Chapter 01 - It started with a smile

She looked into the mirror while binding the bow tie of her scholluniform.
Who are you?
"I am Rei Ayanami."
What are you doing?
"Living."
Why are you living?
"I... I don´t know..."


***


Mountain Fugotoyama

In the distant city of Tokio-3 all lights went out at the same second.

Shinji Ikari closed his eyes and draw a deep breath. It had started...

He sat on the metal catwalk on top of the provisorical cage that kept EVA-01 in position.
To his right was the colossal head of the purple-green EVANGELION, his EVANGELION.

His EVANGELION... No, this was wrong, he feared unit-01, it followed him sometimes even
into his dreams. And still he had to climb into the entryplug and battle the angels with
the mecha...

His eyes wandered to the side.

Divided from him by a chasm sat Rei Ayanami, pilot of unit-00 on a similar catwalk that
belonged to a similar cage holding the orange-white other EVANGELION.
She didn´t looked at him, looking straight forward, arms put around her knees, looking
lost but determined.

"We could die tonight..." he wispered. He didn´t called her courage his own and most
probable she knew this. He had spoken very lowly but she seemed to have heard him, because
she answered.

"Why do you say this?"

"Doesn´t it matter for you, what could happen?"

"It is my purpose to pilot EVA-00."

"Yes, but why are you doing it?"

She looked at him for a second before returning her gaze to the distant town.
He was surprised not to see despise, he had feared, but sorrow, and he asked himself if
she might feel as lonely as he felt himself.
"Because of my connection."

Shinji was surprised.
"Connection? To my father?"

"No. To all humans."

"To all... You have inner strenght, Ayanami, you are must stronger than I will ever be."

"I have nothing else."

Her monotonous voice send a shiver down his spine.
"Nothing else?" he repeated, a large dry spot within his throat forming.

She stood up.
"It´s time."

"Yes."

He got to his feet, too.

Both went to their entryplugs.

Rei stopped at the entry to her plug.
"You won´t die... I will protect you."

Shinji swallowed dryly. He knew that her words were honest.
"Ayanami..."

"Goodbye..."

Her words provoked an iron clamp squizing about his heart...


***


Midnight:

"Shinji, Rei?"

"Yes, Misato?" - "Yes, Captain Katsuragi?"

"It´s short befort twelfe. The operation starts. Shinji, we are giving you the full energy
of Japan."

"Ready."
His voice betrayed his unsecurity and fear.

The assaultrifle was ready, EVA-01 kneed behind the weapon, finger at the trigger.
Before unit-01 stood EVA-00, both hands at the provisorical shield made from a space shuttle´s
downside.

Inside the entryplug Shinji watched the monitors which showed the increase of energy.
More and more energy was cancelled into the rifle.
He closed the targetting visor.

His heart seemed to beat much faster than normal when he saw the angel zoomed up and close.

They had given the angel the codename Ramiel, it had the form of an oktaeder in black
and white. It was slowly drilling into the geofront, breaking through armorlayer for
armorlayer.

Ramiel had him nearly killed...

Once again he faced the memory, saw through his EVA´s eyes the beam of destructive energy
coming for him, thought to feel the impact, thought to be cooked alive in the heating
LCL. And then there was only darkness.

His heart had stopped beating...

With shocks they had brought him back, he had awaken in the medical ward, starring at a
ceiling he had started to hate.
And they had ordered him to pilot EVA-01 again, to fight Ramiel a second time.

He had refused...

Still he could feel the expression in Rei´s eyes when she looked at him, while telling
him that he should leave then. She had believed him a coward...

And he was a coward...
But he didn´t want to be one in her eyes without knowing the reason for this wish.
When he had arrived in Tokio-3 just a few weeks before he had been sure that it didn´t
matter for him if he lived or died, but suddenly he was afraid of the death.

He was afraid of unit-01, hadn´t wanted to pilot the EVANGELION ever again, but now he
sat again in the pilotseat, hands on the controls.

And all of this to make her not thinking of him as a coward any longer...

Four days ago he had turned fifteen, there hadn´t been a party, no congratutations from
the other children in his class who hadn´t known. Only Misato had congratulated him this
morning - and Rei who had seemed to be waiting for him at the school´s gate...

And because of this he was now here...

He activated the comlink, opening a visual connection to unit-00 to tell her, to use this
maybe last opportunity.
"Ayanami?"

"Yes, Ikari?"

It was forgotten what had wanted to tell her, his courage was lost, he only asked:
"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

The clock showed midnight. The rifle had enough energy.

He aimed.

The targetting visor helped him to make the nessescary corrections to bring the angel
into the center.
"Fire", Shinji whispered and pulled the trigger. A bright beam ran towards the angel.

