When I woke up, all I could remember was the pain.
I stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where I was. When my sluggish mind finally placed where I was, I turned my head to one side, and stared at the tubes running to the plastic mask I wore over my mouth, at the tubes that ran to a needle inserted into my arm. I hated needles...why wasn't I scared of that one now?
My head felt light, and it was hard to think. I tried to remember how I had gotten into this bed, and what had happened to me to warrant the use of a breathing mask and IV tubes. The last thing I did remember was the pain in my shoulder.
I lifted my hand to feel my shoulder. It was fine.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Why couldn't I remember?
I stared up at the ceiling, at it's bright whiteness. I thought absently that I had no idea how the workers Carson had brought in had gotten everything so clean. It had all been so dirty... I hissed as the thought of Carson sunk in. Why couldn't he just go away and never come back?
The door opened. I swung my head to see who it was. It was Risa. She was dressed normally for once, in a pair of pants and a shortsleeved shirt. I couldn't see what she wore on her feet.
She walked up to me, carrying a tray. "You're up," she stated obviously. "How do you feel?" She set the tray down by my feet and walked around my bed to check the monitor by my head.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
"It's alright, you don't have to tell me. I can see that you are just fine." She smiled at me and laid her hand on my forehead. "Let's take this mask off now. You should be able to breathe by now." She took hold of the mask and lifted it up and over my head. "Better?"
I nodded. Fresh air...
She let me out that evening. In the course of the day, I had regained my voice and my strength, and my eyes stopped being blurry so that I was looking at everything normally and not like it was through water or wavy glass. Carson pretended that he was so relieved that I was alright. He must have been feeling sick; he let me spend time with Tashi and Risa.
Tashi was relieved that I was alright. He hugged me and then held me at arm's length and stared at me, like he was trying to etch my face in his memory. His eyes were haunted.
"So what happened up there?" I asked finally as we finished dinner. I hadn't eaten much; I didn't really feel very hungry yet, but I had to eat to keep my strength up.
Tashi and Risa both froze for a moment and looked at each other. Tashi slowly set his fork on the edge of his plate and dropped his hands to his lap.
"We don't really know," he said slowly. "We did have to go up to recover Unit-01 though..."
"Why? What happened?" I looked back and forth between them.
"It was...stuck," Risa said uncomfortably.
"Stuck? What the hell does that mean?"
"We should show you," Tashi said, standing up. "It's messy..."
I was almost angry that they wouldn't tell me. I had a right to know. It was my Eva they were talking about!!
I wished they hadn't taken me to see it afterwards.
The shoulder that had blown apart was in bandages of some kind. It looked wierd, one shoulder standing straight up as normal and the other just a stub. More bandages covered the leg that had been damaged. I knew about those.
The others...I didn't know about.
The chest plate was bent in four or five places. One or two of them had some kind of liquid dried around the edges. The left side of the jaw was missing. I could see pieces of the armor stuck in the flesh underneath. No bandages covered that. The right arm was bent at an awkward angle. Technicians were busy, hard at work setting up a sling or something next to it. An awful smell blanketed the entire area.
"What happened?" I asked again, trying not to be sick.
"There was even less left of whatever it was," Tashi said, a little too calmly.
"It was an Angel," I told him.
"Mmm. At any rate, Unit-01 ended up in the side of a hill. It took us two days to dig it out."
"Two days?! How long was I out?" My head started to hurt.
"Three," Risa said. "The first priority was the entry plug. It wasn't really hard to get it out, 'cause the Unit was lying on it's side. We nearly lost you..."
"Shinji could tell me what happened," I interrupted her.
I saw Tashi set his jaw at my comment. "Maybe, but I am not letting you into the entry plug until the Unit has been repaired -- "
"Why can't you believe me that Shinji is real, that Eva is a person?" I demanded of them both.
"We do believe you, Mei," Risa started.
