"Misato, are you sure about this?" I had to have said for the umpteenth time as she was walking us through the basic idea of how the training was going to proceed. Which I already knew.

"Of course I'm sure. Trust me, will ya?"

"You really expect me to when you're shoving me in the same house as this dork?" Asuka said while comically pinching Shinji's cheek, jerking his head about.

"Thash dhurts!"

"No I meant, uh, this duo arrangement. Are you sure we're the picking the best matches here?"

"Yes! I might not like the First all that much, but it'd beat being stuck sleeping, eating and drinking with a boy every step of the way!"

If you would see Rei's apartment, you'd change your mind.

"Pilots with the highest sync ratios go first. You wouldn't want us to not put our best foot forward Asuka?" Misato replied with a slight grin. Asuka's expression was that of a person who knew they were being played, but nonetheless entirely agreed with what was being said.

"Fineeeee!" she said with an exaggerated sigh. "I suppose the best pilot has to take on the greatest responsibility, even if I'm saddled with this deadweight."

"Hey!"

"So that just saddles me and Rei together?"

"Well you are the only backups. You can understand if we'd rather be safe than sorry, right?"

"...Yeah, I suppose."

Understanding something however, didn't make the integration of having to live with the First Child any easier to swallow.

Day One

The walk to Rei's apartment was one of the more awkward things I'd had to do. Which was strange when one thought about it, as it had been at most one percent of the whole trip there. The majority of which was spent in Misato's car.

It was probably recollections of last time impacting my judgement, repressed memories of pale skin and boring red eyes surfacing unpleasantly. That probably brought up a good first ground rule to suggest: no more of that walking around in the nude stuff.

As I looked back to Misato in her car, I saw a look of concern flash across her features for a moment, only to be replaced swiftly with a smile and a wave. And as she left, everything was decided. One way or another, this was happening.

In some way, this was the chance I'd been waiting for. At last having the best excuse possible to interact with the most adamant and stubbornly isolated of all the pilots. It was also something I'd put off for the longest time for a good reason.

Rei was just a difficult person to try and make a connection with. I was no damn psychologist, and Rei needed an entire team of those as far as I was concerned. Even more so than the other pilots. But like it or not, her plight was my plight. As was Shinji's, Asuka's, Misato's, everyone, even if they didn't know it.

So with a big breath and a swift word of encouragement to myself, I opened the door decisively. Maybe too decisively, as it slammed into the wall straight away, making a noise that caused me to physically cringe.

Not the best start, but it was a start nonetheless. I took off my shoes and looked into the den of misery and filth that was the unfortunate living quarters of Rei Ayanami, locating her as sitting on her bed. Her gaze was not locked on any particular thing, and not for the first time I found myself wondering where the mind of the First Child even went during the day.

It's not like she's got anything to do other than train, go to school and sleep. Maybe she thinks about us? She expressed fascination with her situation sometimes, especially when it came to Shinji.

I shook my head. No point wasting time on theories like that when I had an introduction to get out of the way.

"Hello Rei," I said, in a voice that I hoped was not too laden with awkwardness.

"Hello."

"So I guess we'll be living together from now on?"

"For the remainder of the week," she corrected.

"Right, yeah."

I'd noticed that I was looking anywhere but her face, eyes darting around the room uncomfortably. Her living conditions were spartan, to say the least. A bed with a pillow caked with dried blood, that now gave off a rusty orange color, a fridge, bags upon bags of stuff I couldn't discern hung on it, a chair, some weird sock hanger, and a drawer.

Speaking of rust, the walls thankfully enough weren't covered in it, being mostly solid if somewhat ugly in their rivet-filled design. Nothing was decaying here as much as left to stagnate and collect dust. Which really, made sense on second thought. Gendo may not have cared one bit about pilot comfortability, but he wouldn't put the most important element of his plan into potential danger if he could avoid it, and that included buildings where risk of disease was high.

Then, there were the boxes. One clearly contained bloody bandages that had similarly been left to oxidize after being used, the other...well, the other was closed, but probably had much of the same.

And at that moment I realized I'd have a use for whatever piloting paid after all. This place, physically could not support two people. For one, I needed at minimum a sleeping bag and a pillow, because there was no way in Hell I'd share the bed with Rei, especially when it was stained with her own blood.

"Are you alright?"

That jerked me straight out of my train of thought. I noticed she was now staring intently at me. Had I been zoned out for so long I'd caught even her attention?

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine Rei, thanks for asking," I said, as I finally wandered into the main room of the apartment and dropped my meager bag of necessary belongings on the floor. I took a seat on a chair and with a quick affirmation of my willpower, finally decided to look the First Child right in the eyes for what felt like the first time in forever.

