Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion or anything associated with it. Gainax created this world, I just play in it.
Second to last chapter.
Transposed
Chapter 36
Now, Unit 01's Core
The redhead sat by herself on the beach within the world of Unit 01's core. Her teary eyes looked out over the gentle waters before her without really seeing it and she was unable to feel the tranquility it offered. Even so, she was coping with the things she had been told a little better now than she had a couple of days ago, but she was by no means back to anything that resembled normal. That would take a while to happen.
Pretty much everything in her life up until this point was not what she had thought it was, nothing but lies, deception, and misdirection. Like everyone else she had had a role to play and hers was to be cannon fodder. She was to fight for as long as she remained able in order to keep the First and Third alive for Gendo Ikari's needs and she had certainly fallen right into that role with her superior attitude and her need to be at the forefront of every battle. Then somewhere along the way, preferably right near the end, she was to die with her death being used to help drive Shinji to such despair that he would offer no resistance as he piloted Unit 01 right into position to be the last catalyst the madman needed to realize his sick aims.
Even if she had died early in Gendo's scenario it wouldn't have really mattered. He would have seen it as a minor inconvenience and worked around it so even though he had a role for her, she wasn't all that important. It was bad enough that she had never been able to live up to her own bragging and bravado, but even if she had it wouldn't have mattered very much. When the man's own son was nothing more to him than something to be brought to ruination for his scenario, what possible worth could she have ever had other than to die on cue and help him to that end?
She had wanted the truth so badly. Well, she got it alright. She found out exactly what Rei was and why she had been created. She found out exactly how Gendo had manipulated Shinji and realized that she had been a part of his plan to keep the boy beaten down until the end. She found out about the horror that Misato had lived through and how she had been manipulated through her hatred of the Angels and her desire to destroy them to send children out to fight and she learned of the heavy toll it took on her. She learned the truth about mankind's origins and just exactly who Lorenz Kiel was and what he was trying to do and why.
She almost laughed. As strange as it sounded, the truth about the origins of humankind was probably the thing that bothered her the least out of all of it. It was the sheer madness and depravity of the rest that hit the hardest and it was her own situation that devastated her the most. By becoming so driven and allowing that other side of herself to take over and run her life she had become a usable asset. A puppet dancing on the end of a string. A doll after all.
After losing that part of herself she had already been feeling bad enough about how she had treated those around her, but after hearing the full story and now understanding the full scope of what the others had been through she felt even worse. She felt sick and was hating herself oh so very much. Just look at how she had treated Rei. The girl literally had been the Commander's obedient doll just as she had ridiculed her for being but is wasn't like she'd had any choice in the matter. Between behavioural conditioning and the use of drugs she had been made into the Commander's loyal and obedient tool. She had been stripped of even the concept of an individual identity since her soul could be moved into another cloned body if she died or if she seemed to be straying too far from her programming and thus her ultimate purpose.
She had seen Rei as just some unfeeling automaton and treated her as such but she had no idea just how much the question of her self identity plagued the girl or how painful her life was. Truthfully, she hadn't cared and wouldn't have even if she did know and saw her as just another obstacle in her way to be trampled over and she did her best to do so. But even as bad as that was it paled in comparison to the state the girl was in when she let her nearly beat her to death. She understood now what it must have meant to have the only purpose you were ever given, the only purpose you were told that mattered, and the purpose that defined your very existence taken away from you, and then being left to drift without that purpose or any guidance as to what you where supposed to do now that it was gone.
Then there was Shinji. She had always berated him for his lack of commitment as a pilot, for his obvious distaste for it and not once had she ever questioned or wondered why. She had always just assumed that it was because he was a wimp and a coward. She had known that he had begun piloting with no prior experience in the seat but she hadn't thought any deeper than that. Even if she had been given more information than that she had ignored it and continued to believe that he had only become Unit 01's pilot because of his father. Well, she had been right on the surface of it but it sure as hell wasn't because of nepotism like she thought.
Her father had engaged in an affair with her mother's doctor and then married the woman, but as bad a situation as it was and as much as she had despised it, at least she hadn't essentially been thrown away and abandoned like Shinji had been. He had just lost his mother, the most loved and cherished thing in his life, and his cold, uncaring father leaves him on the platform at the train station like a piece of unclaimed baggage. When his future guardians did finally come and pick him up they treated him like an inconvenience and even while under their care he practically had to fend for himself. When his father finally summons him it is only because he has a use for him, stomping out the tiny flicker of hope the boy had that his father might want them to be a family again.
