The Blue Rose: The Other Side of Me

by SPDudley

Erin Forrestal has kept a dark secret most of her childhood: she is the pilot of Evangelion Unit 04. After years of training in isolation she is finally fulfilling the role she's been prepared for yet she's haunted by strange dreams of a mysterious boy. This is the Blue Rose saga, from the other side of the mirror.

16. Catch and Release

Despite my concerns for Patrick's life I was so exhausted from everything that had taken place in the mountain that I fell asleep onboard the Alliance aircraft for nearly the entire length of the journey. I remembered nothing about how or where we landed
/but when I finally did wake up I was inside of another bedroom. I was no longer wearing my plug suit but instead I was dressed in a green t-shirt and blue shorts, and I was lying face up on a normal bed.

Groggily I shook my head and woke myself up completely. I didn't remember changing clothes and wondered if someone else did that for me, which didn't make me feel great about this place initially. Looking around, the room I was in resembled another hotel
/room, with a bed, a chair, and an attached closet and bathroom. All of it was very clean, but no windows. Of course, I was still a prisoner.

Prisoner or no I needed to get clean and as I got out of bed and poked in the closet I saw fresh clothes, including a few more t-shirts, some black leggings and a few pairs of shorts, plus a pair of runners and another pair of slippers. There was fresh
/underwear too, all still wrapped in the package. I got out a set of clothes to wear and then found the bathroom.

I took a lengthy shower and tried telling myself not to worry about either Patrick or myself. I was "important" according to Colonel Katsuragi, and hopefully that meant whoever these people were would be taking better care of me than SEELE did. I couldn't
/help but keep thinking about Patrick however, and about how his whole face had melted away. It was a horrifying image, and I just prayed as I showered that he would somehow be okay.

From the closet I had picked out a yellow t-shirt and black leggings, and then tied on my runners. There was no phone, television, or computer in my room, so no way to contact anyone outside about where I was. Out of curiosity I tried the bedroom door
/handle and found that it in fact was not unlocked, so I stepped outside.

There was a hallway that had unmarked doors to the left and right of me, but there was no one present that I could see. I looked towards both ends to check again and then decided a little exploring might be in order, so I turned right and started walking
/downward. Just as I reached the end of the hallway I heard footsteps and suddenly someone turned the corner.

"Ah, you're up and about!" I was greeted by a cheerful voice from a young woman. She was short, not much taller than myself, and slender with large brown eyes framed with circle-rim glasses and long auburn hair tied in a ponytail. She wore a suit jacket
/with matching grey flannel slacks, and a white dress shirt. The woman flashed a broad smile and offered me her hand. "Sorry we didn't get properly introduced earlier. My name is Olivia Perry."

I took her hand, if a bit reluctantly. "Um, hi."

"I see you found your room was in order?"

"Yeah. Did someone take off my plug suit?"

"One of the nurses did," Olivia cheerfully responded. "We've got it safe, don't worry. Are the new clothes okay?"

"They're just fine," I replied, wondering how they got my size. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Welcome back to the USA, Miss Forrestal," said Olivia. "If you'd like please join me for breakfast and I'll be happy to explain everything."

Olivia led me around the corner and into an elevator car, and then we went up two flights to another floor. There I saw another row of unmarked doorways and I wondered just what kind of place I was in. The woman opened up one room where I saw a simple
/table and two chairs, and then she asked me to sit down.

Nearly as soon as I sat in the chair another person, a man in a white uniform, came into the room with a pushcart and promptly started laying out steel containers on the table. He had several of these placed on the table between Olivia and myself and
/then after all were presented he promptly lifted up the steel covers, revealing a giant American style breakfast with eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, and everything else that I could imagine. The smell was aromatic and hypnotizing, as I had not had
/a decent meal like this in a very long time.

"Thank you," Olivia said to the man and he promptly wheeled out his cart and left the room, closing it from behind him. From one container Olivia poured juice into a glass and offered it to me. "OJ?"

"Oh, please!" I told her. I suspected this whole massive breakfast thing was just something to butter me up, and it was working.

"Do you drink coffee?" asked Olivia.

"No, I don't. Milk is okay, though."

Olivia smirked to herself. "Still a kid, huh?" I didn't reply but immediately dug into breakfast and for the next few wonderful moments nearly forgot about all of the horrible things that had transpired before coming here.

After gorging myself I leaned back on the chair and burped. Olivia, who had joined me in eating, didn't say much at first but waited for me to finish off everything and only once we both had empty plates in front of us did she start conversing with me
/again.

"I heard you were out of it for quite a while," started Olivia. "I thought this might get you back to something like normal."

"It was good," I admitted to her. "I hadn't had real American food in…" I thought about how long it was out of it since the time I boarded my EVA back in NERV-2. I had been almost a year since then. "…forever."

"Well," Olivia smiled, "We will try to make sure everything else here is just as pleasant."

"Where am I, exactly?"

"Massachusetts," said Olivia. "This is Alliance Base North. Not long ago this used to be called NERV First Branch."

"Are you with the Alliance?" I asked her.

"Yes, although I'm not military. I'm sort of a contractor."

"Oh," I said, and then more important things came to my mind. "How about my brother?"

