I sit here in the entry plug and try to be patient but I have such hard trouble with it. It's not my first time in here as I've been inside this and the simulated plugs for months now, but today's the latest try to get this thing activated. By now I've gotten a little used to it, the LCL that I used to practically choke on now feels natural in my lungs and I can feel it slightly bubbling against my face. My hands are on the actuators and I'm leaning back on the chair, or the Throne as they call it. The wraparound video display that's all around me shows various diagrams as the crew outside prepares for what they hope will be a successful activation this time, something we've been trying to accomplish for over two months.

The countdown continues and so here I wait. We're about five hundred feet underground, well outside the view of the surface, in a secret place that looks like an indoor sports area without the stadium seats but built just for what we're doing now. Except for my father and a few of his most trusted people no one in the world knows we're here.

I can feel my stomach growl a bit and I instantly regret not eating before I got suited up today. But then they were afraid I might lose my lunch (actually dinner, as it's about 10pm right now here in Nevada) if something went wrong or if the testing was too violent. So I just bear with it the best I can. For the test and for all of the experiments with the Evangelion we've done so far I'm wearing a plug suit, a full-size bodysuit that's an interesting cross between a wetsuit, dancewear and something you'd float in outer space with. But it fits me snugly like a second skin and actually I like that feeling. My suit is bright orange, with black stripes and piping, the number "04" is printed right below my neckline indicating the name of the Evangelion Unit that I'm supposed to be piloting.

I remember that day well. It was the last day of my innocence, and the first day when everything in my life changed.

By now nearly everyone who is reading this knows about Evangelion. They've read about the Angels, about the war for the future of Earth between monsters and men, and men who became monsters. Second Impact, Third Impact, NERV, SEELE, The Children, Tokyo-3, all of those things have now become part of our common history and how Earth was nearly destroyed, once by creatures beyond our understanding and once by people we knew all too well. But the story of the Evangelions and the three children who piloted them is only part of the adventure, the tip of the iceberg. The War wasn't just in Tokyo-3, it was all over the world in so many places and it didn't just end with the Angels being defeated. There was so much more going on that people don't know, at least not until now.

I don't ever want to take away from the courage and the bravery of those children from Tokyo-3 who piloted EVA in those dark times. Over the years I've gotten to know them better and I'm still amazed at how they made it through all of that hell and somehow still remained pretty decent people in the end. They still have their nightmares about it though, and so do I. Because Shinji, Asuka and Rei weren't the only pilots, there were others too.

My name is Erin Forrestal, and this is my story.

The speakers in my entry plug sound out with the voices of technicians sitting inside the control room across from me. "First contact complete, Second contact initiated." The entry plug screen flashes another set of diagrams as the entry plug is calibrated to the Evangelion's operation. Then another voice comes on, that of my father. "Erin, dear, how are you?"

My eyes and ears perk up at the sound of his voice. "Just fine. Are we going to do it this time?"

"Well, I sure hope so. Just concentrate on the EVA like I told you and keep yourself focused."

"Okay!" I cheerfully reply and then grab onto the actuators just a little tighter.

This is the twelfth attempt in the last month to activate Unit 04. Each time we got far into the activation sequence but never to the final point, where pilot and EVA are finally connected to each other. I was anxious with what would happen when EVA and I would cross together: it wasn't something that you could train or prepare for, no simulator could give you the feeling of what it would be like. All we knew was that it had been done before by other pilots elsewhere in the world, and if they could do it we could too.

"Connect to A10 Nerve. All Circuits are operational…checking nerve links." I foolishly hold my breath, hoping for a good result this time. A voice calls out "Second Contact completed, moving to Final Contact." That meant the basics of the link are done and now we go to the final step, the line we've yet to cross over.

My heart races and I can feel myself sweat inside the plug suit. I'm excited but nervous and just try to picture myself as part of the giant that I'm inside of, and how my head is its head and my hands are its hands. Over the speaker comes the next part. "Passing Absolute Critical Line…"

Everyone is silent as they watch and wait. The display on my screen shows a set of arrows progressing upward, just barely within reach of my target. I close my eyes and think of the most positive thing I can. I think of being little and being in between my mom and dad and how wonderful that felt, but then I shake my head. No, don't make me think about it, I don't want to remember what came after that. Something better, like butter cookies or making a perfect landing off of the balance beam or something like that…I let myself get all quiet and then I just have this weird vision, like I can see the last piece fitting inside of a puzzle. That's it!

