(Disappointment)

So, what did we usually talk about?

The Commander and I?

What began as a simple inquiry to better answer Ikari-kun's simple question lingered in my mind as an unanswered conundrum, which by its very presence demanded to be addressed.

Commander Ikari was important to me, special even so it seemed right that I should have some answer. Some salient, important, significant characteristics that made his words stand out as meaningful.

This I pondered, such philosophy induced by the very practical need for it, running through my mind the next time I found myself sitting besides him in a helicopter, going from somewhere to somewhere else on yet another of the many endless errands required for the great work.

"So, Rei, how is it going? How do you feel?" he asked.

I pictured how we might look to some hypothetical outside observer viewing the flying machine from the outside, their view of the capsule cut in halves by the pillars between its glass windows.

They might almost seem to split us into two separate little worlds.

It occurred at me then to look at him – this man that had never given me a reason to thank him.

Seen in profile, his eyes were unfocused, his distant gaze affixed to some uncertain point beyond the window of the craft.

I heard myself answering like I usually did, following the same, familiar patterns of conversation, answering only what was asked of me:

"Oh. There are no problems. - Today, I will spend the day with Dr. Akagi again, and after that, I'll be going back to school."

"And how's school?" he added, casually, almost as an afterthought.

"There are no problems either."

He asked nothing further.

I used to be touched, I think, that he would ask about my time in school even thought it was nothing to do with the project.

I used to think this was all I'd ever get – and that I had no chance of knowing how close this might come to a 'real' human connection, something that was about as abstract and theoretical to be as the chemical composition of rock on the backside of the dwarf planet pluto or the anatomy of the animals in the hadal trenches of the ocean, so far from my direct experience that a new source could easily tell me otherwise, everything I could conclude based on extrapolations from minute trickles of uncertain data.

And this is how I always expected it to remain.

Or perhaps my reason was not as unclouded as I'd hoped, the lines of the bare chalkboard sketch just a little bit bent by the certainty that, if I ever dared to hope for more, I would be naked and exposed before the looming certainty of not getting it, reason profaned as a tool to tell me that it was pointless to want what it was impossible to get to begin with.

That I need not fret over expecting what would never come, or be anxious to lose what it was never possible to received to begin with, so that I might look on with clear, focused sight.

Yet it seems that might have been another leftover layer of bias to be stripped back as soon as it was identified:

The idea, once sparked by impressions of what was previously unknown, would no longer let itself be stuffed back into pandora's box.

What had been seen could not be unseen.

What I'd once assumed to be there in some featureless intuitive way, accepted without scrutiny in the simplistic manner of a child, or perhaps simply assumed, as the incomplete, incorrect recognition of a pattern:

Once I looked at it, it could no longer be found.

Once my blurred sights sharpened, the artifact was gone.

A gestalt impression of the whole disappearing once all the individual parts had been perceived.

The trickle of incidental breadcrumb attention that once seemed a necessary lifeline now struck me suddenly as something different in this sober after-light:

What were we discussing, but superficial scripted platitudes?

How was it different from the simple pleasantries often discussed my classmates or the NERV staff?

What was there to cherish about this, except that it was the only kind of touch I'd known?

...besides such basic periodic inquiries as most people performed for each other even if they only had the most rote and automatic of interactions, all we really talk about is work.

What was the special part about this, or, what defines this? What might be considered as its essence?

There must have been something – I could have sworn.

Something other than the obvious possibility that was staring me in the face:

Which is the simple fact that he was there, and that there was nobody else.

That it was all a simple being stuck together, some product of random chance circumstance, or perhaps purposeful engineering based on a role in his script which he had crafted long before I was even created.

A part to fill, a socket hole that would admit anyone that fit inside.

If the first clone had not perished, she would still be here instead of me.

If I were not of use, he would not bother with me in the least.

Though it is pointless to consider what might be then, for I would not have existed in the first place if he had not created me for his purposes.