"Patrick is back in Tokyo-3, at the NERV GeoFront," she told me. "He's receiving medical care right now."

"Will he be okay?"

"As I'm informed he's alive but it's too early to tell how much better he'll get." She gave me a faint smile. "I know that's not a great answer."

"At least he's alive," I told her. "I was so worried."

"Of course you would be."

Olivia seemed nice enough, but I decided that to be direct was my best course at this point if I wanted real answers. "Am I a prisoner?"

The woman frowned slightly. "Not quite the word I'd use," said Olivia. "More like a very valuable 'subject'. You were in the front row for a lot of things that both NERV and the Alliance would like to know about."

"Like what?"

"Well, your father kept a lot of things hidden for that secret project of his, and apart from a couple of other people you're the only survivor of NERV-2. Maybe you could tell us about what he was doing."

"Okay."

"Also, you were at SEELE fortress in Norway for something like three months, and you had contact with Chairman Kiel there."

And I killed him too. "Yeah, I did."

"We'd like to know about anything he told you, or anything you saw there. Do you think you could help us?"

Did I have any choice? I needed to find out what the incentive was here and just who I was dealing with. I had trusted the wrong people before, with dire consequences. "What happens to me after all of this?"

"It's not entirely up to me to decide that," Olivia answered, "NERV and the Alliance still need to figure out what they're going to do with you. What I can tell you however," she continued, "is that if you can tell us as much as you know, no matter how
/small you might think it is, that it will go a long, long way into making sure everything comes out okay."

"Will I be able to see Patrick again?" I asked her. At this point it was all I wanted.

"Yes," she said, seemingly firm in her answer. "Please help me out, and I'll personally see to that."

"Then where do we start?"

---

For the next few days I spent hour after hour answering questions from Olivia about pretty much my whole life from the time my mother went away to the events in SEELE's fortress. The experience was exhausting, as not only did she ask a lot of questions
/but also wanted to know as much detail as I could provide her. Often she repeated questions, just to be sure my answers were consistent, and sometimes she'd make me go back in time to go over something again. Olivia was very methodical and very polite,
/never making threats and never raising her voice, and I found it easy to cooperate with her.

The whole experience of recalling one more time everything that had happened to be wasn't particularly pleasant. This wasn't like when Patrick and I were trying to get to know each other and fill in the gaps of our lost time. As part of my interrogation
/Olivia had many questions about Dad and what was going on at NERV-2, and I got the impression from the sorts of questions that she was asking that Dad was doing all manner of bad things. Stealing secrets, hacking government computers, claiming research
/as his own, bribing or blackmailing politicians, Dad was involved with some pretty dark forces and Olivia all but implied that his Nobel prizes were based on stolen research.

Perhaps fortunately for me I was in the dark just as much as everyone else was, although it took several rounds of pointed questions and my inability to answer them to finally convince Olivia of that. Dad was certainly good at keeping secrets, and the
/biggest secret of all was keeping the truth about Patrick away from me.

One night after dinner Olivia returned me to my room, and then I just got stripped down and took a hot bath, something I hadn't done in months. I just lay there in the tub as the water slowly cooled and wondered about everything, about me and Dad and
/Patrick and about how messed up I felt.

I mean, I loved my Dad. I really did. But it was harder now, knowing the truth about him. Did he still do good things to me despite all of what he was involved in? Yes, but also no. Handing me over to SEELE after my accident in the EVA all but ruined
/my life. I really wish he hadn't kept Patrick a secret from me, I can remember so many times back in NERV-2 when I just wanted someone, anyone to play and talk with. That someone was out there, three hundred miles away and wishing for the same thing
/I was. And Dad knew it and still kept us apart. I could understand why Patrick was so angry at him.

I took a deep breath and covered my face. I wanted to hate him, I did, but I couldn't. I knew him too well, having spent my whole childhood with him. What happened to Mom broke him apart, something unexpected, something that even with his smarts and his
/will and his charm he couldn't overcome. So like it seemed so many others Dad was lost to the Evangelion.

Where was he now? Was he really alive still but somewhere else in space and time like Patrick told me? I just had to hope that he was, and that maybe, one day, I'd get a chance to tell him how I really felt.

---

I spent a few more days in a repeated pattern of interrogations followed by meals and more interrogation then meals, shower or bath, and sleep. Apart from the staff where I was I didn't see any other "subjects" and wondered if I was the only captive in
/this place. Every day that went by I asked Olivia the same question: how was Patrick? The answer was always the same: he's being treated and well cared for, but nothing definite. At least he was still alive.

Perhaps we got to a breaking point when Olivia finally asked me to talk about myself. No secrets here, just who Erin Forrestal was and what she was about. But I found that I was suddenly at a loss and couldn't really get anything out. Perhaps I had done
/so much talking in the last week or more that my little brain had finally short-circuited. Ask me about NERV-2 or SEELE or Evangelion and I could go on and on about what I knew, but ask me about myself and I couldn't say anything. I felt unnerved.

Olivia sensed that I was tired with all of the endless questions and just smiled at me. "Alright, I think you've had enough."

"So, no more questions then?" I asked. My interrogator agreed. "Let's take a break, shall we?"

I jumped at the chance. "Any way we can go outside?" I hadn't really been exposed to prolonged sunlight since I had been taken from Nevada.