"Borderline Clear!" an excited voice shouts out. On the screen there's a flash as the progression arrow reaches upwards, and in big bold letters it says ACTIVATION ACHIEVED.

"We did it!" another voice shouts, then my father's voice comes on again. "Stay focused, everyone. It's just the first step here." I'm excited, although truthfully I don't particularly any different than a minute ago.

"Checking Harmonics….All green!"

My father's voice comes in again. "What's the sync rate?"
"29.54%"

"Excellent!"

My impatience finally gets the better of me. "Did we do it?" I ask, nearly shouting. "Yes, dear, we've finally got a link. Now do you think you can show us some movement on your end."

I look at my video display which now shows the view from the EVA unit's head, and I can see the giant room around me. EVA-04 is standing on a platform forty meters below, and across from us at the other end is a control room set inside of the opposite wall. Without really thinking I go to move my right hand and then I notice something on the display. The EVA is moving its hand right along with me. I gasp in excitement and do things with my hands and fingers for the next thirty seconds, first right then left. The EVA matches my movement perfectly.

"I got it to move!" I call out. "Good! Good!" my father replies. "Now do you think you can move off the platform?"

"I'll try." To be completely fair this is nothing like the simulator, there's practically no effort to me to move this thing. I just think and there we go. We start to take steps and then turn around to face another direction, and the EVA moves right along. "I got it to walk."

"Okay," my dad said with a steady voice. "Can you walk to the other side?"

"I got this!" I start thinking about walking and it takes one step, and then another…and then suddenly everything starts falling. "Oh, shit!" I cry out. A second later there's a thud and I feel myself buffet around the entry plug. "What happened?"

"You just stumbled a bit, tried to go too fast." My father addresses the others in the control booth. "Any damage? No?" Then he speaks to me again "Can you pick yourself up?" I think to get up and she does it. It's a she, I think to myself, not an it. Why is that? "I got up!"

"Okay, just try it again but baby steps, Erin. Just take little steps." I do what my father asks and then slowly move around the interior of the chamber until I get my confidence. Pretty soon I'm walking all around, and things got better from there.

For the next hour I put the EVA through its paces. Walk, run, even jump a bit. I didn't feel confident enough to do anything like a cartwheel or a flip, but I felt like I maybe the next time could do it without really even trying. I was totally in control of this thing and it felt wonderful, like nothing else in the world.

After over sixty minutes of piloting the Evangelion I was exhausted from all of the excitement and effort, and everyone else didn't want to push our luck as EVA was "our little secret" and nearly everyone wanted to keep it that way for now. I walked the unit back to the cage and then the ground crew let me out. I spend a couple of minutes cleaning myself off of excess LCL and getting back to breathing real air, and then still wearing my plug suit I go happily bouncing to the end of the steel platform like a little girl. At the other end were a group of people wearing NERV Khaki uniforms, some with white lab coats and with my father at the head of the pack.

"Daddy! Daddy!" I called to him as I ran. "I did it!"

My father just smiled at me as I approached. Given as I was still too wet with LCL on me and my plugsuit I couldn't quite hug him like I wanted to, but he took my hands and shared my smile. "And indeed you did! Excellent job!" He then turned to the men behind him and addressed them. "As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, our efforts have borne fruit!"

One of the others, an overweight white guy who wore a darker grey NERV uniform, stepped up to my father. "Well, all thanks to you, Harrison. We could never have done this without your amazing contribution."

"Thank you, Commander Stennis."

"Now with this unit and the incoming Unit 03, we'll soon be able to achieve our goal of becoming the prime operational force of NERV and not just an offshore factory. When do you think we can start combat-testing the EVAs?"

My father shrugged. "Soon, I would think. Given that the Japanese are presently distracted with fighting Angels we should be able to spin up our little operation in no time."

"Good. I'll be sure to report to our friends in Congress about this, they'll be glad to hear it as well."

"As long as it's still kept under wraps," my Father chided the commander. "We wouldn't want the folks at Tokyo-3 to get any idea of what we're up to. We'll maintain total secrecy up until the right time."

I interrupted my dad as he turned to someone else, excited as I was then. "Dad! Dad, can we go to…" He cut me off.