At the same moment Ramiel reacted, maybe it had discovered it´s enemies before but had
ignored them as long as they had posed no danger, maybe it had some very good reflexes.
It fired it´s own energy beam at the hill where the EVAs were stationed.

Both beams met above Tokio-3, changing each others´ paths.

"Missed..." Shinji hissed and followed the instructions he was given via radio to prepare
the next shot. For a moment the angel was replaced by his father´s face in his imagination.

Again the angel fired.

EVA-00 brought the shield into position, the beam hit the ceramic layers, started to melt
them away.

Shinji looked at the chonometer, compared the countdowns. One showed him the remaining
time until the rifle was ready again, the other showed him that the shield wouldn´t hold
for this time, that two second would be missing in the end.
Two seconds...

The channel to unit-00 was still open.
"Ayamani, when the shield is gone, throw it away and run!"
Suddenly it didn´t mattered for him anymore that he would be unprotected if she followed his
suggestion, that he probable wouldn´t come to see the next sunrise anymore. She was so much
more couragous than he was, she had to live...

"No."
The shield desintegrated. EVA-00 stood up, shielding EVA-01 from the beam with it´s own
body.
"I will protect... aarrghhhh!"

The connection was interrupted.

"Ayanami!" Shinji screamed.

"Rifle is ready!" he heard Misato´s voice. She was nervous, but not as nervous as the boy
within the entryplug.

Shinji didn´t have to aim, he knew exactly, where the angel was, was nearly able to feel
it´s presence, pulled the trigger...

The following explosion showed him that he had hit, that Ramiel was destroyed, but he
didn´t care, his fellow pilot was more important.

"Ayanami!" again he screamed her name, hoping for an answer.
No connection...
EVA-00 was on the ground next to unit-01, not moving, the chessplate completly melted.
"Damned..."
He grabbed the piece of armor that sealed the entryplug, ripped it out of unit-00´s neck.

The other entryplug left the spine of unit-00, spraying hot LCL.

He made EVA-01 grab the plug and place it softly on the ground, evacuated his own plug
manually.
He couldn´t remember exactly how he had climbed down the backside of unit-01, the next
clear memory was the pain in his hands as he used the hot emergence wheel of the entrydoor
to gain entrance to her plug, as the heat was eating through his plugsuit and into his
hands.
The pain didn´t mattered, Ayanami was more important...
With clenched teeth he pulled the door open, entered Rei´s entryplug.

The bluehaired girl laid unmoving in the pilotseat, eyes closed, the face a mask of pain.

"Ayanami!"

The next second he was by her side.

She wasn´t breathing...

"Ayanami! No!" he screamed again, touched the side of her neck, searching for the artery.

Her heart wasn´t beating...

For a moment he starred at her with wide-open eyes, than he forced himself to remember
the First-Aid-crashcourse he had to participate in last year.
"Check beathing ways... free... Heartmassage... How... what if I break her rips... I have
to touch her... She will die if I run away... Now... Ayanami, don´t die... you can´t die...
What shall I do alone... without you... without your courage?... nothing... no reaction...
no move... mouth-to-mouth-resurrection... I... I am sorry, Ayanami, it has to be..."

Again he felt the urge to run away, if he was fast, he might be gone before Misato and the
others would be there, surely they were able to do more for Ayanami that he was... no...
if he run away she would be dead. And her blood would be on his hands. She mustn´t die,
how - where should he find the courage he himself was missing?

Again and again he pressed his hand on her chest, ignoring what he was touching. Again
and again he pressed his lips on hers, breathing his breath into her lungs.

"Ayanami, stay... please... don´t leave... stay with me..." he wispered.

A tremble went through her body.

He jumped back, prevented being hit as she moved forward and spat LCL mixed with green
stomach fluids. She let herself fall backwards.

"Ayanami..."
Tears were in his eyes.

She looked at him, weary and tired.
"I was..."

"Ayanami, please, don´t say again: ´I have nothing else´, please, never say again ´Goodbye´
when we march into battle... it is too sad..." the words he hadn´t been able to say before
the attack were just springing from his mouth.

"Why..." she wispered, "why are you crying? I´m sorry..."

´You don´t have to be sorry´, he wanted to shout, ´had I acted faster this morning we
wouldn´t be here now.´ But he didn´t.
"Ayanami, I am crying because you are alive... it´s happiness... I was afraid of losing
you..."

"Afraid? You were afraid because of me? Why?"
She coffed up some LCL.

"Because... because I cared... because I couldn´t..."

"I... I don´t know how to react in such a situation..."

"I think, you should smile..."
He couldn´t think of something better.

She blinked.

"Come, I help you getting up, a doctor should check you as soon as possible."
He reached out for her.

She took the hand, let him help her.

Their eyes met each other.