Olivia winked at me. "I think we can take a chance. Come on!"

I exited the building along with Olivia and a couple of large men dressed in business suits who I assumed were security guards. From the outside the building looked like just any regular office structure with tinted black glass panels. There was nothing
/to identify where we were other than a building number. Looking around it appeared that we were in the middle of an office complex, but there were very few people outside besides ourselves.

Finally free to feel the sun on my skin I stretched my arms above my head and cracked all of my joints. Olivia walked beside me and grinned as she saw me take in the sunlight. She still wore a business suit with slacks while I had on another plain red-colored
/t-shirt and black leggings. For the first time in quite a while I felt comfortable.

"Feels good to be out, doesn't it?" Olivia asked.

"Sure does," I told her with a slight smile. "I really missed the outdoors after being inside of mountains and fortresses and prison cells and all of that."

"You're quite something, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"I think if most other kids had gone through what you did they'd be a dribbling mess."

I shrugged at that. "I'm still a mess."

"Hey, rest easy," she reassured me. "I think the worst is over for you at this stage."

"Any word on my brother?"

"I do have some new information in fact. According to our other branch Patrick's condition has been upgraded from 'guarded' to 'serious,' so I would say that's an improvement."

I was elated at even that little bit of news. "Did they manage to save his face?"

"That I don't know. Theydo some pretty wickedly cool science out there at NERV so hopefully he'll be okay."

We kept walking down the street where our building was under the watchful eye of the two guards, talking as we went. Finally I felt I could let my guard down a little more with Olivia, though I still didn't know much about her.

"What's going to happen to me?" I asked her.

"I think that's still being decided," Olivia replied. "You're an Evangelion pilot, and that makes you valuable. I understand Admiral Vinson has been involved with the matter and I'm sure he'll see to it you're well taken care of."

"Oh, no," I said aloud. The Admiral was the commander of the NERV forces that my then-collaborator Kaworu had slaughtered while I stood by. It was Admiral Vinson that I had gone to such lengths to fool in order to gain entry into NERV. If he was deciding
/things, and if it was really true as Patrick had told me that my dad had provided medication to Vance that he knew would eventually kill him, I didn't think the Admiral would be too easy on me at all.

"I wouldn't worry too much, Erin," Olivia tried to reassure me. "The war's over now, at least it looks that way. Everyone's gonna start picking up the pieces and try to get back to something like normal."

"I don't even know what normal is anymore."

"Normal is not having to worry about if you're going to die tomorrow, and instead worry about what most girls your age should be worrying about: growing up, school, clothes, and boys!"

I laughed a little at that comment, as few of those were things I had even thought about for months. I guess Olivia was right, and maybe it was time to rest easier.

Before I could reply to her I heard the noise of a helicopter in the distance, a noise that became steadily more loud. Turning to Olivia, I could see alarm on her face. She was clearly worried about something. She turned to the two security guards and
/motioned to them to start heading back to our building. "Get her inside, now!" Olivia ordered and one of the large men took my arm to hurry me back. But then there came several black SUVs down both sides of the road we were walking on. Olivia pulled
/out a radio from her jacket pocket and both of our guards drew their pistols that were hidden in their coats, but from the black vehicles streamed out a dozen or more of black-clad heavily armed men. Most of them had the white letters 'FBI" emblazoned
/on their combat vests.

Olivia rushed over to where I stood and tried to hurry me further down the street but we were cut off by the armed men. Out of another SUV came another three persons, two men and a woman, who were wearing dark suits with sunglasses. All three had their
/guns drawn. Surrounded and outnumbered, Olivia sighed out in deep frustration, as both of our guards put their hands in the air. She found the leader of the group and immediately launched a verbal assault, which was all that she could do considering
/the circumstances.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she shouted at the leader, a tall Caucasian man with silver-grey hair. "This is our subject!"

"The Alliance doesn't have jurisdiction over this," he promptly answered. "Stand down if you don't want to get carried away as well." Olivia tried to reach out to me but was pushed back by some of the armed me, while the tall leader came up to me.

"Erin Forrestal?"

Confused and now a bit scared, I just answered him. "Yes?"

"FBI. We have a warrant for your arrest?"

Arrest? You mean I wasn't a prisoner before this? I didn't know what to say.

"On what fucking charges?" Olivia protested.

"Terrorism."

"Oh, Bullshit! She's a POW, not a criminal case!"

"The Federal DA has already given your supervisors notice of this, go see them if you have any issues." With that the other man and woman in suits took me and promptly put me against one of the SUV, firmly holding my hands behind my back and slipping
/on handcuffs. The second man read me my rights while the female agent led me to the back of one of the SUVs, opening the rear passenger door and pushing my head downward as she nudged me inside.

I looked for Olivia, not knowing what just happened. On her face I saw anger and frustration. "Erin! Just hang on, we'll get you out of this!" I didn't hear anything further as the female agent got inside the SUV and sat next to me and closed the door.
/Seconds later we sped off, again to God knows where.

---

I guess with my arrest that the other shoe dropped. Olivia had called me a "subject" but I suppose that was a nice way of saying "Prisoner of War." Still, the Alliance had been a lot nicer than my new custodians.

