Chapter 3 - Rei I

The sun started going down. The clock was ticking. Time was slowing down for Shinji. Out of all the scenarios that could have happened, how could Rei appear at a time and place like this directly after his meeting with his mom and Asuka. This world couldn't possibly be that small.
Someone or something had to plan out these actions and meetings. Was it this gigantic, glowing creature that touched Shinji?
What reason would it have to place all of these people together in the same city at the same time.
Shinji's head hurt. Rei just kept staring at him and an even weirder atmosphere built around this whole room. Yui also didn't know what to think of that situation.

"Ikari-kun. I'm glad you're okay." Ayanami said.

"Aaah...Thanks. I-I'm also glad you're okay." Shinji replied.

He couldn't look at her face. Ayanami searched for him and even waited this long to check if he's okay but Shinji...The shame he felt from selfishly trying to search for his parents before confirming that Rei was okay, made him sweat nervously. Shinji knew his parents were okay but still he didn't even try to search for Rei. Maybe it was the fear of him finding that she would be dead made him search for his parents first. No. This excuse would be too convinient for him. Shinji's mother noticed that something related to Rei tormented her son.

"Shinji, maybe you two should go to your room. It seems like you have a lot to talk about. I'll have to go to work now anyway. We'll talk later when I'm back, okay? And don't do anything weird with her." Yui said with a playful smile on her face.

"What? No!" Shinji responded with an embarrased look.

Rei and Shinji were going up some stairs. The Ikari family house was relativly big on the inside. On the first floor you could go to the kitchen, the living room and and and his parents' bed room. On the the second floor you could go to an empty room, the bath and finally Shinji's room.
Both Rei and Shinji entered young Ikari's room and sad down on his bed. It seemed like Rei wanted to sit closer to Shnji but she decided against it, at the last moment so there was a certain distance between them. They had the same look on their faces. No one seemed to really grasp what was going on so they could neither smile nor glower.

"Ikari-kun..." Rei said in a quite monotone voice.

"Ayanami...S-so how are you doing?" Shinji asked nervously.

Shnji wasn't sure if Rei could remember what happened before he ended up in this world. He wanted to go easy about it because Asuka didn't remember anything all and he was sure that no one else could also remember anything.

"I am okay and I am sorry for suddenly showing up. I was afraid that something happened to you...Do you remember what happened to you?" Rei asked but this time with a slightly worried face.

"W-What do you mean?" Shinji responded but he knew what she meant.

How could he answer this.

"This white creature..." She said.

"What? You saw it too?!" Shinji screamed out loud.

He quickly tried to silence himself with a red face.

"So do you remember the third impact? What happened? Where were you? What was that thing? Why are we ol-" Shinji asked quickly but Rei interrupted him.

"I know as much as you. The only thing I remember is that I woke after third impact and this creature touched me. After this happened, I woke up in a hospital with memories of my family and friends. This happened a year ago." Rei said.

"One year? Why didn't you try to contact me sooner? Why can't I remember you in this world..." Shinji asked with a sad smile.

He just had noticed that Ayanami were nowhere in his new memories. In his mind he knew what answer would come. She probably rejected me. Who would she even search for a guy like me. That's what he thought.

"In this world I'm not from Japan. I moved in here on the other side of this town 2 weeks ago and trying to find you was hard without any clues. It also seems like I am still distantly related to your mother, Ikari-kun." Rei answered.

This was a lot of information to swallow for one person. Shinji's head was spinning and if he didn't knew any better he would have branded Rei as a crazy person. At least she tried to search for him. This gave him hope that their relationship could grow a little.

"Wait. Ayanami...are you the Ayanami I know or are you the replacement of the Ayanami that died in the fight with the angel?"

Shinji didn't know how to ask Rei that question so he just flat out said what he wanted to know. He thought that he sounded rude this was too important for him to just ignore it.

"I contain memories of all 3 Ayanamis so you could say that I'm all of them but I am just me. I am not like the second me but I'm also not like the third me." She responded with a cold voice.

Three Ayanamis? So was there another one before I first met her? Shinji put his finger on his chin and tried to puzzle the pieces together. There were many things he didn't know about in his original world but at his point in time he didn't care anymore. He wanted to start a new life in this world so he gave up questioning more things about his old life in the lost world. Ayanami was Ayanami, so he didn't care as long as she lived and remembered him.

