"Alright," Shinji said, sitting cross-legged with her on her bed, holding her hands. "Any questions?"
"Yes: Why will we be doing this in your mind?" Wasn't that dangerous?
"Well, it wouldn't be safe to do this in your dreams or the real world, because you aren't trained yet and don't know how not to hurt yourself by accident," Shinji said reasonably. "And Kaworu is an angel: he can't protect himself the way I can. He could get hurt by accident." Even though Rei wouldn't be trying to hurt him, it was dangerous to be inside someone's mind if they didn't have any shields. "But I can control my AT field inside my mind the way angels can control theirs, like generating special fields and special dimensional areas. So I can maintain a place inside my mind where no matter what, no one will get hurt." Defending his precious people with the light of his soul.
Rei tilted her head to the side. "Then why did…"
Shinji looked embarrassed. "Because you were hurt, and scared, and thought you were alone. I knew I should have walled you out, or only shared part of my soul with you, but I was so worried about you that I just couldn't. Don't think it was your fault," he warned her. "I'm just nervous. About family." After losing his mother and being reunited with a madwoman, after his father abandoned him. "I was worried so much about messing up and hurting you that I really messed up. I won't do that again. Promise." Well, he wouldn't make that specific mistake, anyway. He'd probably make a lot more, because he hadn't had a little sister before and it really did make him nervous.
"Alright," Rei echoed him. She trusted him, after they'd shared part of their souls.
"Al-Well, so, close your eyes. I'll start pulling at you, the way Kaworu did to show us where we could get bodies again. Let me know when you feel it."
"I feel it." Felt him.
"Then, if you're ready," and not scared. "Let's go."
Rei found herself in a field of tall grass surrounded by woods and hills, no sign of human habitation but the ruins of a house. For someone who had spent all their time inside either a research lab or the environs of Tokyo-3, it was a very strange thing.
Although the two of them were standing here, Shinji still held both her hands as she looked around, spotting Kaworu-Tabris napping in the grass as casually in human form as in cat form. Even though, from what she understood of Shinji's explanation of how this worked, it would be very easy for Shinji to crush him in here, angels as helpless as humans were in the outside world.
That itself helped her calm. Yes, this was Shinji, and Shinji clearly wasn't like either of the Dr. Akagis, or anyone else that had worked on her or trained her. She'd felt Shinji, and if someone could be so unafraid when they were in Shinji's power, Rei certainly didn't have to be afraid either.
Not of her brother.
When she let go of his hands, showing that she didn't need to hang on for dear life, Shinji smiled at her and then said, "Hey, Kaworu."
The other boy who looked like her stretched, then opened his eyes. "Hello, Rei."
"Thank you for having me as your student, Nagisa-sensei."
Both of them blinked at her. "It's fine, really," the angel told her. "And Kaworu and Tabris: anything's fine. Kaworu I made up from part of my serial number – KWR. This body was made just like yours, except by SEELE." So they weren't very different at all, even though he was older than her. "You're Shinji's sister, and Shinji is…" He looked like he was considering how to explain this. "Angels exist for the purpose of blessing worlds with life, creating new races of humanity and protecting them so that they can create the future. I don't have a world or a race of my own yet, but Shinji has let me teach him and support him. As his family, his kin, that also makes you someone that I very much want to protect. If you let me, then I am the one who will have to thank you," Kaworu said, glancing at Shinji and then at her fondly.
Someone who wanted to protect her. The way Gendo had, even though he hurt himself and broke his glasses. The way Shinji had. "I would have to be a fool to refuse." People who valued her were important things. Even though she'd known Gendo considered her expendable, only a tool to reach Yui, she had still clung to him because he was the only one she had. Then she had met Shinji. Now she could have two people who cared about her. The thought made her feel something in her stomach, something like guilt that she was being greedy, except not. It made her remember the way Misato had looked at a box of cupcakes at a staff meeting, after all the others had looked at them longingly and then known that really, they mustn't. Misato had grabbed the entire box and sat back smugly. When Ritsuko gave her a look Misato had just grinned, because Misato ran several miles a day and worked out. Normally, anyone who drank as much beer as Misato would be roughly spherical, according to Ritsuko's grumblings, but Misato earned her indulgences, and damn well knew it.
"I can have something other people don't, that other people would envy. But it's not bad of me to have them. I deserve them, just for being me," Rei realized, and it strangely made the ache in her stomach intensify. Her eyes felt dry. "There isn't anything else you want?"
"What do you mean?" Shinji asked, looking a little worried for her.
"Well, Gendo Ikari looked after me because he wanted Yui. But all you want in exchange for looking after me is to look after me?"
The two of them looked at each other, clearly wondering if the other knew what to say to something that surely wasn't just a rhetorical question, or how to react to this. It was Shinji who realized what Rei was taking about: he remembered being abandoned because he didn't have what Gendo wanted, even though he'd relearned that it was possible to just be wanted for himself. "Well, it would be nice if we could spend some time together," Shinji told her. "But, I mean, if what I want is a little sister, then it doesn't feel like being a big brother is a cost." More like the entire point.
"Humans, no matter what kind they are, need other people," Kaworu said. "So the trade of 'I will be with you, if you will be with me' is one that concerns a very valuable thing, but it's one that is shared."
Rei nodded, and looked at Shinji. "You piloted the Eva for me." The first day he came, the first time he saw her.