All Shinji wanted was to be wanted and he tried to do whatever he could to be seen as useful so that someone, anyone would care about him and not throw him away again. It was even a big part of why he kept piloting despite the terror he felt and the pain he endured. Despite the fact that deep down inside of herself she had felt a sameness between them and that she actually liked him, she did her level best to treat him like dirt and help keep him down just like his father wanted him to be.
She kicked him out of his own room and did her best to make him feel unwanted in his own home. He cooked and cleaned and did the laundry, essentially looking after both Misato and herself and she repaid his kindness by finding fault with everything he did and making threats. She treated him like a servant that needed to be reminded of his lowly place in life, never failing to remind him how unworthy he was, branding him as an idiot and a pervert. She took advantage of his kindness and spurned every attempt he made at even just trying to be her friend. Her disdain towards him carried out onto the field of battle, never recognizing the rashness of her own actions but chastising him for being in her way. If it hadn't been for his help she might not have even survived her first battle but she couldn't see that. Even when he saved her from the volcano she couldn't properly thank him or acknowledge what he had done.
Yet, despite every rotten thing she had said or done he had kept on trying to help, kept trying to be a friend to her and over the last few days here in the core it had been no different. Even Rei had continued to try and help her just as she had as they were making their way to the cages. Misato too, even with how badly she had treated her along with everyone else along the way. Thankfully with that other part of herself no longer present it was much easier to take that help and lean on them but it was still devastating to her to realize how little she had meant and how unimportant she had been and just how far opposed it was to everything she had ever thought or believed of herself. It was going to take a while to learn how to deal with this and get along with it. Just something else to be added to the pile she supposed.
At least with all of this other stuff she had pretty quickly gotten past the fact that they were all naked. Except when it came to Shinji. He was a boy! They shouldn't be sharing this space naked and every time she looked at him she had to jerk her eyes back up from where they kept insisting on looking. And it didn't help that the others kept teasing him and quite literally trying to get a rise out of him. Even Rei!
She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. She supposed that if she hadn't been taking to her therapy sessions with Doctor Tokita as well as she had been that all of this would have been even more devastating to her than it was. After needing a couple of days to even begin to digest all of this, the things she had been learning about herself in those sessions was actually starting to help her cope with this a little bit. At least that was something positive. Like Misato and Lilith had said to her, now that the threat of the Angels and everything that SEELE and Kiel and Gendo were doing was over, they could all work towards a fresh start for themselves and they could rely on each other for support. Things still felt a little bleak, but maybe didn't look quite so impossibly dim now.
"Asuka?" she heard Shinji call softly to her. She looked back over her right shoulder and immediately turned back away, her face turning red. "Baka!" she admonished lightly, not sure if it was him or herself she was talking to.
Shinji, realizing that certain parts of himself were right at her eye level as she sat there, quickly sat down beside her. "Sorry about that," he apologized. "I keep forgetting that you're not really comfortable with us being naked. Kind of weird though how I seem to have actually gotten used to it."
"You don't have to apologize," she said. "You've been in here for a lot more time than I have so..." She trailed off and they sat there quietly, neither really knowing what to say to the other. Finally she asked a question that she had been wondering on. "How were you able to handle learning about all of this stuff?"
He paused for a moment. "I don't think I really did," he answered. "It was overwhelming and I couldn't believe what my father had been doing and how he was using everyone. I think I hid behind how happy I was to have my mother back and I kind of pushed away as much as I could and tried to concentrate on that. If I did that then I didn't have to think about it and there were a lot of things happening to keep me kind of distracted but it was never too far from my mind I guess. The Fifteenth Angel...it brought all that back to the surface again. When I started to experience everything Misato had been through I thought I had lost my mind."
"Reliving your own pain and worst memories would be bad enough," she said. She didn't even want to begin to think of what would have happened to her if she had been forced to relive all of her own most painful memories and experiences again like that. She was pretty sure she would never recover from that.
"Misato and Lilith helped me get through it," he continued. "But I think I still hid a lot behind my feelings for Misato and her feelings for me just like I hid behind my feelings about my Mom. I think it was the same when I began to connect with Rei and she let me into her mindscape. Because of all of them I was feeling things I never had before and I wanted to be happy."
"Nothing wrong with wanting to be happy," she said quietly. She frowned. "As for actually being happy, I'm not sure that I really know what that's like."
"I'm not really sure myself I guess," he said. "But I shouldn't be trying to use it as something to hide behind. The same goes for the feelings I have for others or that they have for me. They mean too much for me to be using them like a shield and it's not fair to the other person. I'm tired of that, I've been finding things to hide behind for all of my life so that I wouldn't have to try and deal with anything and all it did was make me miserable."