With each day that passes, the ephemeral thinness of my ostensible existence is ever more manifest before me.

Even the very few things I have seem ever more vacant and fraught to me, like castles out of air, and still remains the certainty that they are all I shall ever get.

What had I really exchanged with this man?

What had he really asked of me, and what had he really asked about me?

Who was he, really?

What did I truly know about him?

I knew of his duties as the leader of NERV, of course. I knew that his goal was to bring about human instrumentality to bring a peaceful utopia to mankind, but what drove him forward in this?

How had he come to be convinced that this in particular should be his life's work, or, if the work was necessary, how did he come to the realization that he should be the one to carry it out?

Ikari-kun had told me why he pilots.

He had also asked about my reasons.

But what did I know of the Commander's reasons? What did I know of his reasons, his motivations, his personal life, anything at all that was not given to me as a tool with which to do my tasks?

Who is he, really?

He was the Commander of NERV, of course, and in my mind, that used to be a self-explanatory, monolithic presence of a concept, but how did he come to be that?

Until recently, I had not even known that he even had a wife and son.

Sometimes he would look at me – or he would seem to be looking at me, quite intently, but his gaze would become unfocused, as if his thoughts were really going somewhere else.

Where was that, then?

What did he think about, when he beheld me thus?

With a delayed but lingering startle, I realized that I did not even have the slightest inkling -

I could not even contrive hints or pointers to base speculation on.

I am really the one for whom nothing is going to change.

I should take my own advice

Why had I never asked?

Or, why had I never told him more of me?

Did it simply not occur to me?

No.

I think I already know, as I had known all along.

A thin bond it was, faint and see-through, but it was a bond nonetheless.

It was the bond I had, simply because it was the only bond I was going to get.

A necessary thing, the only way to live in any semblance of a tolerable manner.

A twilight ambivalence.

A compartmentalization born of the necessity to keep up relations with him who could destroy me without even a reason being asked, and to yet be aware of that relations' limitations, lest it occur to me to ask too much.

I knew from the first, I think, what kind of situation I was in.

How completely powerless I was.

How I couldn't say no.

In order to exist here, in order to have this relation -

I think I knew at once that I must never call him 'father'.

That I couldn't expect him to ask about me, or ask anything of him.

That whatever had allowed me to be tolerated as being any more than a tool rested on me never daring to shatter the implicit illusion, to never breach the allotted distance.

In order to be here at all, I must not exist.

We must not actually have a relation beyond the bare minimum – only thus could we coexist at all.

Yet this paltry minimum -

The time I'd spent with the commander – what had passed between us, or, what I thought had passed between us, had been the closest thing to a bedrock that there was in my existence.

My only guard against the void, at least as temporary relief, though I had always known that I could never escape it for good.

Looking back, I could not see what had filled the hours – in reviewing what moments and exchanges we had shared, they seemed now short and content-less, as well as far and in-between.

Maybe I had filled the blanks between the lines with mere chains of cathexed, symbolic thought -

holding in my heart what was but an introjected, substitute image.

A comforting simulacrum to soothe myself with, if the real man would not do it.

Sleepwalking through this vast and empty world of which I had only met the cooling ashes, I would have gratefully received even the faintest trace of warmth.

But had I ever known such a thing in any way, in all of my life?

Nasty, brutish, and short as it had been, despite taking place right in the iron heart of civilization, its last great blossoming peak.

I could not say. I didn't think I would even know what is real if I encountered it.

Not too long ago, my relation with the Commander had been my only one, and I had nothing to compare it to except such dealings with the Vice Commander and Dr. Akagi that it was a stretch to even describe as relations.

Now, I suppose that I had gained a little more experience.

He no longer seemed to be among the most involved of bonds.

But I could not say that any of them held up.

That it didn't all disintegrate into trivial, superficial minutiae.

I suppose the closest thing might have been the moments I'd spent with Ikari-kun.

I've no idea what the subjective experience of connectedness is supposed to be, or if I could even trust it to have reality if it did occur, but, if I had experienced it at all, I suppose that it may have been with him.