The SUV took me on a short trip to the local office of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Once there I was processed like any other criminal: photographed, fingerprinted, and interviewed. I was again given a quick, very businesslike brief by one
/of the agents of what my rights were. Then I was presented with a prisoner's uniform of light blue blouse and pants that were way too large for me, and had to give up the clothes I had after being allowed to change in a bathroom.

My mind went numb, and strangely I was getting a bit used to all of this handling. As bad as this was at least it wasn't SEELE, eh? I also knew that I needed not to completely roll over for my new captors.

"Excuse me," I asked the agent that was booking me. "Don't I get a phone call?"

"Yes, miss," he said in a very polite but firm tone. "One to your lawyer and another to an outside relative or other contact."

"Well, I don't have a lawyer," I told him, "But I need to reach my brother."

"Fine. Do you have his number?"

"Um, he's in Japan. Tokyo-3, actually."

"But you don't have his number?" the agent asked impatiently.

"Look, this is really messed up. I'm not some terrorist!"

"It's not my job to argue with this…"

"…but I really don't have my brother's phone number," I told him. "But is there any way you could reach him?"

"Miss, we're not an on-line search service here. You can ask your attorney to help you with this."

"But I told you I don't have a lawyer!"

"And well get one for you if you don't" the agent replied in a tired voice.

I tried to remember any details about NERV at Tokyo-3, anything that could help them. "Um, I don't have the number but you can contact his boss through the main NERV phone line." I tried. "Her name's Colonel Katsuragi!"

"Fine," replied the agent without even writing down what I told him. "We'll let you know." With that I was taken to another part of the building and placed in a small, concrete lined cell by myself. As I sat down on the mattress provided I watched the
/steel cell door close on me, and wondered at this moment if I hadn't gone from frying pan to fire.

The entire episode had left me very confused about what was going on with me and what would happen next. Olivia had told me that I was "Important' and I suppose that also meant I was important to other people besides the Alliance. I didn't have a good
/feeling at all about ending up in this new, actually prison-like prison, but by now I had gotten so used to being traded around that I didn't affect me as terribly as I thought it should have. Wait another week, I figured, and I'd probably end up
/somewhere else.

Still this was very disappointing. Was the Alliance trying to hide me from the American authorities? I guess they were but then why? I thought they were all on the same side. I didn't know what else to do except just lay down on my new prison mattress
/and just wait it out.

---

At about 8 PM one of the guards, a female one wearing a light blue police uniform, knocked on my cell door. "Miss Forrestal? Phone call."

Phone call? I jumped out of the bed and ran to where the guard held a cordless phone. Over the line was by-now a very familiar voice. "Hello?"

"Patrick!" I screamed.

"Erin!" he screamed back into the phone, just as happy to hear from me as I was from him. "Oh my God, it's good to hear from you!"

"Are you alright?" I asked. "They said you had an operation."

"It was pretty dicey for a while, but I'm okay now. Completely." Patrick's voice was confident and sure and that told me he had indeed recovered.

"Thank God! I was so worried and I didn't hear anything for so long!"

"I'm sorry," Patrick apologized, "but I was sort of out of it for a while. I asked about you and they had trouble reaching you until now. Are you okay?"

"Uh, not really," I told him, "At first they had a whole lot of questions about Dad and SEELE but then this morning I got arrested…again! They're pressing charges!"

"WHAT!?" my brother shouted in a furious tone. "Are you kidding me?"

"It's got to do with the attack on NERV when I came in," I struggled to explain. "They're saying it's terrorism."

"Jeez, you only killed the enemy's top guy," he spat out cynically. "Besides it's not like you destroyed the GeoFront yourself or anything. I don't believe this!"

"Anyway," I continued, "there's going to be something in court soon. They've got a lawyer for me but there's no else here." My guard had been slipping all throughout the conversation, and at this point I was tired and desperate to get out of being kept
/prisoner. It was that and I really, really needed to be with my other half at this moment. "Patrick, " I pleaded. "Are you able to come out here? I really need to see you."

There was a pause on the phone and then "Yeah…I'll get out there as soon as I can. Just hang tight, okay?"

"Okay! Please get here soon!"

"I'll do my best to hurry…and I'll…I'll get help from the others here in Japan. I promise."

"Got it."

The guard gave me a visual signal to cut off the phone call and I gave Patrick a prolonged "Goodbye." I was reluctant to let the phone go and I know he was too. But we had to end the call and then the guard left me back by myself in my cell.

At least this cell had a window to the outside world, albeit a small one, and a sliver of moonlight snuck inside illuminating the little room as I lie there on the mattress and wonder what was going to happen next. I tried to hang onto hope, any little
/thing that I could. Patrick sounded a lot better, and I hoped that his face had been at least fixed although I didn't hold out much for that. I tried not to think much more about it. I tried not to think about anything.

"Dear God," I prayed, "not sure what's going on but I'm desperate. Please help." That was the last thing I thought or said that night. Not long afterwards peace finally came to me and I managed to fall asleep.

---

In the morning there was another knock on the cell door. I was lying on the mattress and looked up as the door was opened, and inside walked two people. One was a tall Caucasian man with fair, slightly greying hair dressed in an expensive-looking business
/suit, but the other person was….