It was anxiety-inducing in all honesty, but I didn't shy away, or back down. Time to be shy had long since run out. I had a commitment to her just as I did to every other person in this world, and that started with making her material life better.

"Hey."

"Yes?"

"Do you know your way around here? You know, like shops and stuff."

"I have memorized the layout of the city," she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "However, the smaller details are prone to change. And I have not seen many of them."

"Right, well, we're gonna have to go out to buy some stuff."

"Why?"

"For this place. It needs, well, a lot of work."

"Are these living quarters not adequate?" she said, with a level of simple innocence that tugged horribly at the heart strings. She'd...never known anything else. This was all there was in the world for her.

It's not as if I should have been surprised. It was only natural for her to be treated as a replaceable tool when, in her creator's eyes, she was one. Still, in these situations it was always the little things that got you.

"To be honest, no they really aren't Rei. Especially not for two people. I mean, look at this place," I said, pointing to the walls and floor. "It's unhygienic to say the least. How do you even live here?"

"This place was assigned to me by the Commander. Therefore, it is adequate for me."

"I disagree. A lot. But," I noticed I wasn't going to be gaining any ground here any time soon. "For me, it's not. So I'm gonna go grab some stuff, and I could use the help finding it."

I then got up and looked expectantly at her. Slowly, deliberately, she raised herself out of her seat too, and put on her shoes.

"I am to be with you at all times. So I will accompany you on this trip."

"That's all I need."

After a short look into how the Hell one cleaned floors and walls, which made me all the more glad the internet was not a concept foreign to this world, we wandered the general area. This was when I lamented that Google Maps was a concept foreign to this world.

I decided sticking around the parts of old Hakone was probably not the best thing to do to encounter any working retail, and so by a communal rail we headed into the city proper.

Rei wasn't kidding when she said she'd memorized the layout of the city. She kept to herself, and as always her expression remained neutral, maybe even disinterested if I could fashion a guess at minute differences, but when asked she directed without fail to the right place. Which was all the better for me, since I was terrible with directions even in places I knew well.

Of course, she also wasn't very good with the specifics of shifting businesses, however few there were of them in a warzone like Tokyo-3. So the majority of that time was spent searching around for a supermarket or something like that. Instead of it, we found one of those small soup booths that you always saw scattered about here or there.

Having spent the better part of two hours now looking around, I decided it was a good enough time as any to grab a snack, and said as much to Rei. As expected, she replied impassively, though she did order when we eventually sat down.

I settled for miso. I didn't exactly prefer to experiment much with Japanese cooking. Too much fish in everything for my liking, though miso was a generally agreeable something that I could gulp down quickly enough. I noticed Rei ordered the same thing, though specified she wanted it with shiitake dashi rather than the more common variant of broth, made out of kelp and shavings of preserved, fermented fish.

Vegetarian to a tee. I wondered where that came from anyway. Was it a personal choice or something Akagi had her on for whatever reason?

We sat up, and I payed for our meal. We'd stumbled upon an ATM earlier, but it definitely wasn't like any ATM I'd ever seen. Firstly, it accepted ID cards. I chalked it up to being yet another part of a system taken over and streamlined for the purposes of Nerv's convenience. The fact that it's logo was plastered all over it helped in deducing that much.

I definitely wasn't going to complain about that. Nerv's convenience was my convenience, at least for the time being.

I'd withdrawn just enough cash to stock up on food and cleaning supplies when we found a supermarket. I wasn't going to blow through much of it, but hey, the world was ending in months time at this point from my knowledge, so it would probably be prudent to invest in some video games at least.

In the meantime, as our quest continued, I decided to try and make some more small chat.

"So, how do you spend most of your day Rei?"

Silence.

"You know we're going to have to know each-other schedules if we want to work best with one-another."

A quick pause, then a nod. It seemed "mission" was the key, golden word here. One I'd have to use as frequently as possible if I were to keep the First Child's attention.

"I wake up at 5 AM. I am on my way to school by 8:15. I return home after that is done. I go to bed at 9 PM."

I waited for something else to be added to that, until seeing that it clearly wasn't, I just stared incredulous.

"That's it?"

"Sometimes I am called for tests, or private dinners with Commander Ikari."

"...You..."

That shut me up. What was I supposed to say to that? I knew what this girl was, and what she went through. Was I really expecting anything else? Then again, the idea that someone's day could be that empty, that lifeless was...strange. So very little to describe, and even littler of it of real consequence.

Thankfully, a distraction came in the form of the retail we were looking for. How it was this difficult to find one in a major city like this was anyone's guess, though I presumed it had something to do with the fact that a good chunk of the buildings here were fronts for weapon storage, gun and missile batteries, as well as the Eva launch tubes.