"It became rage," she said, making his eyes go wide and he turned turned so fast to look at her that it's a wonder his neck didn't snap. She didn't look up, her eyes stayed fixed on her nervously twiddling fingers in her lap. "I know it well. That other part of me...it wasn't just armour made up of arrogance and pride, it was also my rage, or at least it was like a leak in the dam that held it back. And just like you despite how much I love and miss my Momma, I would get mad too because she left me. Now I have to wonder if she was doing the same thing your Mom did or if what happened to her really was just an accident during an experiment. When that dam holding it all back finally did break I nearly killed Rei and it burned itself out. Just like yours did against the last Angel."
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I feel...I don't know, I don't know how to describe it."
"Numb," she said. "Hollow. A little like a burned out shell."
He thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, I guess that is how it feels."
"It's a large part of how I've felt ever since I woke up in the hospital after what I did to Rei." She finally looked up and looked back out over the water. "I think I'm even less sure now of who I am after learning that pretty much everything in my life was based on lies and manipulation. What I thought I was and how I wanted other people to see me, that was my whole identity. Now that's all gone."
"What about being my friend Asuka?" he asked innocently. "Is that a good place to start?"
She looked over at him. "As simple as that huh?"
"Simple is good isn't it?"
She looked back to the water. "Yeah. Simple is good."
Four Days Earlier
If pain was nature's way of letting you know you were still alive, then Melissa Lake felt very much fucking alive at the moment, thank you very much. Before she even attempted to open her eyes she took stock of the new aches and pains she could add to the list of those she had already accumulated. For one she had a splitting headache and it felt like she had definitely broken some ribs. There was something wrong with her left shoulder, she could barely move it and her left forearm flared up in pain when she tried, it was probably broken. Her right leg was pinned it seemed and judging by the way it felt she wouldn't be surprised if it was broken too.
She slowly opened her eyes and winced as light from off to her left hit them. She blinked a few times to try and clear the blurriness from her vision with no avail, and took in her surroundings. It looked like she was in a sizable pocket in the debris and a light fixture was hanging on end by its wires, somehow still working and illuminating the space. Directly above her was her partner, looking down at her with obvious concern. He was on his knees with one hand supporting him on the floor to his right, the other was braced against a chunk of broken concrete to the left.
"Bout time you woke up," he said, relief evident in his rough voice. "I was wondering if you were going to sleep until they dug us out."
Wincing, she raised her head slightly, regretting it, and saw just how close they were. "You know cowboy, if you wanted to climb on and ride all you had to do was ask," she joked hoarsely. "You didn't have to go to all this trouble and get us this cozy little room."
"And here I was trying to impress you. I went all out and got the 'Post Apocalypse Suite' too." He choked on the last word and began coughing. She felt something wet splash across her face and neck and she realized he was coughing up blood.
"Well that's a mood killer," he rasped. "Sorry about that."
Her eyes went wide when she realized that the concrete slab that his back was pressed against was actually being held up by him. That was also when she realized that there was a piece of steel re-bar sticking out of the left side of his chest and another out of the right side of his abdomen. Blood dripped steadily from both wounds, soaking into her shirt and by the feel of it he had been bleeding quite a bit.
"Matt...!" she croaked raggedly.
"Yeah," he confirmed calmly, though the pain was reflected in his voice. "I feel like I got on the bad side of a porcupine. Those two went through and there's a few shorter ones stuck in me. I can't tell how many."
She raised her right hand and pressed it to her aching skull. Even with the light it was still dim enough that he didn't see it shaking and the majority of the cause was the two bloody pieces of steel her blurry eyes remained sighted on. "How long have we been in here?"
"Can't say for sure," he answered. "At least half an hour I think, probably more. I haven't heard any shooting for a while and the place isn't shaking periodically anymore. I think it's all over. Guess we won."
"Doesn't feel much like it," she sighed. "We're both pretty fucked up."
"Fucked up, but alive," he amended. He coughed again. He made sure not to spray her with blood this time. "But mostly fucked up," he rasped. "Fuck that hurt."
"Do you still have your radio?" she asked, feeling around her belt with her good hand but not finding hers.
"It's in pieces over by the light," he answered. "Don't know where yours is and I haven't heard any noise from it."
She began trying to look around for it but the quick movements made her head swim and throb violently. "Shit!" she swore, the pain evident in her voice.
"Don't try moving around too much," he warned. "You took a nasty shot to the head. The left side is all bloody and your eyes don't look just right. It'd be best if you just stayed still."