"Maria!" I nearly screamed. Maria Vinson had come to see me.

Her face looked worn, like she had aged another ten years since I saw her last. Her black hair was mixed with strands of grey, and she had a certain slowness to her manner. But it was her. Dressed in a denim jacket and pants, she came over to me immediately.
/"Erin?"

"Oh my God!"I nearly leaped out of bed and rushed over to her, embracing her tightly. She held me in her own arms.

I looked up at her as my emotions rolled forward like a hurricane. "Vance…Vance is…."

"I know dear," she told me as both sadness and relief held her face. "I know all about it now."

I wanted to say more. I wanted to say how sorry it was about Vance, and about what happened but I couldn't get the words out. Finally seeing someone from my past life was enough and I burst into tears, trembling and crying on Maria's shoulder for the
/next few minutes as she held me there in the little cell.

It took me a bit to get calmed down but I finally did, and sat down along with the other two inside of the cell, the older man brining a chair with him from outside. The door was shut by the guards and he introduced himself.

"Miss Forrestal," he started with a firm but friendly voice, "my name is Arthur Fletcher. I'm an attorney and a friend of the Vinsons."

I looked at Maria, wondering if the Admiral was actually trying to help me after what I did back in Tokyo-3. She smiled and held my hand, giving me all of the reassurance I then needed.

The attorney continued. "We're going to try to get you out of here, and quickly," he told me. "I've already asked for an emergency hearing in front of a federal judge later this afternoon. But before I do that I need to know everything you can tell me
/about what happened to you."

"That's quite a lot," I told him with no exaggeration.

"Well, do the best you can," Arthur encouraged, "and then I'll do the best that I can." He then pulled out a legal pad from his briefcase and a pen and looked up at me, and from that point I began to recall everything that I could about my encounters
/with the evil organization known as SEELE.

Arthur Fletcher was true to his word, and by that four o'clock that afternoon we were seated in a courtroom in nearby Cambridge. Maria had brought a dress for me to wear, a modest black one with broad white collars along with a pair of simple polished
/black flats. The outfit was drab and plain, but I got what the attorney was trying to do: make me look as innocent as possible in the courtroom in the hopes of obtaining the judge's mercy on Little Orphan Erin.

As I got dressed in the court's prisoner holding area and Maria helped me fix my hair, we talked and got caught up about what happened to her and to the Admiral. Because of Admiral Vinson's role within the Alliance, Maria herself was targeted by SEELE
/and had to flee the Maine lake house after the incident at Tokyo-3 when Vance was killed. She had spent the next few months hiding out on ships and faraway places like Australia, and had only returned in the last week when it was finally safe. Once
/Patrick heard from me that I had been taken by the FBI, he immediately asked for help from the Admiral and others at NERV, one of whom was the Vinson's attorney friend Arthur.

Maria Vinson had been through a lot, having to live on the run not long after finding out that the Admiral hadn't been telling her the truth what we were really doing at Second Branch, and in the beginning she had felt angry and hurt by being lied to
/and for losing Vance. Her and the Admiral still weren't on the best of terms even now, but she had sought for herself what the truth was, however unpleasant, and in the end she had come to support the Admiral and the war he had needed to fight against
/SEELE.

She also told me that she had actually met Patrick! Back in February she visited Tokyo-3, and had met both Patrick and his "lovely but strange blue-haired senorita." I told her about our own reunion and my worries about Patrick's current well-being, but
/she encouraged me to have faith. "God would not have brought you two back together without having a happy end in mind." I sure hope that she was right.

---

We got to the courtroom punctually at Four O'Clock, and Mr. Fletcher was right there waiting for us at the defendants' table. A few feet to our right were the prosecutors, a group of two men and a woman in fancy business suits who all looked smugly confident.
/I didn't have a great feeling about this and really hoped that Arthur was as good of a lawyer as he claimed to be.

"All rise!" the uniformed bailiff called out and we stood up from the table in unison, as did the prosecutors. There was nobody at all in the audience chairs behind us. "This court is now in session, Judge Rhonda Jackson presiding." A large middle-aged
/black lady in judges robes came walking out from the doorway facing us, and promptly stepped up to the judge's podium and sat down. We all sat down as court began.

"Thank you, Jerry," she said to the bailiff in a sort of a folksy accent. "All right, let's get this done." She nodded to the prosecutors and one of them, the tallest one, again stood up.

"Your honor, the defendant Erin Elizabeth Forrestal is charged with Attempt or Conspiracy With Respect to Homicide in the commission of an act of Terrorism, under 18 US Code article 2332. The US attorney alleges that the defendant was a participant along
/with others in an attack on the Tokyo-3 GeoFront on March 4th, 2016, where she employed a Weapon of Mass Destruction in an attack intended to cause mass casualties and destruction of property. During said event, a British national named Doctor Ravi
/Viraat, who was a chief scientist of the NERV Organization at the time, was killed by a co-conspirator. Under the Response to Terrorism Framework Agreement of 1986, US citizens who are charged with crimes of terror against British nationals can be
/brought to charges in US Federal Court, hence we are charging the defendant with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts under the US Code. We believe that evidence will show that she was a willing participant and had full knowledge of her actions at
/that time."

"Thank you, Mr. Sullivan," the Judge responded without showing any particular emotion. "Defense?"