She had red eyes, scarlet eyes, beautiful, perfect eyes...

And she smiled. He knew, she smile for him...
In this moment he would have place his heart at her feet if she would have only mentioned
it...


***


She looked into the mirror while moving with the fingertips across her face.
Who are you?
"That´s me, I am Rei Ayanami."
What are you doing?
"I am living."
Why are you living?
"To pilot EVA-00"
Why are you living?
"To battle the angels."
Is that all?
"..."


***


An a near hilltop a lonely figure stood, an european with snowwhite hair and icegrey
eyes, clothed in a long grey coat, and looked into the night.
Despite the darkness he had been able to see every single detail of the battle, directly
in front of him a semi-transparent sphere was floating, showing him the remains of the
angel.

A white raven landed on his shoulder with a low croak. The man in grey looked up, a motion
of his hand caused the scrying sphere to vanish.

"What did you learn, Tymael?" he asked with scratchy voice.

The raven gave some croaks.

He nodded.
"So it is true, this creature is from the deep umbra... lets return to the temple of the
Brotherhood."


***


NERV, Ikari´s bureau:

"Captain Katsuragi, you wanted to talk to me?"
Gendo Ikari looked up from his notices. In front of his desk Captain Misato Katsuragi,
tactical commander, and Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, chief-scientist of the EVANGELION-Project.
"And Doctor Akagi... How can I help you?"

"We are here because of the First Children", Misato started.

"To my knowledge Rei didn´t suffer any long-term damages."

"That´s right, Sir, alas she won´t be able to pilot for the next days, even considering
her excellent konstitution the doctors think she will need a reconvalescence of at least
two weeks."

"And?"

"I want to asked again for her to move in with me."

"Captain..."

"I know your arguments, commander, but I have seen Rei´s apartment, it´s no place for
recovery."

"She will stay in the medical ward until the doctors think she´s ready again."

"Sir, I..."

"I do not want to discuss this, Captain", Ikari said sharply.

"Commander", Ritsuko interrupted, "I also think that Rei will recover faster and better
in company of others who can give her a helping hand. A little change won´t hurt her.
As the captain told me some days ago your son is quite a good cook - and we know both that
the cantina-food, that´s also served in the medical ward, has some... weaknesses... hasn´t
it?"

"Doctor Akagi, are you sure that Rei´s efficiency will return faster if she stays with
Captain Katsuragi?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Hm... well, Captain, you can take her with you. I will give orders to have Rei´s stuff
brought to your apartment."

"Thanks, Commander."

Misato and Ritsuko left the bureau, turning toward the next elevator.

"Why did I let you talk me into this", Ritsuko sighted. "We both know that this can have
a terrible ending..."

Misato grinned.
"Before we entered his room you were quite enthusiatic."

"Yes. And than I remember who will be in charge for poor Rei."

"Hey..."

"Okay, okay, maybe there will even be a success. Shinji seems to get along with her."

"They are similar."

"But you are moving on thin ice. If anything happens..."

"Then I will loose more than my rank, I know. Ritsuko, thanks you for the support."

"Well, in rememberance of the old times... no problem. Maybe our two hedgehogs will become
a bit more social when having some time together."

"Exactly my plan."

"It could do her synch-rate good... the EVAs react to emotions."

"You told me this already."
Misato pulled her cellphone out of her bag.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling Shinji, he will have to move some stuff from one room into the other so we will
have the space for Rei."

"Hm... let me do you a favor: I will give orders to the headquarter´s quartermaster
to deliever some pieces of furniture to your apartment. Surely you haven´t thought yet
that Rei will need a bed for example."

"Oh, no... thanks again, Ritsuko."

"I am doing this more in her interest, you might be able to put both of your wards into
the same bed."

Misato starred at Ritsuko, wanted to say something for her defense, saw that the corners
of her mouth were twitching.
"Be happy that we are already friends for such a long time..."
Both women started to laugh.


***


Rei stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom next to her room in the hospital.

"You should smile..." she wispered, remembering Shinji, outreaching for her.

She had smiled, had smiled for him...

"Why did I smile... Because he wanted me to do? To fulfill his wish? Yes... and no...
both... He has cried for me... I was afraid to have hurted him... he has been afraid for
me... he cares for me... He hurt his hands... exactly like the Commander... a coward
wouldn´t have done something like this... He cares for me, nobody else cares for me,
except the Commander, but he doesn´t see me but her and his scenario... He has saved my
life... my life is more important for him than his own...?"

She touched her lips with her fingerlips.

"He gave me his breath... has he done this because we are comrades in arms or because...
because he likes me? ... because I mean something for him? He said: Don´t go... Why?"

She did a step back, leaning against the wall behind her.
"Do I mean something for him? I want to know it... and maybe... maybe I will smile for him
again..."