"Not like I can go anywhere anyway," she groaned. "My right leg is pinned. Probably busted too just like a few other parts." She looked back up at him. "So here I am mister, all laid out and at your mercy."
"And all I can do is bleed all over you," he joked back. "Talk about disappointing."
"I'll forgive you," she said. "I'll even forgive you for going all White Knight and getting yourself between me and that slab. Hard to be mad at you when you got yourself all fucked up like that for my sake."
"I know you hate that," he agreed. "Even so, I'd like to say that I saw it coming and it was on purpose but it just kind of happened this way. I'd have done it anyway even if you'd be mad at me. Alive and mad is better than dead."
"Not if it kills you instead ya big dumb bear!" she protested. "Do you know how pissed I'd be at you then?"
"As pissed as I'd be if I didn't and you ended up dead," he shot back. "We're partners, we watch each others back and we take blows for each other if that's what it takes. It's what we do even if neither of us like having someone act as our shield. It's why I'm stapled to a chunk of concrete right now and despite the fact that it hurts like fucking hell, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Besides, you have no argument to make after taking a bullet in the back a couple of years ago. Or did you think that I didn't know that the shooter was aiming for me and that you purposely stepped in between us?"
For a moment she looked stricken, as if he had given away her biggest secret. She closed her eyes, wishing she could stop the artillery barrage that seemed to be going on inside of her head. "I should have known that you knew," she said quietly. "You're infuriating that way, you know that? I'm just like you I guess, I can't stand to see my partner get hurt if I can do something to stop it. When he pointed the gun at you there was no time to do anything else so I just jumped in between. Never thought I'd do that with all the fucking noise I've made over the years about wanting to be treated as an equal in the field and not wanting to be protected." She looked into his eyes. "I can't lose you partner."
"Can't lose you either," he said, returning her gaze. "We're all each other has left. Your family turned their back on you except for your brother and Second Impact took him from you, just like it took pretty much all of my family and it cost me someone I was too young and stupid to realize meant so much to me at the time. You and me is all there is."
"Heh, I guess we're both just as fucked up as the those kids and everyone else around here," she lamented. "I lean on you more than I even know and I'm pretty sure that without you around I'd end up losing my shit. You'd probably handle it better than I would, you seem to take things in stride a lot better."
"Not so much," he answered, shaking his head. "I'd go nuts on my own, especially if you weren't leaning on me. I'd feel like I had no purpose anymore. You and I both know that being alone sucks hard and it doesn't lead you anywhere pleasant."
"No, it doesn't," she agreed softly. She was far too well acquainted with it. She winced. "Damn it, I don't think there's a part of me that doesn't hurt right now and I feel worn as fuck. We need a vacation...maybe a nice beach somewhere."
"You in a bikini, now there would be a sight," he smirked wearily.
"What's the big deal?" she huffed. "You've seen me in my lingerie before and you've seen me naked."
"First, your idea of lingerie is a sports bra and a pair of boxer shorts," he rasped. "And nearly naked does more for the imagination."
Before she could respond the piece of debris his left hand was pressing on broke off, sending him lurching towards her. A new, bloody gash was ripped into his forearm and he just barely managed to keep the bulk of his weight and that of the concrete slab off of her. Still it made her chest and ribs scream in pain and she could feel the steel rods he'd been pierced with poking into her, but by far the worst and what had her screaming was the excruciating pain in her right leg. Either the slab or something it was in contact with was grinding into the break.
With a groan of pain and effort he pushed himself back up but it didn't take all the pressure off her leg. By leaning on that piece of debris the left side of the slab had been raised a little higher than the right so it hadn't done much more than just keep her from freeing herself. Now it was grinding into her leg and he had to get it back off to both stop that pain for her and keep it from doing more damage or possible cutting off blood flow.
Steeling himself as much as he could he began to move so he could get his legs under him instead of being on his hands and knees. With nothing to brace his hands on other than the floor he had to work one leg under him at a time while attempting to push back on the slab what little he could. The pain was terrible as not just the two rods impaling him but the others that were stuck more shallowly into him moved, pulled, and twisted in his flesh. By the time he finally got his left foot under him and flat on the floor he was gasping for breath and spewing blood with every exhale. He did succeed in getting the slab raised up enough on that side that it was no longer grinding into her leg, but it felt like his back was being pulled apart.