"No you don't!" I stamped my foot. I had never been this frustrated before. Since when had I ever displayed such childish emotions? "I can't show you Shinji -- I've never seen him myself, even, but he is REAL! That was an Angel out there, and I am far more likely to trust what Shinji tells me than anything you two could! He's been there, he's done all of this before!" I turned away from them and ran off.
Where on earth had that come from?
I lay facedown on my bed, holding my pillow in my arms. I stared at the wall. The lights were off. My door was locked.
I felt horrible. How could I have yelled at Tashi and Risa like that?
I wanted to apologize to them, but I didn't know how. I had meant everything I'd said...but not the way I'd said it. How can someone apologize for the way they tell the truth?
Carson had come once, asking to be let in, but I ignored him. He asked me politely that he'd like to talk to me about some things when I was feeling better. The words barely registered in my head.
My doctor left food at my door, asking me -- no, pleading with me -- to eat.
Tashi and Risa didn't even walk by.
I closed my eyes. Had I driven them away? The only friends I'd ever had?
Tashi did eventually have to talk to me. He stopped at my door, knocked once on it. "Mei, Unit-01 is finished repairs. We'll be running a sync test tomorrow." Then he left.
I was there for the test. I didn't talk to him except for when asked questions. I didn't say anything to anyone after it was over. Just went to take a bath to get rid of the LCL and then went back to my room, locking the door again.
A week after that, Shinji started talking to me again.
I'm sorry I disappeared like that, he said during another sync test.
"What happened?" I asked.
I needed to focus everything on the Angel.
"And afterwards?"
Well....you were knocked unconcious. I had to protect you.
"Is that the only reason?"
Pretty much...Mei, I never told you what I was going to that day...
"I don't want to hear it now."
If I don't tell you now, I'm likely to never tell you.
"Mei, the ratio just dropped 0.4%," Tashi's voice came. "Please try to concentrate."
"I'll try," I answered emotionlessly, even though I knew he couldn't hear me. I had my internal microphones turned off.
I care about you Mei...more than I should.
"So?"
So I look at everything as how I should protect you. From Angels, from everything dangerous in your life that I can affect!
"You really want to protect me?"
Yes.
"Then protect me from myself."
Pause. You're not taking me seriously.
"No, I'm not, am I."
I wish you would.
"Why."
Because I am being completely serious! I really do care about you Mei...I know you're upset about what you said to Tashi and Risa, but you had to do it. We are facing a serious threat here. Who knows how many more Angels will come? They have one purpose -- to destroy NERV and Eva and unite with Lillith. That's all they want. We have to keep them from doing that! It happened once before...I'm surprised there's still people around, even. How could anyone have survived...In short, I want to make sure that you survive through this. We need you... I need you...I need you to be a part of me, to be one with me...
What was he talking about? Something inside of me snapped.
"Abort the test!" Tashi was shouting one moment, and the next, "Mei! Mei, are you alright?"
I looked up at him and tried to clear my eyes of the bluriness I saw him through. I managed to gain enough of my senses to tell that I was covered in LCL, lying on the catwalk outside the entry plug in Tashi's arms. "What happened?" I asked, my voice choked.
"Something went wrong. All of a sudden, the ratios reversed entirely and we had to abort the test...Whatever happened, it was because of you." He wasn't trying to be accusing. I knew it was because of me. I had felt it snap. I started to cry.
"I'm sorry," I said, tears slipping silently down my cheeks. I smiled weakly at him. "I shouldn't have yelled at you...I didn't mean to yell at you. It was all true though...It was an Angel, and Shinji knew it, so I knew it as well. Eva is a person, a soul lives inside it. That soul belongs to Shinji, yet it is a part of Eva..."
"Mei, be quiet," Tashi said. He looked horrified or something close to it. "You don't know what you're saying--"
"I do know what I'm saying," I assured him, lifting one hand to pat his cheek. The LCL-soaked glove of my plug suit made a wet -splatsplat- sound against his skin. "I finally understand..." I smiled again and then passed out.
Things were finally getting back to normal.