"Now, Erin, I'd like to introduce you to someone else you'll be working closely with for the next stage of the operation." He motioned to two other people in the room I didn't recognize: one was a large, bulking man with graying hair and steel blue eyes who I figured was probably in his fifties, the other was a muscular teenaged boy nearly as tall as he was, with black, short-cropped hair and dark brown eyes, and a facial expression that I could only describe as smug. The older man wore a NERV uniform like the others adults in the group but the boy wore a more casual outfit like any teenager, with blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt. I still remember the words on the sweatshirt: "I EAT WHAT I KILL."

"Now Erin, this is Admiral Vinson," my father said as he stood next to the larger man. "He's the new head of security here at Second Branch." The giant was intimidating but had a good smile too and his expression softened when he bent over to speak to me. Politely offering his hand to me, he introduced himself.

"It's very good to finally meet you, Miss Forrestal." I offered my own hand although I was a bit cautious: I felt like it might get crushed in those giant hands of his.

"It's my pleasure," I said cheerfully.

"And," my father had now moved onto the boy. "This is Admiral Vinson's son Vance."

The tall boy looked at me with a smirk and scratched his head just slightly, not offering his hand. "Hi."

"Uh, hi," I replied, just giving him a polite wave.

His smirk went a little bit wider. "Well, little girl, you're pretty cute, you know."

Oh, great. I thought. This jerk is actually trying to hit on me. Really? I just batted my eyeslashes and smiled politely, not even taking this seriously.

"Vance here," my father continued, "is also an EVA pilot like yourself, being the designated pilot of Unit 03. He and his father have now transferred from Massachusetts to here at NERV-2, and will be living on base." My father then turned to me and smiled just a bit. "Starting tomorrow, you'll be training in your unit together with him."

"Wait, what?"

Vance then steps up to me and with a big grin on his face says "That's right, babe, we're going to be working together so I hope you got your best game for me."

What a complete asshole, I thought. "Uh, yeah. Right." I would have said a lot more but I really didn't want to embarrass myself or Dad at the moment. Trying to change the subject, I turned back to my dad. "Um, Dad? Now that we're done can we go out and celebrate?"

His facial expression became suddenly strained. "Um, I'm afraid not dear. I really need to see to our guests for tonight."

"But Dad! We've been at this for weeks! You promised if we succeeded you would…"

Before I could finish he put his hands on my shoulders and said "I know what I said but unfortunately duty calls and we need to honor those who pay the bills. I promise I'll take you out again soon." I didn't say anything in return but just pouted. He then gently took his hand to caress my wet hair and said "Now, dear be a good girl and go back to our place. I'll be back late tonight so don't wait for me. Okay?"

Sighing, I give in. "Okay."

"That's a good girl. I'll see you in the morning." And with that my dad left to find Commander Stennis and the others and then led them out the doorway by the end of the EVA cage, talking along the way. I stood by as the procession left and watched them go, noticing not much other than a group of talkative older guys in suits and uniforms, although at the end of the procession was one other man. This guy was older, nearly just as big as Admiral Vinson and with gray hair, but he wore a green uniform tunic and had on one of those vision enhancers, the ones with a big red slot across the front. He didn't say anything but just looked at me and then turned to go with the others. He gave me a sort of chill at the time, that I do remember, only it wasn't until much later on that I found out why.

As the group of them left the cage, Vance was the last to go. Winking at me from behind, he said "See you tomorrow, babe," and then just smiled and went along with the others. There I was just standing by myself. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply as this was not how I wanted to end my night.

After the test I shuffle back to my changing room. This is a secret operation and the whole testing range is built five hundred feet underground in a remote area of the base so besides the unit cages, some rooms for training and operations and the indoor arena where I did the test today there's not too much space. The people who built this place put in a small locker room for me that's about the size of a restaurant bathroom, and it's got a shower, one large locker and a bench I can sit on, and a sink and toilet and so forth. Anyway, I peel off the plug suit and then go shower off, silently letting the warm water run all over me for the next twenty minutes. All of the tiredness hits me now that the excitement of the activation wears off, and I feel like gravity went up a few notches.

After drying myself off I go to the locker and get back into the clothes I wore when I came in here. I pull on a black cotton short-sleeved leotard, which is about the most comfortable thing I own, and then a flower-pattered pair of skorts and then a black wrap-sweater. I slip back into strap sandals and then hurry out, slamming the door behind me.

The testing center is at the end of a long passageway that's about three hundred feet long, and there's guards at either end that just wave me by. They know me by now. Everyone at NERV-2 knows me by now. Once at the other end I go alone into an elevator and then a long ride to the surface. At the top is what looks like some sort of dumpy little supply building, it's there where I find a car waiting outside and I get in it. Outside it's pitch black and there's barely a moon visible. It's about midnight at that moment.