I think his being here made a change, even if it was a faint one, and bound to wash away in the waves.

Our association was even remarked upon by others – surely, it must have some substance even outside my thought.

But that didn't mean that it was anything special, in the grand scheme of things.

Or perhaps it was special to me, but he might just see me as just another acquaintance.

How much of it was obligation? How much of it was just general goodwill?

How much was pity, or just seeing something in me like his own reflection, or something to feel sorry for, ultimately no less interchangeable in the end?

At very least it was genuine goodwill, same as what might be given to everybody else.

Perhaps I might even say the same for the class representative.

That was already more than I thought I would ever receive, so, should I not simply content myself with it?

Bask in this stray beam of light for whatever short days were yet left to me?

...there it was again.

That willingness to give up straight away when there is no other way in.

The slipping down into the dust along insurmountable walls.

You would think that better knowledge and awareness of your circumstances might set you free, but, sometimes all you understand is exactly why you cannot change anything…

Incidentally, the place where I physically happened to be pondering all this was the A-II classroom at the Tokyo-3 district municipal classroom.

Classes were over for the week, so Horaki-san had lead us in the habitual deep-cleaning of the classroom in the last period of the week.

I happened to be scrubbing the floor with a dust cloth.

Most my attention was elsewhere when I realized, fairly incidentally, that it had likely sucked up a fair bit of dust, so I decided to once again soak it in the bucket of water that I had placed beside me for that reason, and, once that was done, I held it out before me and wrung it out with both hands.

I stood still there then for a moment, to allow some time for the water to drain off – but that is how I noticed.

I might not have, seeing as all my focus was completely taken up between my wandering thoughts and my task, with little heed at all left over for my surroundings.

I only looked up because there was a sudden, noticeable noise – Horaki-san reprimanding Ikari-kun for spacing out and staring off into space when he had been told to clean.

But when I looked to see what was happening, I realized then that he had been facing straight towards me.

...was he… looking at me?

Had he been thinking about me just as I had been thinking about him?

Might he have been wondering, perhaps, about all those things that the Commander had never thought to ask?

About what was in my mind? About what was in my heart?

I supposed then that it was pointless to wonder about, since there was no way to know.

Why would he do that, anyways?

What reason might he have?

Why would anybody look at me of all people, except perhaps to gawk at my odd appearance?

The next time, I was certain.

It couldn't be explained away:

To look at me during a synchronization test would require to keep an intercom channel going between our respective plugs.

And one had indeed been left open, for long after some earlier interchange had concluded.

I did not actually catch Ikari-kun looking, as I was busy concentrating in the test – unlike him and the Second, I could not put out the desired numbers with so little effort as to have enough attention to spare for idle thoughts or chatting.

But when I opened my eyes at the end, I saw the open window of the comm channel, just from the corner of my eye, right before the interface flickered out.

I recall little else about the test itself.

I believe Dr. Akagi and the Major were discussing some personal business at the time, something about a wedding, I think.

This was not something that was ever going to be relevant to me.

At some point, the Second might have complained about the tedium of the experiments, and I seem to remember Dr. Akagi remarking upon Ikari-kun's mood, something about how he 'seemed more mopey than usual'.

Did he? He did not say anything. If he had spoken, I might have picked up something in his tone, but I cannot say that I am any good at picking up subtle details of human expressions or body language.

But whatever they may have picked up on, both the Doctor and Major Katsuragi agreed that it was 'understandable given the circumstances'.

Circumstances?

I was just about to find out.

As it happened, the Second happened to be held up in discussion with the Doctor and the Major, while Ikari-kun and myself left straight away, and thus found ourselves sharing the same elevator on our way back to the surface once we were both back in our uniforms.

Was he simply looking to unburden himself before someone who would neither mock him nor try to cheer him up as his flatmates might have done, or did he speak to me because he had, in fact, come to think of me as someone he could safely confide in, or share special things with which he could not entrust to others?