With a lurch and a bark of pain he jerked his right leg into place so that he was now essentially in a squat. He was known for having a high pain tolerance but he had already long passed that point and it was only going to get worse. He couldn't take too much more of it and he was getting weak from blood loss. Either way it would only be a matter of time and not much of it before he collapsed on her with his two hundred and seventy five pounds and however the hell much the hunk of concrete weighed. They would both end up suffocating under the weight that was on top of them. While dying with his partner didn't sound like all that bad of a way to go, suffocating under a heavy chunk of the building wasn't quite the way he would envision it happening. He wasn't ready to die anyway and he wasn't about to let the reaper claim her either.
"Matt..." she protested weakly, knowing what he was trying to do.
He shook his head. "I wasn't...going to be able to hold it up much longer anyway." He coughed and spit away another mouthful of blood but he was still gasping to catch his breath. His left lung had been damaged by the piece of steel in his chest and it burned like it was on fire. "If...I can move it far enough...we won't have to worry about me collapsing and trapping us under it. I know it...hurts like hell...but if you can pull your leg out...do it and move as far out of the way as you can...just in case."
"Matt..." she looked into his eyes for a long moment and gave him a slight, pained smile. "You know...right?"
"Yeah, I know," he said softly with a slight smile of his own and equally returning her gaze. "You know too right?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
She noticed his right leg was shaking and saw a jagged piece of metal was sticking out of his calf. Before she could say anything he clamped his right hand down hard on his thigh above his knee to stabilize it. With a roar of both effort and pain he strained and pushed up and back, shuffling his feet to move back as he stood as high as he could. She could see the bleeding increase as the steel rods moved in his chest and abdomen. She felt the pressure against her leg disappear and using her two remaining good limbs, her left leg and right arm, she pushed, pulled, and dragged herself out of the way. She felt something snagged under her ankle and looked to see that it was her radio. It looked to be intact and the ear piece was still plugged into it but the part that went into her ear was smashed.
There was a thud and a gut tearing bellow of pain from her partner that hit her like she'd been gut shot. The chunk of concrete had slipped off of another piece of debris and tilted back, pulling the rods halfway out of him but still leaving him hung up on them. His wounds were bearing most of his weight now since his boots were barely touching the floor.
"Matt!" she rasped hoarsely, her right hand clutching the radio in a death grip.
He groaned weakly and spit out a large amount of blood as he tried to find something to get a better foothold on and get the weight off of the rods and back on his feet, but there didn't seem to be anything. He was on the verge of passing out and took the only route left to him. He kicked back at the slab and yanked himself the rest of the way off the bars. He was barely conscious when he slammed into the floor in front of her.
She found herself staring at him for a long, breathless, dead silent moment before ripping the useless headphone wire out of it's socket on the radio and calling for anyone who could hear them to come and dig them out.
Now, NERV Medical Ward
Her eyes slowly shifted back into focus, once again showing her the still motionless form of her partner as he lay in his hospital bed. Some guard dog she was for him, she kept either falling asleep or zoning out. Considering the shape she was in it was hardly a surprise and sheer stubbornness was probably the only reason she wasn't passed out in her own bed where everyone kept telling her she should be. At least her pig headed stubbornness had gotten her moved into the same room so she didn't have to try to navigate down the hall, trying to move a wheelchair with only one good arm and one good leg. It was hard enough as it was getting into the chair from her bed and crossing the room so she could sit by his.
Covered in cuts and massive bruises. A broken right leg. A dislocated left shoulder and a broken left arm. Six broken ribs. A hairline crack in her breastbone from the two pistol shots she took in her body armour. A broken nose and a concussion. Everything hurt but she would only take just enough pain meds to take the edge off of it because she did not want to be knocked loopy or be out cold so long as he was still unconscious. She was determined to watch over him.
He was a pretty bad mess himself. The re-bar that pierced his chest had damaged his left lung and the one in his abdomen had nicked his liver. Four other pieces had pierced his back at a depth of one to three inches. One just missed his spine and another just missed his left kidney. He got lucky again with the piece of metal that pierced his right calf, it hit muscles only, no tendons, ligaments or arteries involved. The gash in his left forearm took forty stitches to close, he had five broken ribs, and like her was covered in a litany of other cuts and bruises. But he had also lost a great deal of blood. If it had taken any longer for them to be rescued he wouldn't have made it.
She kept thinking back to the things they had said while they were trapped and their enormously ambiguous confessions to one another. Here they were, both grown adults at thirty two who faced untold life and death situations every day with calmness and decisiveness, yet they couldn't articulate how they felt any better than a couple of shy teenagers. They really were just as fucked up it seemed as the pilots were, although they hadn't become overly aggressive or overly passive like Asuka and Shinji had, but in their own way they had still put up walls around themselves to prevent being hurt by losing someone close to them again. It was a natural defence mechanism it seemed to distance one's self from painful things even if that pain wasn't physical. Of course, given what they did for a living it probably wasn't a good idea to get too close anyway but it was something that they seemed to have had little control over.
