This chapter contains mature content. Reader discretion advised.
Lucky for us, I guess, that the entry plug was rebuilt in less than a month.The most difficult part to rebuild and attach was the crossbar. Part of it had been left on the plug's seat, and trying to get the new half to match was a very hard task. It taxed the patience of us all, but we somehow managed to hang on until it was done. The power test finally had a green light. We cheered.
Now I had to face my fears. I hadn't had a bad dream since the plug had been ruined, except from the normal dreams most people had, the ones that made next to no sense. Now, I put the plug suit on with the realization that I would be getting back into the plug, and testing it out. I stared at myself in our mirror for a long time.
"You can do it," I whispered to myself. "I know you can."
*****
The LCL flowed up around my ears and over my head. I breathed in, feeling the liquid fill my lungs. It felt good; I hadn't realized how much I had missed that, although I knew I didn't miss getting it out of my body afterwards.
The viewscreen changed colours and then focused; everything was much larger, as I had come to expect.
"Here we go again," I said to myself, leaning back in my seat.
The test began. Tashi wanted to see how long I could stay in the plug without having to come out. He said something like it'll give him an idea how long I can stay in the plug before they can rescue me safely. I chose to block out the implications of that. He said that he would make Risa take the same test soon as well.
So all I could do was sit there with my thoughts and stare at things around me. After awhile I fell asleep. I woke up once or twice. The dreams came back. I was Midori again, and this time in a situation I KNEW never happened. I could actually feel the Unit taking over my mind this time, even though I was mostly asleep.
"Shinji-kun...," I whisper, staring up at him.
I stirred.
"Shhh..." he breathes, his eyes dark. He barely moves,
"No..." I muttered. "These...."
"I love you Midori." He bends his head and presses his lips to mine.
"Aren't....mine...."
I return the kiss, moving my arms around his back to pull him closer.
"Not...mine..."
One of his hands travels into my hair, raking it back gently, while the other travels down my side, pulling my shirt out of my school skirt.
"Not mine!!"
The feel of his skin sliding over mine, our bodies locked in a passionate embrace.
"STOP IT!!!!"
The Unit released it's hold on me. I woke up, shaking and struggling against the crossbar of the plug. "THOSE WERN'T MY MEMORIES!!!" I screamed, almost incoherent. "WHY WERE YOU FORCING THEM ON ME?! THEY AREN'T MINE!!!!!!"
I wanted to know you.
The voice was so different, I stopped dead. "What?" I asked. It was so hard to breathe. It was difficult to supress the panic I was starting to feel. I could barely see, barely breathe...
I wanted to know you, it repeated.
"Who...who are you?" I whispered, holding myself absolutely still. My stomach clenched violently with terror. The LCL, normally a clear yellow-tinted liquid, was murky and clouded.
My name is...I don't remember my name. But I used to be human...once...
More images of the dark haired boy from the false memories flashed quickly through my head.
"You're..." My voice was barely audible. "Let me out! I want out! Please," I begged.
I only wanted to know you. I'm sorry if I made you unhappy. I promise there'll be no more dreams.
"You're...you're Shinji..." The plug went dark again.
I woke this time to Tashi's face right over me, and Risa's just beyond his. "Mei, Mei, oh thank everything, you're alright," he was babbling. He pulled me up tight against his chest, burying his face in my hair.
LCL still ran down my forehead, temple, cheeks and neck from my hair, some of which was plastered to my skin. It itched. My vision was fuzzy at the edges. I blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the dizzying height of the Eva above me, it's head bent as if to watch me.
I wanted to know you.
"What...what happened?" I asked, my voice cracking. I closed my eyes to stop my head from spinning.
"It was the Eva," Risa replied, placing her hand in mine. "It wouldn't let go of the plug. We were doing another test -- do you remember that?"
A flash of the entry plug, open and waiting; Tashi's face and voice as the door closed. "It'll be over soon."
"Yes," I whispered.
"The Eva...it accepted the plug, but then it wouldn't let go. We tried everything...even prying it open. You've been in there for almost 16 hours...it wasn't supposed to go that long. It only just let you go. The plug came out all on it's own."
I opened my eyes to stare up at the Unit again. It was more in focus. "Shinji...," I whispered, wondering if I actually said anything at all. Then I closed my eyes and passed out.
When I came to, I was lying on one of the long pallets Risa used in her medical area. Kyle was sitting next to me, a bored expression on his face. "Oh, you're awake," he said. He got up and walked to the door, leaning out of it and hollering down it that I was awake.
I tried to ignore him. There was something in his manner today that I didn't like, but couldn't pinpoint. It became easy to ignore him once I turned my mind back to the experience in the plug.
I guessed then that the dreams were a result of the turmoil inside the EVA. I still remember the Unit telling me that I was lot like it's son, Shinji. I can't understand why the Unit would switch it's concious like that, and I suppose I never will. The memories of what he was supposed to look like flashed quickly through my mind. He reminded me of Tashi. Dark of hair and eye with a brooding, almost pensive expression on his face...I shook my head clear of those images and focused my mind on something else. Like how long I had been in the plug.