At the very least, he was the one who brought it up first:

"Ayanami, I… I did what you said. " He stumbled somewhat upon his words, as if it cost him some resolve to bring forth each individual cluster of them: "I… I called father."

That would certainly explain why he might be lost in thought.

"Actually, I'm going to see him tomorrow…What's a good topic to bring up with him?"

"Why do you think I would know the answer to this?"

Did he also think that I was his 'favorite', like the Second thought?

I would rather not have to dissuade him...

"It's just… I've often seen you talking together. It seems like you get along.

Say… what kind of person is he?"

Huh.

That's a really good question.

I've been wondering this myself, actually.

If only he had asked me just a few weeks before, I might have had an answer that I might have been quite certain of, so it is good that he did not, for I could not guarantee now, that whatever I might have told him would have anything to do with the truth.

Because, as it stands…

"I do not know."

"Oh."

He seemed stopped in his tracks.

I was facing forward at the elevator door, but though I could not see him, he didn't seem to say very much else afterwards.

It occurred to me then that he might have left early by design, instead of waiting for his flatmates to depart as he usually did, specifically so that he might catch up to me…

And then, of course, the very fact that he had addressed me, or glances in the plug – or even the ones earlier in the classroom, must have been related to the same intention as well.

Of course he would simply be wanting something from me.

That's what everybody does.

For all I know, his entire interest in me might just be a function to his wishing to get closer to the commander, insofar as the motivation went beyond loneliness or politeness.

How could it be anything else?

"...is that why you've been looking at me? Because you have been wanting to ask me this?"

To my surprise, he was startled at that.

Did he not realize that I had noticed him staring?

He scrambled to say something.

He probably ended up blurting out whatever first thing came to mind:

"Uh- kinda, but it's also, like- When I went to visit you last time. With the tea. When I saw you standing there in the kitchen – I can't really explain why, but something about that felt really, really weird.

And then earlier today, when we were cleaning the classroom today – you wrung out that rag, remember?"

This was not at all among any of the possible turns I had been expecting this conversation to take.

It 'felt weird', he said?

Had I made an error? Did I do something strange again without realizing?

Why would the cleaning rag of all things be relevant to this?

All I can say about it now is that I didn't put any particular thought or attention into it.

Were it not for what happened later, I most likely would not have retained this in memory at all.

It was dim even when he asked about it.

There wasn't any special feeling or intention connected to it.

I do recall that the many trails of water glittered as they dripped off of my hands.

Most likely, I defaulted simply to whatever happens to be the most effortless way to wring a dust cloth if you are possessed of this particular structure of bones and tendons, a mere coincidence.

I probably could have wrung it out in a million different ways and fashions, and the result would nonetheless have been the same, because the impression created was probably not really about my way of wringing it out, but about some association that he would have:

"...you kind of looked like a mother when you did this."

"A mother?"

I was surprised by the sound of my own voice, sharp with disbelief yet somehow touched near – why now this strange, nonsensical statement out of nowhere… of all sudden...

I half turned around when I heard this.

I had never heard anything as ridiculous as this.

A mother? Me?

Why on earth would he think that?

What could I possibly have in common with a mother?

I will never be a mother.

I am without doubt sterile, for the very same reasons that a mule would be. The hybrid chromosomes are far to messed up – and nobody thought to remedy this, for I was never created to breed. I would not live long enough to be of age to bear children, even if it weren't for Third Impact.

This body of mine did not even ripen enough to bleed as human women do.

Furthermore, I am aware that a mother's role is not just that of a body:

A mother is thought of as someone who takes care of others.

I cannot even take care of myself.

A mother might clean; I live in filth.

A mother might cook. I have not done so in my life.

A mother is comforting. I creep people out.

A mother is gentle and nurturing. I never cease to be told how cold and loathsome people find me.

I do not even know what is like to have a mother, so how would I know how to be one?