They had gotten along well almost right from the start. He was a late addition to the group of recruits the Colonel had brought in, arriving about two and a half weeks into their 'boot camp' process. While the SIS itself was about as free of sexism as you could get, the group of recruits weren't quite so enlightened and those first couple of weeks had been pretty trying for her. She could handle it and while she tried her best not to have busting someone's face be her first response, it didn't always happen that way and every scrap only made it worse.
By the time Matt arrived she had gotten a little bit bitter...well more bitter and was just waiting for more of the same shit to come from him. Turns out they were closer to being in the same boat than she had thought. While she caught shit from the others for being a woman and a damn good looking one at that, he caught it for his size. At six foot eight and two hundred and seventy pounds the others saw him as a challenge to be met, that just because he was big he must think he was superior and needed to be brought down a notch, especially since he was late to the party.
She learned early on in training that he was nothing like the others. They got paired together for hand to hand sparring and he didn't pull any punches or treat her any differently than he did any of the others. He hit hard and it was her challenge to keep from being hit and she loved the fact that he wasn't afraid to knock her out if that's what it would take and he made no apologies. He expected her to be good enough to handle it.
They were also paired together for group exercises and while he wasn't the most talkative person at the time, they worked well together and he never once said or did anything that showed any animosity or resentment towards her. Not even when it was her turn to lead the pair during drills. He trusted her judgment and followed her lead, just as she did when it was his turn. The clincher for her overall opinion of him though was when one of the more bothersome louts got a little too full of himself one night and was bragging at the bar about how he was finally going to put her in her place.
When Matt slapped one of his big paws down on the guy's shoulder she was just about to tell him to piss off and that she didn't need his help to take down the jerkwad. She was surprised though when Matt told the guy, loud enough for everyone to hear, "If you think your balls are big enough to take her down then shut your fucking mouth and go do it...just don't come back crying when she uses your ugly fucking face for a floor mop."
The guy was more of an instigator than a doer, but Matt had put his back to the wall with his buddies so he had to either put up or shut up. The look that Matt gave her as he shoved the guy in her direction told her everything she needed to know. That look said 'Kick his ass, I've got your back.'` Kick his ass she did and it wasn't even close. Together then they proceeded to kick the asses of all of his buddies when they decided to get involved too and were sitting together at the bar having a beer when the security personnel finally arrived.
Early the next morning all of them were lined up in the main 'classroom' of the camp and being faced down by a very angry Colonel McKinnley. They were read the riot act and informed of how in all of his years in both the SAS and in running the SIS he had never seen such a collection of disgraceful idiots. Many of them were surprised that what they thought was loose supervision by the training camp staff was actually part of the entire exercise to see how they all interacted without interference from their overseers. The Colonel didn't just want top flight field operatives, he wanted good people with integrity and character. They were informed that the camp was coming to a premature end because of their actions and every single one of them had to stand before the group and listen to the Colonel's assessment of them and he didn't pull any punches. They were the last two he got to and they were the only ones who weren't booted from the camp in disgrace, being exactly the kind of operators he was looking for.
The others were mortified and got a bigger shock when they found out that of the twenty in the camp, her and Matt were the only ones who had been recruited to attend and hadn't gone through an application process. Even worse, the Colonel informed them that a full report on every one of them would be going back to the Commanding Officer of their regular units along with them and that their conduct here would be part of their permanent service record.
After the other eighteen were escorted from the room to be processed out, the Colonel just stood and stared at them for a long while as they stood at attention before him. After several minutes he cracked a smile then began to laugh. As a reward for exceeding even his expectations for them they got to spend the next two weeks with him recruiting new hopefuls for the SIS, no more applying for it and then wasting time weeding out garbage like the last bunch. He would get recommendations from his network of trusted contacts and the three of them would go scout the talent. After all, they needed a new class of recruits to test themselves against before the real training started.
Once they started taking field missions they quickly became the best the SIS had. They worked together so well that it was almost uncanny, as if they had trained together their whole lives. Out of the field they became pretty much inseparable and the best of friends, and there was never any question that whatever they decided to do with their downtime most of it was going to be spent together. They really were all that each other had and life seemed to be much easier to navigate together. With the SIS and him specifically, she had finally found someplace where she fit.