Arthur now stood up, a yellow legal pad in his hand. He also had on a fancy grey suit and dapper-looking eyeglasses, and I bit my tongue as he started, hoping that my white knight had come to save me.

"Thank you, your honor," he started. "The defense moves to dismiss all charges against my client. Miss Forrestal was acquired by the criminal organization known as SEELE while in a comatose state, and once revived was presented grossly false evidence
/regarding SEELE's goals and objectives, especially in regard to the recent war between SEELE and the Alliance of Free Nations. Without access to contrary evidence and being compelled by SEELE through manipulation of information my client believed
/that she was involved with the lawful recovery of the property of the United Nations. Furthermore once she discovered this was not the case, she was immediately made prisoner by SEELE itself. In summary she was given a false story without any contradicting
/evidence, and once coming to the truth she acted accordingly."

"We also challenge," said Arthur as he looked at the opposing table of prosecutors, "the legality of the charges that the US attorney is presenting. Technically, my client is a Prisoner of War and what transpired on and before March 4 2016 was not a criminal
/act on my client's part. Therefore the charges should be summarily dismissed."

Arthur stood down and the judge initially said nothing, but then pointed her gavel towards the prosecutors. "He's got a point," she said as the lead attorney wrinkled his nose and again stood up. "isn't this the incorrect venue for the criminal charges
/you're seeking out?"

"Not at all, your honor," the attorney said smugly. "The organization known as SEELE was not a lawful party of war. It wasn't a nation-state but rather a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy of fellow travelers literally bent on world destruction. SEELE's
/actions, especially concerning the Evangelion and events leading up to Second Impact, were not acts of war but sabotage and genocide of the highest order. The defendant was a willing participant in the conspiracy to steal weapons of mass destruction
/and employ them against a wide range of targets."

My attorney stood up. "Objection, your honor. She did no such thing. In any case, Miss Forrestal is but fourteen years of age and hardly a willing participant in a conspiracy."

"We've prosecuted gang murders at ages younger than hers as adult crimes," the prosecution countered. "Besides, due to her father's deep involvement within SEELE's conspiracy her own participation extended well before the attack on Tokyo-3. She was a
/willing participant."

"Your honor," Arthur persisted, "the US attorney had the option to charge Miss Forrestal in military court yet they chose not to do so even though such a venue would likely make their chances of a conviction easier. They picked this venue, a US Federal
/district court, in order to maximize the publicity such a case would make and force the Alliance of Free Nations and the NERV organization to come to the aid of the defense and make a spectacle out of this for political gain."

"Politics has nothing to do with this!" objected the prosecutor.

"It's got everything to do with this!" countered Arthur "As I said, if you really wanted a conviction you could just charge her in military court under closed doors. The US government has convicted hundreds of accused terrorists under the same grounds
/as this case, but what makes this different? This is about Evangelion."

The prosecutor then got nasty. "Your client pilots a nearly-invincible weapon that can destroy a city, you don't think that's something that should be kept hushed up, unless you've got something to hide, Arthur!"

My own lawyer ignored the challenge and put his attention back onto the judge. "Your honor, this courtroom is not the proper venue for what prosecution wants. This whole thing is propped up and designed to drag out for years as my client twists in the
/wind for something she clearly had no major part in. The charges should be dismissed!"

"Your honor, they just want this covered up! The true nature of the Evangelion and how it works, and why these children are involved. Too many people have died over this, don't let them get away with it!"

"Alright, that's enough. Both of you!" the judge admonished from the bench. "Prosecution has a valid point, we bring things to court in order to shine a light so that justice can be done, and much of what's been involved with this…Evangelion issue has
/been kept quiet for far too long."

"Perhaps so, your honor," Arthur perked up, "But there's better venues than a trumped-up criminal case to explore this."

The prosecutor pointed a finger right at me. "People died because of what this person did!"

"Shut up, both of you!" said the judge. "Y'all are not going to try this by argument this afternoon."

"Your honor," Arthur said, this time more politely, "may I approach the bench?" The judge nodded and then my lawyer walked briskly towards the judge's podium, followed by the prosecutor. I couldn't hear what they were saying but the three of them where
/having something of an argument in whispers. After about a minute of this the judge stood up and told the both of them "see me in my chambers in five minutes. Mr. Fletcher, please ask your client to join us." Both of the lawyers went to their respective
/tables as Arthur motioned to me to stand up and follow him.

Within five minutes the judge, my attorney, Maria and myself were in the judge's private office, joined by Mr. Sullivan. There weren't enough chairs for all of us to sit down, so they offered both Maria and I each one of the chairs while Arthur and the
/head prosecutor Mr. Sullivan stood up in the crowded room as the Judge was behind her desk. Again, I sat nervously as complete strangers argued my fate.

"Your honor this entire episode is a clown show," Arthur told the judge, this time speaking much more informally than he was in open court. "They don't care about my client, this is just maneuvering to get a high-profile case regarding current events
/that can twist in the media for years."

"There you go again, Arthur," said the head prosecutor. "This is not about politics or media coverage. People were killed, horribly, and the defendant was part of that."

"No she wasn't," Arthur shot back. "SEELE ordered her to kill enemy pilots as part of the raid. She refused and they threw her in captivity as a result. I'd hardly call that conspiring."