We returned to the apartment equipped with several buckets, towels, mops, a broom and loads of soap and detergent, along with some food that was stuffed haphazardly in the refrigerator. I'd offered to carry it all home, but Rei insisted the workload had to be shared. I filed away that response for later.

Immediately we set to work. Rei tackled the walls, while I attacked the floors. I swept all the dirt and grime I could away with a broom, directing towards the entrance of the flat, before shoving it out where a strong wind had picked up, thankfully carrying it away from our doorstep.

I tried to keep pace with Rei as I picked up the mop next. As much as we were engaging in different movements, it was good to at least keep in the spirit of sync training right?

I dumped the floor cleaner in a bucket I'd filled up in Rei's kitchen, which was yet another point in the Rebuild side of things. As far as I knew, this had never been shown in the original. It was helpful to have it, but it once again showed signs at some sort of strange composite timeline and I didn't like that. It made things unpredictable, and I'd have enough problems already dealing with stuff I knew about without trying to fathom how they criss-crossed with each-other.

But I shut that off to concentrate on the cleaning. Rei hadn't said anything of course, but by this point she was beginning to sweat a little. Exerting herself, I did finally saw some change in her stone-solid demeanor. It was only a bit of tiring, the occasional deep breath or sigh, as she stretched herself or even creatively used the chair to reach higher up.

It only just hit me I probably should have taken the walls.

Several hours later, the last rays of sunlight were piercing through the window. I was sat on the chair, while Rei was on her bed. We were both tired, but it was the good kind of tired. The kind which sets a pleasant heat to body and a lax feeling to the muscles.

The apartment was barely recognizable. Sure we weren't professional cleaners, but the extent of the place's filth only made it more impressive when the layers were stripped off. I couldn't help but be somewhat proud looking at it now.

"Man, do we kick ass or what?"

"I am unfamiliar with the expression."

"It's like, you know, "we're cool". Or "we're capable". Something like that. I mean, look at this place," I said, pointing all around us.

"It is...significantly better than before, yes."

"Why haven't you ever tried this yourself Rei?"

"My living quarters were acceptable before. And...I did not know it would look like this."

"Does that mean you're considering doing again if it needs it?" I said with a smile.

"That would be agreeable."

"Atta girl," I said, genuinely happy, extending a fist bump. That was summarily left hanging.

"You're supposed to bump it with your own, you know."

"Why?"

"It's uh, sort of a congratulatory gesture. Y'know, between friends."

"Are we friends?"

I internally died a little. This girl, I swear. Though, it did bring up a solid question. Were we friends? I mean, this day essentially comprised the entirety of our social interactions.

But, perhaps feeling sick and tired of my own worthless pseudo-psychological analysis, I told my doubts to fuck off, if only for this moment.

"Of course! And if we're not, I'd like us to be."

The fist remained there unbumped for what felt like an eternity, and my heart almost sank, but then, slowly, tentatively, her hand closed together and lightly touched my own with the knuckle.

I was ecstatic.

Ecstasy fell off soon enough, as we didn't have much to talk about. I promised her we'd get to the training proper tomorrow for sure, and then spent the rest of the day on my laptop. She tended to simply stay on her bed, breaking that habit with intervals of moving around a bit to stretch or read her book. I really had to see what exactly she was going through some day.

Then about 9 PM came the matter of sleeping.

"Oh. I forgot to buy a sleeping bag."

"Is that a problem?"

"Nah it's alright, I'll just sleep on the chair."

"That chair is not designed for sleeping."

"Well what would you have me to do, lay in bed with you?" I asked, jokingly. Of course, my mood soured when I remembered who I was speaking to. "You would have me do that, wouldn't you?"

"People generally sleep in beds for optimum rest. I would rather not have you be tired for training tomorrow, Pilot Akashi. But it is your choice," she said, and laid down without another word.

I spent an ungodly amount of time thinking about that exchange. To have Rei suggesting something like that in the first place at this point was strange, even if done out of purely logical reasons. Still, did she actually care all that much about my wellbeing? A few nights of sleep in an uncomfortable position wouldn't end up with me dead.

Well, not dead, just zombified.

Hours passed by, and that realm of thought grew as it became late. I was going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later. Natural awkwardness was also not helping matters. All in all, I'd say I was on par with Shinji on how not-brazen I generally wanted to be.

I gave the chair a quick inspection, and could immediately tell I'd wake up extremely sore from a quick cat nap. I did not want to take my chances with a full night of sleep on it.

So I weighed my options, swallowed my shame, pumped myself up like I was about to lift a car, and laid down on the bed with another human being. To try and not fall further down the pit I'd dug for myself, I laid purposefully on my back, and kept as much distance between me and her as I could. It helped that Rei was small, and also about as jittery in sleep as a corpse.

I did not catch a wink of sleep for a long time regardless.