The car takes me to my apartment building, the second tallest building in Second Branch apart from the observation tower at the middle of this place. Once getting outside I go into the lobby and straight to the elevators without even saying high to the doorman/security guard. Our place is at the 33rd floor, and the elevator takes me straight to the top in about two minutes. I'm getting sleepy and lean on the walls for the short ride.

Once there I go straight for the apartment. There's only two suites on this floor, ours and the base commander's on the other side. I don't even need a key card as the door lock is matched to my voice, so I just say "Hello, Open!" and it does.

Once inside our place I breathe another sigh of relief and then go for the fridge. The whole place is mostly dark, just a few lights turn on by themselves when I get in. In the fridge I just grab a bottle of water and gulp it all down. I'm not even hungry anymore, instead I feel really tired.

My dad and I have this whole place to ourselves, although he's got the living room converted into this massive computer station while I've got a bedroom plus another room for play and schooling and stuff. I just go for the bedroom and get out of most of my clothes, but I don't even bother changing into a nightgown. I then plop right on the top of the bed in just my leotard and lay there and do nothing.

For a few minutes I go through in my brain what happened today, all of the excitement of being finally able to beat that unit, to get synced up and actually get the Evangelion to move and everything, only to have it all go downhill when I get out. Maybe I should have just stayed inside the entry plug tonight at least the EVA could keep me company.

Also that boy was really irritating. I actually don't mind if a boy's interested in me, I mean it's not like boys are crawling all over this place. I barely ever see other kids my age at all here. But does he have to be such a jerk-ass? First time I actually get hit on and it goes like that. I guess romance novels are just stories after all.

After a few more minutes of just lying there and listening to the soft tick-tock of the hallway clock I finally get to sleep. There's a cool breeze out the window crack and I can just barely feel it.

The first of the dreams came that night. It felt like I was wondering around some sort of little house. I couldn't see much, it seemed like everything was foggy or blurry, and sounds came back muffled, but there I was and there was someone else there too, someone older sitting on a chair by a fireplace. I wondered around this little place and then felt some sort of strange urge to pee, which I thought was weird: do you pee in dreams? But anyway I go inside a little room and that's when I saw something else. Was it a reflection or was I looking at someone else I couldn't tell but I saw the face. It was still blurry but even so I could still see the eyes: green, bright green. A soft face with features and light hair bushed up like a birds' nest. Then all of a sudden those eyes looked straight at me and it scared me awake.

I nearly jumped out of bed, so frightened that I rushed into my bathroom and immediately splashed water on my own face. I shook my head and took a few deep breaths and then looked at the mirror. As always it was just me: my blonde hair done in sort of a bob cut and then a cute little nose and mouth on a cute face, at least I think so. My own green eyes look back at me and that's when I notice that it's the same shade of green as that person's eyes in the dream. Was that me? Or someone else? All I know is that it was the strangest feeling I had ever felt, even weirder than syncing up with the Evangelion, and I just spent the next half an hour looking at the mirror and wondering what was really going on in my life.

Hello to the latest installment in the Blue Rose series of Evangelion Fanfiction stories. If you're new to the Blue Rose saga, welcome! The Blue Rose is an alternative universe for Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the key differences being that in Blue Rose the American side of the EVA program was much more ambitious (and problematic). Compared to many EVA fanfics Blue Rose has more focus on original characters, although all of the familiar cast are certainly major players in the saga. If you haven't yet read any of the other Blue Rose stories you might want to read this one (The Other Side of Me) before going to the others, as I've written this to tell that same story but from a different point of view.

If you've already read the Blue Rose series of course you know who Erin Forrestal is, and without giving anything away to other readers you know that the path in front of her is not at all easy. When I had completed the earlier Blue Rose stories I had only one real regret and that was not providing nearly enough page time for Erin, who I thought had a very compelling storyline of which we only see in various snapshots and flashbacks until she appears in the second half of The Awakening. This new story is an attempt to give her character full development. In doing so I am taking a different approach than my earlier stories in that this is going to be a very limited first-person perspective, so hopefully this will be something that feels very fresh to the reader despite that we are "mirroring" the other Blue Rose stories in the process. There's lots of new ground here to cover so I hope that this will prove very entertaining as we go on.

I expect to try and post every two weeks with a new installment, with a goal to be completely done within a few months. Feedback is as always very welcome. Thanks! -spd