"I am just happy to see you again. I don't know what I would have done, if I never got see you again..." Shinji said to her with a smile, while he looked at her red eyes.

Rei blushed. She couldn't look at him and didn't know how to respond to his statement. Never has anyone said something like this to her. Even in this world, her parents abandoned her and she grew up in orphanage. It also didn't help that she didn't have any friends. She wasn't bullied or anything but everyone ignored her and she spent her time alone thinking about anything that came across her mind. Back when she was in school, the only friends she had were her books and her life was meaningless. Books were the only thing that could distract her from her misery. Gendo wasn't there to give her a purpose in life and the old Ayanami in this world was suicidal.

Since Rei arrived here in this world, 1 year had passed and she felt how all of her personalities mixed up together and this even contained the Rei of this world. Not only did she get those memories but she had a feeling, how she didn't want to live anymore. Ayanami had nothing and there was no clue of Shinji. Rei considered suicide to just end it but she remembered the third impact. She remembered that Shinji said that she wanted to see her again so she clung on to that hope.

Rei's heart skipped a few bits. The only thing in her mind was Shinji and now that she sat alongside him again, after all this time made her mind go blank.

"Would you mind if we get to see each other from time to time?" Rei asked while she looked to the ground. Her voice still sounded cold and monotone.

"S-sure, if you don't mind talking with someone like me...I wouldn't mind seeing you everyday if that's okay with you. After all I wanted the chance to talk to you again after third impact." Shinji answered

He couldn't look at Rei's face anymore. This was too embarrassing of an answer. A few minutes past of them saying nothing too each other. Just silence. It wasn't the awkward kind of silence though. Something felt strangely confortable about it. Both Shinji and Rei suddenly started smiling a little bit.

"You know Ayanami. Can you tell me more about you in this world. What were you doing before you got here? I want to know everything!" Shinji abrubtly asked Rei.

Rei feared that this question would come. Her old self wouldn't have felt any embarrassment over a question like this, but since she had changed, Rei panicked a lot.
Of course Shinji couldn't notice because she was good of hiding her pain after years all the years in her old world.

They talked through the whole night. Rei explained how she never had anyone in this lifetime and the only thing she had was the hope to see Shinji again. Shinji on the other hand told her about how great his life had been. He had a lot of friends and even Toji and the other guys were in contact with him. Every little detail was told in this night and it seemed like now they knew everything about each other. Both of them were 19 years old and they had finished school. The sun started to rise.

"At this point in time I'm not working. It seems like I finished school but I'm still living at my parents' home. I don't have any idea what I'm going to do now. What about you?" Shinji said.

"I'm working as a librarian. It's quite and I don't earn that much, but it is a good distraction for myself." No emotion was shown and it looked like Rei was tired.

Shinji was depressed. Now that he knew what Rei has been going through, he just wanted to help her in any way shape or form. The young Ikari didn't want her to just cling to him until she died. She was better than this. She deserved better. Shinji didn't want to become like his old father that used Rei's blind commitment to use her for whatever he needed.
There had to be a way to help her. He grabbed her left hand and looked directly at her.

"Ayanami." Shinji said with a confident voice and face.

"Yes?" Rei asked.

"Would you like to move into our house?" He still had the same look but this time, he blushed a little.

Rei kept staring at Shinji. No emotion was shown by her. She didn't know what to say to him right know. A request like this one came out of the sudden and she didn't know what his exact intention was.

"S-sure but are your parents fine with this?" Rei asked in a quite voice.

"We have a free room left and you're part of the family, kinda, so I'm sure she won't have anything against this." Shinji answered with a confident smile.

He wasn't really sure if his parents would allow a request like this but he couldn't leave Ayanami like this so he had to try and do it. He had his own demons to fight with but Rei was the only one that could understand him and maybe both of them together could live on to fight this pain, they had to go through in their previous lives. This was something he wished for.

"Thank you, Ikari-kun." Rei responded to Shinji with a warm smile on her face.

Author's note: Lots of expostion in this chapter but I tried to make the dialogue sound natural for the characters. Now that we got the exposition out of the way, I will try to solely focus on the relationship of Shinji and Rei. Asuka, Yui and Kaworu will maybe get bigger roles but I haven't decided on this yet. I'm also not sure what kind of ending I want to make. Maybe it will end in tragedy. Maybe not. This is Evangelion after all and anything is possible in this series. Hope that you liked this chapter and if you thought that somehow the characters acted ooc, be sure to let me know.