"So she got cold feet," remarked Sullivan. "She had every opportunity to warn NERV of impending danger that day."

By this point my lawyer was getting exasperated as the judge sat idly by and watched the arguments unfold. "I can't believe this! Did you even read the deposition we filed? My client was lied to by nearly everyone, including her own father, about the
/nature of what she as doing and even about the existence of her own family. Due to her father's mess-up of his science project my client fell into a coma, then was sent off to SEELE who then after she woke up promptly kidnapped her and lied to her
/a lot more. She's nearly raped, she's nearly killed, then she's sent into Tokyo-3 to go steal her own Evangelion when she's caught up in this raid by another enemy controlled…robot?" He turned briefly to me. "is that what you properly call these Evangelions?"

"She's not a robot," I answered. "We just call them units."

"Okay, well, 'unit' then. They order her to kill other kids with her own unit but she refuses, then when she returns they put her in a jail cell. A friendly agent breaks her out, whereupon they return to their Evangelion unit and again steal it, then
/use it against the head of SEELE by drowning him in a river of volcanic lava, without which none of us would be standing here arguing about anything! You should be giving her a fucking medal, not throwing felonies at her!"

Sullivan was firm. "You know as well as I do that's not what the law allows. If you're so sure of your defense of her, then let's go to trial and have it out in court."

"She's been through enough," Arthur countered. "This girl has seen more danger than you or I ever will in our lifetimes yet she's without a home or family because of all of this. If she needs to be punished that's certainly sufficient."

The prosecutor turned to the judge. "Your honor, this is pointless."

"I agree," the judge said, then she turned to Arthur. "May I address your client?"

I was about to nod yes, elated that at least someone wanted to know what I thought about the whole thing but Arthur again held me back. "With all due respect, your honor, my client shouldn't be compelled to answer. Last time I checked the UN world government
/was down in flames, and we've got a Fifth Amendment again."

"I'm not an idiot, Mr. Fletcher," the judge snapped. "But long before I got this job I was a ADA for juvenile cases as well as a judge. I know where the line's drawn."

"I have to agree with Arthur," protested the prosecutor. "It's very irregular to have the judge interrogate the defendant directly out of court."

"We're all sitting her talking about two-hundred foot tall walking weapons of mass destruction that can vaporize giant monsters while being piloted by teenagers," she argued. "This whole damn thing's irregular!"

"But still…" The judge held up her hand to silence him, and then she turned her attention to me.

"Erin?" she asked me, "Do you understand what's going on?"

"I think so," I told her directly. "It seems like I'm in a lot of trouble."

"That's a matter of perspective," she said to me, "but the point of a courtroom is to make things fair on your behalf, especially if you're accused of a crime. Let me ask you, where's home for you?"

"Well," I started to talk but I also chocked up a bit. I had been trying as hard as I could to hold back emotions but they were leaking, and tears started up in my eyes. "it was..it was NERV Second Branch, in Nevada. But it's not there anymore, it's gone."

"I see. And how about your mom and dad?"

"My mom's been gone since I was four years old," I said, surprised I still had a voice to speak. "My dad disappeared along with Second Branch."

"Anyone else?"

"I have a twin brother, in Japan. He's also a pilot, and he just got out of the hospital."

"So who's taking care of you now?"

"Um, no one is."

It was then that Maria stood up and spoke to the judge. "I'm doing it," she told her, to everyone's surprise including my own. Maria looked down at me and smiled, then told the judge "we have a house in Southern Maine, next to Lake Arrowhead. A hundred
/acres in the woods, lakeside. It's beautiful," she said. "I…I lost my only son to this thing. The least I can do now is take care of her."

"I see," the judge replied with a quiet, thinking for a few moments as she toyed with her gavel. The whole room was quiet as she decided what would happen next. I glanced again at Maria, wondering was she serious about taking me in, but she just smiled
/back at me.

"I think what you need is stability," the judge said to me softly. Then Judge Jackson turned to my lawyer.

"I can suggest something that would be win-win here," she said, then she turned to the prosecutor. "Allow them to plead down to a lesser charge."

Sullivan was incredulous. "Like what, misdemeanor terrorism?"

"How about Conspiracy to commit mayhem," Arthur helpfully suggested. "That's on the books."

"Ridiculous," scoffed the prosecutor. "That's a watered-down charge for pled-down public disorder, not for capital murder."

"I think a strong argument could be made that this was war, and subject to the laws of it," the judge said. "But I think you owe it to the defendant to expedite this. Arthur, would you agree to a plead-down?"

My attorney scratched his head. "I would, but no jail time. She's done enough of that."

"Oh, my God you're not serious?" objected the prosecutor.

"I'd be open to house arrest, for one year," replied the judge more calmly.

"Your honor," argued Sullivan, "this kid pilots a weapon of mass destruction in a bloodthirsty attack and you're going to just confine her to some house in the country?"

Judge Jackson folder her hands and looked at the prosecutor. "If the problem is that she causes trouble when piloting this thing, then let's keep the two apart. I'll agree to a restraining order where she doesn't pilot and she doesn't come within, oh
/say, fifty miles of anything related to the Evangelion. If she's not able to pilot she doesn't seem like much of a threat here. So do we have a deal?"