I could not think of any thing in existence that is more unlike a mother than I am…

I did not say anything, but whether he noticed my apprehension or not, at the very least Ikari-kun must surely have noticed the incoherence of his statement, and tried to fix it up into something more sensible, something that people would say, to spin it into a compliment perhaps, if only for worry that he may have caused offense:

"I dunno, I can't really explain it – Sorry if this was weird. It just… kinda really seemed like a mother's way of wringing, if you know what I mean…"

No, I did not.

"Your kids and your husband are going to be lucky someday – I bet you'd be a great wife!"

He cannot possibly have known any of the countless, innummerale reasons why this was an exceedingly cruel thing to say.

Husband? Kids? Wife?

I could never be a wife.

I could never have that future, nor any other.

And yet, despite myself, I noticed my face burning up in red, my eyes darting nervously back in forth, all I was taken over by some strange and foreign impulsion.

Because he thought that I could be a wife, and even be good at it.

That I would be desirable as such, and others enviable, for having me at their side -

Me! Me!

This misshapen, barely-living something cooked up in a laboratory!

I was not going to do it.

I had never dared to even picture it, to even ask the question of what might be, if I somehow came to live into an impossible future – doing such a thing would be incredibly pointless.

There were so many steps of the way that would render it physically impossible, like the events in some fantastic fairy-story.

For three long weary years, I had successfully avoided the prospect, but now the image had popped into my head and I could not be rid of it.

To make it more ridiculous, the imaginary husband in this vision looked a lot like Ikari-kun, yet the one walking me down the aisle in a glittering dress of white was none other than the Commander, and thus was the entire vision especially revealed for a figment, for how could the same person be the father of both the husband and the bride? Humans do not typically marry relations closer than in the third degree, and even this is rare.

Nor would the Commander possibly welcome me doing anything so contrary to my purpose.

The entire concept was so impossible as to be farcical and surreal…

"What are you saying?!"

The Commander had himself picked up with a helicopter from the site of the promised meeting – the many duties filling his very busy schedule would not allow him to be absent for even one moment longer than was strictly necessary.

When the machine touched down, I was waiting for him inside it.

For some reason beyond my understanding, he had insisted that I accompany him today in particular – not that I had been in the habit of thinking much about his reasons, until recently.

I was no longer sure what I felt about being by summoned by him.

I used to think it was totally irrelevant anyway, but now, every part of this once familiar experience had come into sharp focus.

Some of it at least might have been a sober, deflated sort of feeling.

I'd be looking forward to another rather vacuous sort of meeting, another symbolic token, a calcified empty shell of where a real relationship might have been.

Though my confusion was not so simple as to consist of simply putting a word for that.

Many impressions lingered somewhere there in their various granular packets, passing before awareness like a turning kaleidoscopic pinwheel – if he left me alone that might be a relief, yet at the same time, I think, there was a desperate unease connected to that idea, a void that opened up at the thought of being truly unneeded and untethered to anything.

I would have had to think this over further before I could truly make up my mind…

Even before I saw the place I had arrived at.

I spotted the Commander and his son from a distance away, small dots seen from far above through the mirror, yet their presence, which I would have expected to be the main focus, only served to underline the impact of the place.

As soon as we approached, it caught my attention, at first simply because it looked odd – it did not seem like a meadow or a forest nor even a building.

There was a wide field of bare, brown earth, but only when we drew nearer could I make any sense of the structures near the surface… and then, I recognized then.

I cannot even say that I was startled or shocked, or even surprised.

It was not really an unknown place to me.

I did not really learn anything new that day; I merely accepted into consciousness what I had known for a rather long time, upon seeing it confirmed in reality:

With both father and son present, I could not deny that I had come to just the same grave site that I had seen in that scrambled vision, or a memory, rather, that I could not quite fit into the timeline of my life.

It existed. It was a real place – which meant that this previous vision of it must, of course, be real as well.

There was only one option, really. If I could not recall coming here while I was alive, then that image must have been from before that.