Seeing how the brother and sister were turned towards each other, yearning to confirm the tie of blood that had been twisted by their mother's loss and father's obsession, wishing to know that this was real, that such ties could exist without taint, Kaworu asked, "Should I leave you two alone?" See, this was why he'd thought that they should rest together in his Eva the way they had as twin souls, only without the whole nearly destroying the world for the sake of each other part. At least they'd held hands, but Kaworu found himself wondering if the lack of psychic contact among Lilim didn't just deny them knowledge of each other but also knowledge of themselves. Perhaps without seeing these urges in others, they didn't know they were normal? And when all other Lilim were afraid to reach out to others, it must give the children the idea that wishing for human contact was strange, perhaps even wrong.
Shinji groaned and the moment was lost. "Kaworu, that was another euphemism."
"Another one?" Of course he knew that planetary humans were obsessed with sex: that was only proper, since sex was both how they created life and a ritual in celebration of life. Every language he'd been loaded with contained plenty of poetic terms for the act, so it was only natural that the Lilim would have phrases that alluded to sex other than the pedestrian. What was strange about the Lilim was how indirectly they alluded to it, since they were ashamed of it. All sorts of innocent phrases, or simple expressions of concern and care, were either code phrases to avoid mentioning sex or it was assumed that it would only be said if sex was involved, since no other drive was strong enough to make someone admit that they loved someone, for example.
"Oh, like the people who made you were any better. You only like that poem because it was comparing sex to geology." Not volcanoes but undersea magma vents, doors that let one past the surface to feel the heat of the planet's heart: that warmth was what nurtured all life on Tethys, but to dive into one was certain death. And yet, for the sake of love, who would not court a death and rebirth of such glorious ecstasy? Shinji groaned. "I never should have asked you for the talk." He wasn't going to ask his uncle, and it wouldn't be embarrassing for Kaworu to do it because Kaworu didn't give a damn about it, right? Wrong.
"Well, I am sorry, but I did tell you that I was an angel, and what angels were made for," Kaworu reminded him. "Of course I want you to have children."
Hmm? Rei looked up. Children?
Babies?
"He's trying to set me up with Asuka. I blame whoever gave him the talk and read him that poem."
"Don't talk about two of your grandparents that way," Kaworu scolded, then lost his straight face and rolled over, laughing. "Seriously, though," he told Rei, bits of grass and clover stuck in his silver hair, "She's very intelligent and she's definitely courting him."
Shinji's jaw dropped, betrayed. "Don't recruit my sister!"
"Courting him?" Rei asked, intrigued. Shinji plus sex equaled babies equaled more family, most likely family like Shinji instead of like Gendo. The thought made her feel shy and greedy, as though she was asking too much, yet part of her was asking, why not? Why not be greedy? Why not arrange for more family? Imagine if everyone in Tokyo-3 was family. And more, and more and babies. World full of babies. Allmine.
Maybe even Shinji-babies, although she wasn't sure about what the Asuka component might do to the offspring.
"Watch her AT field: I'll have to show you how to do that," Kaworu remembered. "She keeps projecting into his space, not just with it but with physical possessions and her own body as well." Kaworu was certain that meant a lot, when most Lilim were so afraid of contact. No wonder she had the strength to fight angels: she might have closed her AT field out of self-defense like all the other Lilim, but on some level she was refusing to be afraid, to stay away from others. "She wants to be acknowledged, considered valuable, so she's trying to provoke him into not just fighting her, but fighting to win her respect and approval of his genes, personal strength and honor. Female planetary humans can only have so many children, unlike males like Shinji and we angels, so it's necessary for male humans as well as male animals to prove that not only are their genes the most suitable for combination to produce new life, but they can be relied on to protect those children if anything happens. After all, women put themselves in danger to bring forth new life: why should they do that for someone who doesn't respect this or isn't worth it? They possess free will, of course, and it takes many humans to make a world so women look for different traits, those who compliment their own. What Asuka values is striving to be the best: that's why Kaji's lack of ambition frustrates her. He is very good at what he does, but he is not willing to work to court her."
"He does this," Shinji told her. "He's completely clueless about how people talk to each other and act around each other, because he assumes it should be really simple, but it's…" Shinji reached for a word. "Kind of sad how much they give away with their AT fields. Everyone's trying to reach out, all the time, but they're too afraid to open up because of the angels. Everyone's longing to touch, to understand one another. Even when they give up, run away from the pain of failing to connect, their souls are still trying." It was that more than anything that made Shinji certain that psychic contact was something that was supposed to exist. The sheer frustration he'd seen so many times, people unable to give up because it just wasn't supposed to be that damn hard. Hearts were for sharing, like hands were for holding.
"Asuka's children would be intelligent, certainly. And brave," Rei said thoughtfully. A little too aggressive, maybe, but Shinji was a little too reluctant to fight, so maybe that would balance out.
Also, baby Shinjis. More Shinjis.
Overheard gossip among NERV staff suggested that one means of accomplishing this would be locking the two of them in a closet together. Rei could see that: since Shinji would be angry if someone (namely Rei) locked him in a closet as part of a breeding program, perhaps Asuka allying with him to escape would have the desired effect.
"The way she's looking at me… Is that just an angel thing?" Shinji asked Kaworu, backing away a little.
"She likes you and wants to be around you. You understand wanting more friends, don't you? And you're a very good friend," Kaworu said, smiling kindly at Shinji's silliness. "You're still so surprised that others value and appreciate you." It was cute, but really. He should know this by now.
Damn Gendo.