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He could hear all the whispers from the other students around him, thinking that he couldn't hear them (or they just didn't care).
"Have you seen him?"
"Who?"
"The new exchange student from America."
"Yes! He's in my Astronomy class."
"He's dreamy."
"I hear his name is Samuel Evans, but he goes by Sam."
"Think he needs someone to welcome him to the country?"
"You'd make him run screaming back to his homeland."
It was hard to ignore all the talk. Any kind of attention made him feel awkward, he just wanted to do his job and make his dad proud. He didn't need any of his classmates making things more awkward for him. It was going to be difficult enough, being known as the Third Child. Apparently that actually means something to people in Germany, this town at least. Maybe if he kept his head down, he could focus on his training.
"Hello Evans." A heavily accented female voice caught his attention. He raised his head to find a girl about his age with black hair, brown eyes and lips that were almost as large as his.
"Uh." Sam's mind stalled. Should he answer in American or German? He couldn't even remember if he knew any German at the moment. This girl was looking at him like she knew him and it had him all sorts of confused.
"Guten morgen!" She tried again, a look of strain started to appear on her face.
"Guuteen morrgaan." Sam tried and it seemed to be enough.
"Why are you all the way over here by yourself? You should've found me and Fabray. You do know of Fabray, yes?" She paused her rambling to look at Sam. He understood the words she spoke, but was completely lost. "Sheisse, what do they teach you Americans? Anything? Probably sit on der arsch all day watching Knight Rider." She put her hands on her hips, shook her head and sighed. "I am Lopez, come with me."
"Where we goin'?" Sam stood, he might be completely lost, but he’d read about Lopez on his flight over in the briefing report. Fabray too, now that he thought of it. He’d been thinking that Lopez was talking about some local brand or food or something. The First and Second Children, of course they would be stationed at the same school as him. He didn't know much about Fabray, other than her name was Lucy Quinn Fabray and she's a very special Child of NERV. Most of the information about her in Sam's brief was redacted; it was probably for the best when he was trying to get to know her anyway.
Santana Lopez, on the other hand, was the Second Child and there were pages upon pages of reports on her. Apparently she was a bit of a spitfire, but when the world was in trouble and the Angels were attacking, she was the one the world depended upon. The brief had mentioned that they were worried that she'd gotten too confident in her abilities to pilot her Evangelion and it might end up in a catastrophic mistake. Sam watched her approach a short haired blonde girl with hazel eyes that he figured had to be Fabray; he wondered why he was allowed to see the personality analysis on Lopez, but not this Fabray girl. It didn't seem fair. It also made him wonder what they were privy to about him.
"Hey, Special One, I found our magical new backup pilot. Say hello.”
"Why?"
"Because you two will be spending a lot of time on the bench together while I'm out there doing my thing." She looked at Sam with a raised eyebrow. "You know, killing Angels."
"I will if I'm ordered to."
"Why do I even try with you?" Lopez shook her head at Quinn. "It'd actually help you once in a while if you didn't do exactly what they asked of you, you head case." She turned to look at Sam again; he was clenching his books to his chest. Lopez was a bit intimidating. "Anyway, Evans, head case over there is Lucy Quinn Fabray, you can call her anything you'd like and she won't even blink." Lopez leaned in and whispered, "She prefers Quinn though, you can tell because her face gets a little bit less robot like." She looked down at his lips. "Damn, those are some gigantic fishy lips you got there, Evans."
"Your lips are pretty plump too, you know." Sam shrugged. No point in being insulted by something true, he had other things to worry about. Things like hostile beings from space (or wherever they were coming from) called Angels. Lopez scrunched her brow and pursed her lips as she eyed Sam.
"Dangerous choice you made there, Evans." She stared at him a while longer. "I approve. You may call me Santana, just don't step on my power cord while I'm trying to save the world and we should be well."
Sam thought it might be nice to have friends for once, people who were actually going through the same things he was. It made being in a completely new country all alone less scary.
xXx
When he was told to report to Lieutenant Colonel Pierce's address as his residence for however long this war against the Angels would be taking place, he never would've expected Lieutenant Colonel Pierce to be a woman. He’s only in high school, but he’s fairly sure that there had to be rules about this sort of thing. He wasn't going to complain though, there really were more important things to worry about and even though she was quite beautiful, he just wasn't interested in that way. Not with the perpetual possibility of death literally being around the corner for him every day.
"Hey Sam, you can call me Brittany here. Everywhere else you'll need to stick to protocol." She had ushered him through the door and given a brief tour. "I need my house to be as relaxing as it can be in order to deal with...well, you know."
Sam nodded. He did know. The world would cease to exist if they failed their duty.
A penguin wearing a towel around its shoulders walked around the corner and Sam thought that he might've been hallucinating, some sort of after effect of too much new stimuli overwhelming his brain.
"Pen Pen! Hi! Look at you, all nice and clean from your bath!" Brittany picked the penguin up and nuzzled his beak with her nose. "Did Santana get you all nice and clean? I bet she did. Such a good penguin." She turned to Sam who was starting to think that maybe this was all one super crazy dream and he was still on the plane on his flight over to Germany. "Pen Pen, this is our new pilot Samuel Evans, the Third Child, he'll be living with the three of us now. You can call him Sam."
"Uh, hi." Sam awkwardly waved at Pen Pen. He had a weird feeling that the bird was judging him.
"Don't worry, you'll get along just fine." Brittany smiled reassuringly at Sam before sternly looking at Pen Pen.
"Yes, just don't get in the way of the bird and his beer and you'll be fine." Santana walked out of the hallway, pulling a shirt over her head and rolling her eyes.
"San, be nice." Brittany scolded.
"Babe, I am being nice. I'm warning Trouty over there how to live with a freaking penguin." Santana's voice squeaked with indignation.
Sam watched as Brittany walked over to Santana and gave her a hug and a kiss. Sam blinked. He was absolutely positive that that was against so many regulations, no matter what country you were in or what military you were serving. They looked really cute though, holding their penguin between them and he hadn't known Santana long, but this was the first time he'd seen her not have a severe look on her face. She really was quite beautiful when she smiled. Not that he'd ever tell her that.
"Take a picture, it'd last longer." Santana looked at him. He was being tested; he knew that this would be the most important test he'd ever take.
"Dude, our situation is so beyond fucked up. We're teenagers who've been given multi-billion-dollar giant robot-humanoid-things to pilot in order to kill these uber-creepy and deadly Angel things before they kill the world." Sam shrugged. "I say you find your happiness any way you can. Sometimes rules need to be broken in order to survive. I won’t tell anyone."
"We're going to be a force to be reckoned with, Sammy." Santana grinned before she and Brittany pulled him in for a giant hug.
Yeah, things were fucked up, but this was the first time he ever felt like he actually belonged somewhere, like he's actually got something to fight for now. Something more than the approval of his father, a man he hasn't even heard from for years even though he was the one to bring Sam into the Program. This was his family now, he could feel it. He didn't need to be anything but who he was to impress them. Together, they would save the world.