Seeping, flowing, mind finding refuge in other flesh. Shinji found himself comfortably aware of his tounge, his fingers, his bare legs, and a pair of eyes and a set of muscles that while certainly his, were not as he remembered them. Looking up, he saw Rei's face, her breasts hanging free, and a sky painted pink and lavender. He was older, stronger.

"Know me, Shinji." She looked at him with a rare yet subtle hunger, continuing: "My blood is vengance."

He reached up to touch her face, to find his hand bandaged. He moved his gaze to look at it, and put it down, seeing himself looking at a distorted reflection in a dirty mirror. "Disgusting." His eye was hanging out of its socket.

"To dream the other dreams, the dreams of reason beyond man's grasp, is a gift." His mirror self distorted further. "All gifts are curses."

"Tell me." Shinji stared into blank silver mirror-eyes, pupils too small.

"A story that doesn't exist?" Dream-Shinji laughed, a jangle of rusty and tired bells. "You make your own narrative now. Now that you know the ending."

"And now that I have the words to say." Nodding, he slipped back into his bed just in time (or out of it) to wake and be nearly finished with breakfast when a tired Misato came stumbling out, on the day he was meant to fight the Fifth for the first time.

"Ahh, Shin-chan, what's for breakfast?" She didn't seem very interested in the solid breakfast food, managing to head directly for her morning beverage, fingering the can like an old lover after years of absence.

"Miso, toast, rice, and grilled salmon."

"Mm." She stared at her beer until he placed the plates in front of her and finally sat down himself, at which point the race to finish eating began. Shinji took the rate of the tortise, while Misato, in-between rushed bites, brought up the subject he had been waiting for. "Shin-chan, I forgot." She gulped. "Give this to Rei, will you? Ritsu forgot to hand it over." She grabbed at her bag, rummaging though it, and Shinji simply opened the small side pocket and removed the card, glancing at it.

"This?"

"Yep."

"I'll bring it before school. She has sync tests later today, so she'll miss school and return right before I can get over there, soaked with LCL."

"Okay." Misato was still distracted by eating the enormous breakfast as Shinji left, taking out the trash on his way.

Remembering that the doorbell would not work, he opened the door carefully, knocking on it hard with the toe of his shoe when it was open. "Ayanami! I have your replacement card! If you're in the shower, I can come back when you're dressed, since school isn't for a while now!"

A soft voice came from across the room. "I am not in the shower. You may come in."

Shinji entered to see Rei sitting up halfway in bed, evidently having just woken up. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"Yes." There was no hint of deadpanning or of hurt. "I was instructed to warn you, of He Who Knows the Ways of Sin."

For a moment, Shinji saw her, illuminated through her one small window by the rising sun and the still-setting moon, an astronomical anomoly at this date. "Sin-Shamu" he repeated. "Requesting his words, no doubt."

"Perhaps." She got up and began to remove her night shirt, so shinji turned his back politely, pretending to examine her 500mL beaker of water when he was actually admiring her reflection in it. When she gave his reflection an icy glare, his eyes were caught instead by the label on a bottle of pills. "Useless. An attempt to subvert She of the Night. Lady Innin does not have a surfiet of respect for that which is possible, nor the boundaries that are designed to ensnare and make the impossible unreachable."

"That's my kind of girl," he said casually.

"The ME has been divided for a reason. I thank you for your prudence in that area."

He suddenly felt flushed and in-character. "You have sync testing today?"

"No."

"No?"

"You are remembering the incorrect base reality. Use the updated version. Reality forks are likely during any jump or modification."

"What happens in this one?"

"We walk to school together holding hands, and you confirm with inordinate embarassment when queried on our current relationship status."

"Ahh..." Shinji was beginning to both love and fear these new doors of perception.

A/N:
Some SR meta-WAFF for postmodernist fanboys, and more oddness. Here's a game: see if you can count the direct references and enumerate them by citation.