead. He got a quick hug from Akira and then Kaji gently lowered him to the floor, leaving him and Misato behind as he made his way to the helicopter. "Ciao" he said to Misato just as he went out the sliding patio door. The group of them waved bye to him, including PenPen who waived a wing in the air.
Misato watched as Kaji boarded the helicopter from the side door and then one of the aircrew slid the door shut. She breathed a long sigh, hoping that this wasn't the start of something terrible.
"Let's go to the kitchen, okay?" she told Akira and the little boy ran as fast as he could towards his waiting bowl of ice cream, PenPen following in his wake. As the toddler ran off, Misato took her own mobile phone from her sleeping robe pocket and hit the speed dial. A voice picked up after two rings.
"Hey, Good morning, Maya-san!" Misato greeted the groggy NERV chief scientist. "Sorry to wake you guys up but guess what? It's time to get the band back together!"
The following morning Patrick woke up screaming, something Erin had anticipated. It took her just a few second to come into his room with water as she saw Patrick crouched over his bed, holding his face in his hands.
"Bro! Bro! Here," she gave him the water and put her arm around him and Patrick came back to reality as he awoke. He breathed deeply, sweating from his brow.
"Dammit," he said to her. "I felt it again."
"What, your face melting off?"
"Yeah." Patrick took a swig from the water bottle and then unceremoniously doused the rest of the water over his head to wake himself up completely.
"Not much of an agent if I have shit nightmares like that, am I?"
Erin knew the problem, and also had a possible solution. "Wanna go check on Rei again?" Patrick nodded, trying to force a smile as he did so.
The twins got changed into regular clothes and then walked towards the Foch's place for their daily welfare check on Rei. Patrick wasn't sure what she would do that morning but figured it was worth a try to at least reach out to her again. In the prior evening on the way home the two of them had made the decision to not give up on Rei no matter what happened next, even if she continued to remain isolated in her sorrow. At some point she'd at least need friends, and both Patrick and Erin knew they were the ones that had to be there for Rei when that time finally came.
Patrick started up the stairs to Rei's loft that morning, followed a step or two behind by Erin. It was fairly early that morning, just a few minutes before Seven O'clock, which Patrick figured was early enough to catch Rei if she decided to leave the loft for once. He came to the top of the staircase and then faced the door. Shut as usual.
Should I knock this time? What the hell.
Patrick knocked on the front door, just loudly enough to be sure he was heard. There was no reply.
Should I do it again? Or maybe this time…
Gently Patrick turned the doorknob, and found that it was unlocked.
Typical Rei, with her ongoing habit of not locking the front door.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Everything inside the loft seemed in order, kept neat and organized as Rei normally maintained it. Patrick looked around as Erin also went through the doorway, and saw that the bed was occupied, a fluff of blue hair visible at the edge of the blanket.
"She's still sleeping," Erin whispered. Patrick then tiptoed over to the bed.
"Patrick!" his sister admonished, still whispering. "Don't wake her!"
"Just want to check on her," he whispered back and then glided over to Rei's bed. He saw the crest of her head on the pillow, and could hear the gentle sounds of breathing.
So peaceful, at least she can rest a bit.
He looked at her hair again and noticed something peculiar, something out of place. What is it? Wait, the color? Did her hair color change? It's usually more azure blue and not darker. Then the realization came to him and Patrick quickly grabbed the blanket and ripped it from the bed.
"Patrick!" Erin shouted, "What are you doing?"
In the bed wasn't Rei however, but instead was a young man of short stature, dressed in Rei's white nightgown and wearing a blue wig over his head. The boy jumped awake just as Patrick grabbed his wig and tossed it across the room. Patrick had never seen him before but Erin knew immediately who he was.
"Zummy!" she said. "What are you doing here?"
In another second Patrick had his service pistol drawn and pointed at David Zumwalt's head. As the boy gave him a terrified look into his eyes, Patrick growled at him. "Where the hell is Rei?"
And here we are at about the half-way point in the story. This catches us up to where we started in the Prologue with JetAlone running away from it's storage hanger, so that along with Rei's sudden disappearance is going to be driving the multiple crises within the plot moving forward.
By here I've regrettably got to take a 2-month break from writing, as I'll be on an extended trip overseas for a few weeks and then back and busy when I return. Hopefully I'll get back to work soon on the second half and things will definitely be picking up in terms of action from here on out. Thanks,