Sullivan was unfortunately firm. "Respectfully, no. I don't need a trophy bad enough to go along with burying this. Lives were lost here and…"

Before the prosecutor could finish there was a knock on the judge's door and then it opened, and in came the younger of the prosecutor's assistants, a blonde-haired woman. "Your honor, begging your pardon but there's a phone call for Mr. Sullivan."

"I told you no calls!" the prosecutor growled.

"Sir," she said as she handed her mobile phone to him. "It's the AG herself."

The prosecutor's eyebrows shot up, as it was the Attorney General of the US on the phone. "Yes, ma'am" he answered. He stayed on the phone for a good couple of minutes listening to his top boss, occasionally trying to interject but unable to say much.
/Finally there was some grudging agreement in his voice and he hung up the call, looking dejected. He looked at Arthur and then finally at me.

"You, young lady, seem to have some friends in high places." Turning again to the judge, he simply said "Accepted."

---

Of course, they didn't let me go quite so easily. I still had to "outprocess" from the jail and that took another night of staying there. Still, finally I had hope, and I was able to sleep much easier that evening.

In the morning I received another visitor, this one was a prison nurse with a funny looking device in her hand. Without much introduction she took my vital signs and then asked me to roll up my right sleeve. She then put her device against my lower arm
/and I suddenly felt a painful punch into my skin. It felt itchy and I rubbed it where I felt the wound, then noticed that there was a small object inside.

"What is that?" I asked the nurse.

"GPS tracker," she relied matter-of-factly. "Part of your release conditions." Then she smiled at me and said "congratulations, you can leave now."

Maria met me just inside the prison exit and handed me another bag of clothes, this set consisting of a green polo and white tennis skirt, along with a new pair of runners. I gladly changed out of my prison uniform then handed all of that back to the
/guard at the "outprocessing" desk with a broad smile, hoping never to see this place again.

Once outside the prison doorway I took a long breath and let it go, basking in the sunlight of that morning. I'll always remember the day and how blue the sky was and how pretty the clouds looked overhead as the sun rose and the wind blew gently. I knew
/that I wasn't entirely free: I still had a house arrest sentence and would have my wings clipped for a while, but I felt free for the first time in such a very long while. As I stretched my legs out in the sunlight Maria's phone rang and she picked
/it up. After a quick conversation she hung up the phone and turned to me. "Guess what?" she asked me with a smile.

We took a short drive in a fancy black-colored sedan that had stickers of four white stars on either side, Maria had explained that it was an Admiral's staff car. Certainly it was quite nice in the back with soft leather seats and even a computer and
/monitor. The car took us back to Alliance Base North and then to the airfield, where we parked and waited by the runway.

Not long after we arrived a small white jet landed and then taxied over to where we were parked. Once it stopped, ground crew wheeled around a stairway to a door on the right side of the aircraft. The door swung open as a female crew member checked everything,
/and then went back inside.

A moment later someone else came walking out of the door and onto the stairway. It was Patrick! Dressed in a sport coat and khaki slacks, he looked quite dapper but most importantly was his face: it looked just like before, as if it had never melted off!
/I couldn't believe it! Not wanting to wait even a moment to see him I came bounding towards the stairway and tackled him as soon as his feet met the ground.

"Erin!" he said excitedly, his arms wrapped around me. "You're out?!"

"Yes! They got me out last night," I told him as I touched his face, just to be sure it was alright. "I'm free to go! Well, sort of."

"Sort of?"

"There's all these conditions and stuff. They chipped me too. Anyway, I'll tell you everything on the way home."

"Great," he said. "They gave me a place here on the base I can stay at, so I'm close by. Let's go there!"

"Oh no, you don't!" I told him, my smile stretched out from ear to ear. "You're going with us!" Before Patrick could ask who she meant he saw Maria Vinson emerge from the rear of the sedan. "Mrs. Vinson!"

"Hello, Patrick," she said to him "and please, Maria is fine!"

Puzzled, he looked back at me. "What's going on?"

I squeezed him as hard as I could, letting him on what Maria and I had discussed in the car on the way to the airfield to pick him up. "I'm living at the Vinson's house and now so are you!"

"What? Really?!" At first Patrick seemed unsure about all of this. "Mrs. Vinson, I mean Maria, is that okay?"

"It is," she replied. "I would be very glad to have both of you at the house on the lake." Patrick looked down at me, his eyes quivering with emotion. "In Maine?"

"Not far from here," I said softly. We looked at each other, knowing what this really meant for us. "We can be together then?" he asked.

I gave him a big squeeze. "Yes!"

"And we can do all of that stupid stuff together, like go swimming and get lost in the woods and stay up all night and tell each other stories and drink root beer floats and play together and all of that?"

We could be family now, the way we always should have been.

"Yes! Yes, yes, YES!"

Patrick was so excited that he picked me up and swung me high in the air, both of us laughing in delight. I didn't feel hollow anymore, and neither did he.

"Okay," he said. "Then let's go home." And so we did, and we spent the two hours on the way to the Vinson's lake house in the back of the Admiral's sedan, laughing and playing like we had known each other our whole lives. That day our puzzles were finally
/complete.