Even with as well as they got along it took a long time before they began to open up about the more personal aspects of their lives and started to get to know each other as well as they did now. It had actually been good to be able to share that with someone who knew where she was coming from, who understood about losing someone close. It made her feel less alone somehow. She didn't know exactly when their unstated connection to each other became what it apparently was now, that was how seamlessly it had happened she guessed. Without even knowing or realizing it they became silently and irrefutably intertwined. It was nice and kind of frightening all at the same time.
The truth was, they needed each other. They were the best at what they did because they had the skills to do it, the resolve to do it, and they were cold enough to do it, but they did their best not to lose their humanity and that was one of the most important things that they did for each other. Their job was not one that you could do without retaining some shred of your humanity or else you were in danger of becoming what you hunted. It was also not a job you could do without taking a break now and then and they had been at it for too long of a stretch the last couple of years. Their desire to hunt down SEELE was pretty much an all consuming crusade and they had been in almost constant action since she went active again after getting shot. They had been walking that razor sharp, jagged edge for a little too long now without respite and she could feel her sore, aching body, and her current ragged and worn mental state perfectly reflecting how she felt inside right now.
After coming to Tokyo 3 and learning about the people here that they became involved with, she was kind of amused to see the parallels between her and Matt and Shinji and Misato Katsuragi. Matt kept his personal apartment relatively neat while she was a slob and her place usually only got cleaned if he came by and then gave her the gears over it before helping her tidy up. He could cook while she relied on take out and anything she could toss in the microwave. He could play an instrument, the guitar and he was good at it, while she didn't seem to have an artistic bone in her body.
On a more troubling note, when she also emulated Katsuragi by getting drunk off her ass to chase away a demon or two, Matt was always there to take care of her, even if he had been drinking with her so that she didn't drink alone. She really hoped that Katsuragi came out of the Evangelion okay so that they could renew acquaintances. She could finally introduce her to Matt and no doubt she would tease the hell out of her over him. When they had spent time together when she was in Germany she hadn't realized just how much she talked about her partner until Misato had started teasing her about him.
But, she would have to get out of the Evangelion's core first and Matt would have to wake up and she didn't know if either one of those was a sure bet. She'd give just about anything right now to hear him give her the gears about something, or make one of his horrible puns, or tease her about being a nasty bitch that no one liked. It was bullshit and he knew it but he only did it because she tended to scowl more than she smiled and coupled with how tall she was some people tended to think she was even more of a hard ass than what she was. It was kind of the inside joke of the SIS, like she was their boogeyman or something.
"Wake up already Canuckle-head," she pleaded softly. "You've been asleep for four days, that's long enough don't you think?"
"Oh no, what has happened to my Big Bear?" a worried sounding, German accented, female voice suddenly was heard to say.
She turned quickly in that direction, a movement that her wounded head was not at all in agreement with, and was greeted by the sight of a short blonde haired woman wearing desert sand coloured shorts and a matching short sleeved uniform shirt worn open over a black tank top, and a pair of worn hiking boots. It was quite a surprise to see their friend Mina Krause of GSG-9 standing just inside the door. She had been so preoccupied with her thoughts and worries that she hadn't even heard the door click open.
"Mina...what are you doing here?" she asked.
The German woman walked up to the end of the bed, her concerned eyes never leaving its occupant. "I think the Chancellor had an attack of guilt for not letting us be part of the hunt for SEELE or for allowing us to come and back you up here before now. She is embarrassed that so much of the shit was coming from our country, especially Kiel and the mercenaries." She looked over at her. "The Colonel gave me and Ehrlich the full briefing, I know what you know. I suspect I got just as drunk afterwards too."
"Even he got totally shitfaced," Lake said. "First time I ever saw him that drunk. He actually passed out."
Mina's eyes went wide. "That's a lot of booze, he's like a fucking camel. He out drank Vogel that night in Munich and that's not supposed to be possible. And he walked back to the hotel."
"More like stumbled but that might be because he was carrying my immobile and incoherent carcass on his back," Lake admitted. She closed her eyes and winced, rubbing her head with her good right hand.
"You okay Cowgirl?" The blonde asked. "And don't say you're fine. We talked to the doctors and the Colonel so I know how wrecked you are."
"The headaches from this concussion are a bitch," she sighed. "Could be worse though, at least it just scrambled my brains, the doctor said if I got hit any harder it likely would have busted my skull. Gonna take a while before I'm right again. As fucked up as I am though, at least I'm awake, even if they think I should be spending my time asleep instead of sitting here."
The German sat on the corner of the bed. "You should be but I know you won't, just like he wouldn't when you got shot. Funny how when the 'Hands of the Reaper' end up in the hospital it's always together."
"People still call us that?" Mel smirked.