Sixteen hours, Risa had said. That was a long time. She also said that it wasn't supposed to have gone that long. So just how long was I supposed to be in there?
Risa and Tashi came in then and took up chairs by my bed. "How do you feel?" Risa asked right away.
I smiled weakly. Just like a doctor..."Better, I suppose," I replied softly. "Better than I did in the plug, at least."
She nodded professionally. Then she dropped the medical front and hugged me."Don't ever scare us like that again," she whispered in my ear. She sounded like she was trying not to cry.
I managed to get one arm up off the bed to drape it over her back and hug her back. "I won't," I promised.
She sat up, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. It was Tashi's turn to hug me. He didn't say anything for a long time. When he did, his voice was so rough with suppressed emotions that I couldn't be sure of what he said. It sounded like, "I thought I'd lost you."
"What happened?" I asked, the events I could remember being all mixed up in my mind.
Risa and Tashi looked at each other for a moment. "It's kind of a long story..." Tashi started.
"And I, as your doctor, am forbidding the complete hearing of it until after you eat," Risa said firmly. "You need to wake up a bit more; you've been asleep for a whole day.
A whole day?! That's a long time! My mind shied away from the possibilities of what I could have done in that time. "So what have you been doing in that time?" I asked then.
Tashi shrugged. "A lot of repairs again," he avoided the question. "Unit-00 had a fit earlier today."
My head swung around to Risa right away, my eyes focusing on her as quickly as I could get them too. She was showing the signs she had displayed earlier when Unit-00 had fits with her in them. A certain tension and weariness in her stance and face, the way her eyes darted about nervously...I felt sad that the Unit would subject her to that after they had finally synchronized.
"Any idea why?" I inquired, still watching Risa, though I already knew the answer. None of us had any idea why Unit-00 had fits.
"Mei, does Unit-01 talk to you?" Risa interupted.
I was a bit surprised. "Sure he does," I replied, almost without thinking about it.
She smiled. "I knew it! Unit-00 talked to me today. It's the first time it's ever done that...Wait a minute! He?"
It was my turn to smile. "It's kind of a long story," I explained. "I, as your patient, forbid the retelling of it until I hear everything else I missed while I was asleep."
She laughed outright at her own words thrown back at her. "All right, I'll wait and suffer until you finally get around to telling me."
I stuck my tongue out at her.
Some time later, both of us had said our pieces. I had woken up just in time for dinner, apparently, and they were quite ready to stay up for a while longer with me and keep me entertained.
It turned out that the test had run hours over the time Tashi had slotted for it. He, Risa and Kyle had all been keeping an eye on the monitors to make sure that I was alright. They had taken turns to keep themselves awake after staring at a screen for hours on end. They had tried everything to get the Unit to release the plug when my life signs started wavering and eventually dropping, rather rapidly. Nothing had worked. Then it had just released it all on its own.
That led into my story. I told them how Unit-01 had talked to me almost since the first day we had "met" and how it was the mother of the previous pilot, Ikari Shinji. Then I told them about the dreams and detailed a couple in, glazing over most and not mentioning a lot of them at all. It all ended with Shinji being the Unit's concious rather than his mother's. And then I had been asleep since then, so I didn't know anything else.
"That's the wierd thing," Tashi said when I had finished. "We weren't anywhere near Unit-00 when it had a fit. It activated all by itself and started pounding the walls. It didn't last long of course, and only it's knuckles were scratched a bit. But Risa just dropped to the floor, clutching her head and clawing at the thought sensors." I had noticed a long time ago that only me and Risa wore thought sensors almost all the time. Tashi had stopped wearing his when he found out that he would never be a pilot. I remembered something then.
"Has that white Unit we cut the chest plate off for Unit-00 done anything?" I asked suddenly. They looked surprised.
"No..." Tashi said slowly. "What's that got to do with anything?"
I thought over what I wanted to say so it wouldn't come out in a big mess. "When I was cutting the plate, I thought it was making some kind of thought noise that was pain, but it said 'exultation'. I don't know...maybe I'm going crazy that the Units can talk to us if they want to, as long as we're wearing the thought sensors."
"No, it's a good theory," Tashi said thoughtfully, tapping his chin with a forefinger and staring off at nothing.
"It said that it didn't like Unit-01," Risa confided, leaning close to me. "It said that it wanted to get away as fast as it could."
It was my turn to be thoughtful. "I think there was a record on the computer before that file got lost that Unit-00 reacted badly to Shinji," I told her slowly, my brow wrinkiling with the effort of thinking back so far to files long beyond our reach. "I bet if we were to switch for a day and take compatiability tests, I'd do horrible in Unit-00. It didn't like me the first time. I'm sure that Unit-01 would have no problem with you."
Not long after that, I felt tired again and had to go to bed.
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Characters & concept: © 1997-2002 Katsura /\ Evangelion © Gainax