It had been a month since the Angel attack. Unit-01 had been fully and completely repaired. I decided not to ask where the materials had come from. Risa had decided to stay with us, after all. Best of all, the red Unit was finally finished all of its repairs.
The last of the corrupted files had listed the red Unit as Unit-02. The identifying features -- four eyes, among others -- matched. It was really ugly. Worse than my Unit-01. It gave me the creeps...four eyes, staring at me...
Tashi had me run the preliminary test on it, using my entry plug and inserting it into Unit-02 so I could give all the systems a check and make sure they ran properly. I was willing to do it; Risa professed that she couldn't even walk near the thing, why would she want to go inside it?
"I'll just disrupt all the systems because I won't be able to think straight," she explained.
The Unit felt different...much different, but I expected that. However, it responded to every command I gave it and before the test was over, it felt almost normal to me. Maybe it would feel better to whoever it was we got to pilot it.
I climbed out of the plug, dripping in LCL. Carson was waiting to hand me a towel to dry my face with. "Bad news," he said quietly as I took it.
I buried my face in the towel. "So what is it?" I asked, my voice muffled.
"There was a demand for another press conference of sorts about an hour ago. A bunch of people in western countries got together and talked it over. Then they called me. Apparently, it has to do with that thing that attacked us last month."
I looked up at him, the towel still covering my nose and mouth. "Tell them no way," I said flatly.
He gave me a frustrated glare. "We have to, Precious. I don't know a thing about what happened."
"Lemme tell you something -- I don't either. I was unconcious for most of it. Unit-01 did all of the fighting, not me. If you really want answers to what happened, ask Unit-01." I know I was only making him mad. I had just about had it. I still hated him.
He narrowed his eyes. "It doesn't talk to me the way it talks to you, Precious," he said sweetly. "I couldn't ask it anything that it would respond to. Well, except...I'm not getting into that." He raised his hand and took my chin into it, forcing my head up so that I was looking at him. "They made threats, Precious, very ugly threats. All they have to do is print an article about how NERV is nothing but a well put-on show and that we're a sham, and we are DONE for. We are getting corporate support from some of the most powerful companies in the world. We can't afford to lose that support -- I can't afford to lose that support. If you ruin this for me, I will be very, very angry. Do you understand me?"
I nodded. He let me go; I rubbed my cheeks where his fingers had pressed hard into my flesh. "I'll tell them we'll host it at the end of next week," he said calmly. "I'll talk to you again before then, Precious." With a charming smile, he spun on heel -- that annoying coat swinging out -- and walked away, his shoes clicking on the catwalk.
I glowered at his back for a moment before returning to wiping my face clean and giving my hair a quick rub.
After my shower, I joined Tashi and Risa in C&C. There were more people here now; the place didn't feel so huge anymore, with more bodies filling it. They were going through a pile of papers that were spread out over a corner of the floor.
I sat down, making a triangle with them. "Can I help?" I asked.
Tashi reached beside him without looking and handed me a small stack of papers. "Look through these," he said, not looking up. "These are applications for Eva pilots, believe it or not. That pile is all the candidates who are the right age and have no mothers or prominent female figures in their lives."
"Why should that matter?" I asked, flipping through the stack. All of them at least had pictures attached, some came with a disk as well.
"It was in the files before I lost them," he explained, glancing at another paper and putting it on a stack that was already quite large. "Only 14-year-olds with no mothers or prominent female figures can pilot. It didn't explain much more than that. That's why I couldn't pilot in the first place. I had a mother. I didn't look up to her very much, but she was there."
"My mother was never around anyway," Risa said. "She was a doctor. I never got to see her. She was never there for me. My dad was, though, but that's not the point."
"I figure you'll be able to choose the pilot better than either of us could," Tashi went on. "You were inside it. You know it better than us."
I made a face. "Not much better," I said, reading what I could of the top piece of paper. I was surprised that I could understand a lot of it. It still took me three times as long as Tashi or Risa to read a paper though.
We were there for a very long time.
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Characters & concept: © 1997-2002 Katsura /\ Evangelion © Gainax