"Among other things," Mina chuckled. "There are a lot of groups of bad guys out there that want you two dead but they're too scared of you to attempt it. They just hope they can skate along doing what they do without you noticing. Over the last couple of years especially the two of you have built a fearsome reputation." She gave the taller woman a look of false anger. "One of the last groups we took down were actually relieved that it was us and not you and the Big Bear that got them. Talk about humiliating."
"I'm sure you got over it Monkey Girl," she drawled. "Probably went and climbed up the side of a building or something to vent your frustrations."
"It was the President of Deutsche Bank's condo building actually and I got pictures of him knocking boots with a suspected agent of the Chinese government." She sighed. "Even when I try to play, work intrudes."
"I'm sure you'd have rather climbed him," Mel said, jerking a thumb towards her partner.
"Been there, done that, and really want to do it again," the blonde admitted proudly with a big, happy grin. "I take it you still haven't?" She smirked when the tough as nails Cowgirl gave her the finger but otherwise avoided her gaze. It was the closest equivalent to a blush anyone would ever get out of the hard ass, though she would never ever admit to it and poking her about it would literally be fighting words. When her friend still hadn't responded she took another dig.
"I'm not greedy, I'll even share him with you. Hell, I'll even help you out. I'm not against going both ways, especially if it's the two of you."
"You sure you didn't fall on your fucking head after you climbed that condo?" Sadly, if there was one thing that she had never put much thought into it was her sex life or the general lack thereof. She couldn't say though that she didn't find Matt attractive, but most of their time together had been spent taking bad guys apart and keeping themselves from falling apart when they weren't. As stupid as it sounded it was almost like they were too close to get close that way. And now Mina...fuck she didn't know whether to take her seriously or not or how she should feel about it if she was freaking serious. Right now, she was way too fucked up to even worry about it.
"So he was playing hero was he?" Mina asked, giving her a break.
"He claims it was coincidental," she answered, glad for the reprieve. "Idiot said he would have done it anyway even if it wasn't." She looked over at him, her eyes taking on a distant look. "I woke up to see him over me holding up a fucking slab of concrete and with two pieces of steel run through him. He was bleeding all over me and I could see how bad it hurt but he acted like it was no big deal."
"Just like him," Mina agreed. "Are all Canadians like him?"
"Couldn't say," she answered. "He's the only one I know." She turned to the blond. "What am I going to do if he doesn't wake up? He keeps me sane and human. He's that big fucking immovable object that's always at my back."
"Good thing...you won't have...to find out," he told them, his voice weak and groggy. They were greeted by the sight of his green eyes slowly cracking open. "I'm not...that easy to...get rid of...remember?"
"You big, stubborn...don't fucking scare me like that," Mel admonished quietly.
To Mina's ears it sounded like she was trying very hard not to let her voice crack with too much emotion. With a mischievous grin on her face she got off the corner of the bed and stepped around to Mel's right, took her hand and placed it over Matt's. Not coincidentally she left her hand on top of both, mostly to make sure they stayed like that but also to let her friends know she was there for them both.
"Don't be such a wimp Cowgirl," she admonished lightly. "Or are you too afraid that someone might see you being something other than hard as a rock? Truth is I'm ready to cry too. Stupid pride...we're all fucking idiots."
"Sorry," he apologized thickly as he wiggled his fingers a little to let both of them know that he appreciated the gesture.
"I knew you wouldn't die but you scared me too Big Bear," Mina said. "When you get better I expect to be compensated for that. We both do, even if she won't admit it." Mel tried to glare at her but it lacked fire and she cheekily just stuck her tongue out at the brunette in response.
"Don't get ahead of yourself Monkey."
"Half dead and I still have two women fighting over me," he said, sounding a little bit more coherent. "I must really be something."
"Want me to tell you what?" Mel cracked.
"Don't worry Matty," Mina said. "I'll keep the evil bitch at bay and nurse you back to health."
"I can just imagine what that would entail," Mel snarked lightly.
"I'll go tell the doctor that you finally woke up," Mina said, giving her the finger. "Try not to jump him while I'm gone Cowgirl."
"It took me ten minutes to get myself into this wheelchair and it will take twice that to get back out," Mel shot back. "I'm pretty sure he's safe."
The German just smirked at her as she walked out of the room, adding a little extra wiggle for his benefit.
"Crazy as a fucking bed bug," Mel huffed. "No wonder we like her."
"She's our kind of crazy," he said thickly. He gave her a wink and squeezed her hand. "You're a mess, but thanks for being here."
"And you're not?" she said, squeezing back. "Where the hell else would I be?"
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