Something that the first clone lived through, perhaps. An impression engraved upon our shared soul. The commander must have brought her here at some point, and then had that fallout with Ikari-kun that lead to the two of them not speaking for all of three years that followed.

Of course I could not read the writing of the gravestone from up here, but I doubted not that it would say 'Yui Ikari'. There was no point in resisting the realization any longer:

'Ayanami Rei' had been here before.

And now, he had thought of bringing me to this same spot…

He somehow wanted me here, though I could not say what he might need me for.

There were no EVAs to pilot. Not experiments to run.

He never tells me the reasons for anything that he does.

Just as the hovercraft touched down, I think Ikari-kun spotted me.

He and his father had already parted way then, but I saw him rush forward to say one last thing –

I hope that whatever it was, it would bring him peace to have got it off his chest.

If the thought of me was one that emboldened him – if he thought that, if I were there next to him, I would tell him such things as would help him find his strength, that would honestly be a comfort to me.

Not even because it might prove that our bond had some particular significance for him, but simply because it would mean that I would not disappear from this world without leaving a little trace that was related to anything other than piloting…

As the Commander climbed inside the capsule, I remained silent.

Still looking out the window even as Ikari-kun remained behind.

I saw him kneeling down at the grave, perhaps to have some moments in silence to himself.

I wondered if he was going to talk to the grave, like humans sometimes did in books, whether out of some religious belief that the dead could hear, or simply for psychological catharsis.

He might be telling his mother about his recent experiences, especially the events of the last few months. All the sights he had seen, and perhaps the people he had met.

I wondered if he would mention me, and what he might tell her about me.

What Yui Ikari might reply, if she could really hear.

As the little dot of his form became smaller and smaller, I could make out Major Katsuragi's blue car drawing near, no doubt come to pick up her ward.

I hoped that she would think to give him the encouragement that the late Mrs. Ikari could no longer supply.

"The person buried here is your wife, right?"

"Yeah."

"What is it like to be married?"

I heard a squeaking of leather.

Maybe he had shifted his weight in the seat, or tightly grasped the edge of it.

"Because, I have been wondering, about what it might be like. Ikari-kun said something confusing, recently. I'm not confident that I understood what he meant, but it sounded almost like he is contemplating to take me as his spouse..."

Of course, I could not let him think even for a moment that I might have forgotten about the plan:

"If so, I feel sorry for him, since it cannot possibly be – Instrumentality will take place before he would have been of age to be married."

"Nah, don't worry. That couldn't be." Suddenly, Commander Ikari's voice sounded very, very tired. "Whatever he said, I'm sure he must have meant something different. You must have misunderstood something, or gotten confused."

"How can you be so certain?"

I had not been looking at him before, but just then, I'd thought to do it.

There was no reason before, but now there was – I didn't expect him to tell me too much, so, I wanted to make sure I was seeing his features, to better gauge the meaning of his reply.

I found him turned toward me, so close that the reflections in his glasses did not hide his eyes from view. Etched upon his face was a grimace of utter agony the likes of which I had never seen on his usually contained countenance.

One might have thought that someone had just stabbed him with a knife, and twisted its serrated blade for good measure, but far and wide, there was no weapon laying about, other than my perfectly innocent words.

If there was some kind of hurtful memory that I might have brought up, I was utterly oblivious of it.

Never before had I witnessed him being forced to pause to regain his bearings – once he did, he let himself sink back in his chair like one drained of all strength.

"Oh, it's certain – it's certain for sure."

I knew better than to make another sound, not even to assure him that I would never ask such questions again.

Our ancestral contract of distance and silence would never forgive another breach.

Not another word was said until we arrived back at NERV HQ, not even when the Commander disembarked from the hovercraft.

Of all places, he left to seek out the cage of EVA 01, though its pilot was bound to be nowhere near it as of now…

Why there?

I just couldn't put these events together into any sort of coherent whole…

Not for the first time, but more sharply than ever, I realized that there must be something very significant here of which I do not know.