The first time he woke it was one of his own nightmares. He wasn't sure which one, just that he had awakened with an overwhelming sense of loss and his arm stretched out across his empty bed. Chances were that it had been Asama again. That was usually the one he woke up from physically reaching for an Asuka that wasn't there. He didn't feel any hotter than the air in the room though, so maybe it had been a different one. That the absent Asuka was annoyed at him waking her did not stop her sinking them back asleep a few minutes later.
The second time he woke it was from one of Asuka's quieter nightmares. One that left them breathing heavily but not making a sound. It must have hit her hard as it was several minutes before his breathing slowed to a normal level. Which left him time to think about ghosts. Whatever the strange issues that had occurred in the first sync test after his return had been they hadn't happened again. Captain Ibuki had called it "ghosting" as if they were physical manifestations of lost spirits. Given how lost he felt much of the time, the idea that his spirit had wandered off to sit next to Asuka in her Eva wasn't as far fetched as it would have seemed before he'd started piloting a tower block sized robot by thinking at it.
But what he was actually thinking about, in this gap between nightmares, was the very first time he'd met Rei. Not the time he usually thought of as the time they met, when his father forced him to get in the Eva or let an almost dead Rei do it instead. As angry as that made him, the talk of ghosts and echoes made him think of earlier that day. He'd been waiting for Misato to pick him up and he'd seen a blue haired girl standing in the street. He'd blinked and she'd been gone as if a figment of his imagination or a mirage. He was no closer to forming any idea of what it might mean when Asuka dragged him back down into sleep.
The third time he woke it was that nightmare again. He didn't know what it was, only that he'd woken up with Asuka's whimper in his throat and recognised the sound even if he couldn't hear Asuka herself. It was the one where she cried for her mother. The one time he'd asked her about it was the time Asuka had a hand-print bruise on her cheek for several days, she'd been upset enough to forget about the risks of physical contact. If her nightmare was anything like what he saw when he closed his eyes he couldn't blame her.
At least Rei had acknowledged her existence during today's test. Yesterday had been worse than when they'd first met. He used to interpret silence as lack of conflict before he met Asuka. He couldn't always tell the difference but having experienced the active silence that was an angry Asuka he knew there was a difference. Whatever had been going on it wasn't a type of silence he recognised. The sleep he followed Asuka into wasn't silent at all.
The fourth time he woke he wasn't breathing. After finally managing to force a breath he heard Asuka coughing through the thin walls. So that one was her's. And a new one he didn't recognise. He hoped he wasn't responsible for Asuka gaining a new nightmare. He couldn't think of a reason he would have, but he still didn't know why she was angry with him either.
It had been Rei who had broken the silence. She'd called out Asuka's name, only to have her pause staring at Rei for a long moment before shaking her head and turning away. Rei hadn't even asked to be held, just turned and buried her head in his shoulder wordlessly. He'd tried asking what was going on, but the longest sentence he'd gotten from Rei about it was 'Things I cannot say. Things I do not understand.' At least that was better than her opening her mouth and no words coming out.
The fifth time he woke there was no obvious reason, but at least he could breathe and roll over.
If Asuka wasn't talking to Rei and only talking to him in order to complain, she had no such restraint for anyone or anything else. Her failure to initially sync with her Eva had produced a stream of German, some of which he recognised, some of which he was reasonably sure she was inventing on the spot. Her rate had crawled up excruciatingly slowly for anyone within earshot but eventually settled closer to his own than to Rei's. He didn't want to know what would have happened if it had been lower than Rei's improved scores. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation but as Asuka's slow breathing helped them back to sleep he'd been imagining a panel of sports judges holding up scores for his nightmares. Rei wouldn't understand, but strange-Asuka would probably find it hilarious.
The sixth time he woke he gave up and got up to make breakfast before it got too hot to cook. He didn't bother Asuka, she'd know what he was doing and would want the time alone to recover from the last one.
With no tests while the next experiment was set up, and no school, today was going to be another oppressively hot day with an angry Asuka for company. At least there was housework and laundry to keep him occupied for a while.