It was the eleventh day since Third Impact, and Shinji Ikari was worried. As he quietly skulked through the ruins of one store after another, he reflected feverishly on the reason for his current panic. He had returned from scavenging the other day to find Asuka facedown in the sand, barely breathing. Her face had been flushed and sweaty, her injured arm and eye visibly bleeding through their dirty bandages. He had no medical training of any kind, but he knew this was a very bad sign. She was muttering incomprehensibly in German, as if speaking to someone nearby, but the only word he could understand was "mama", which she repeated every few seconds. She was delirious. He knew he had to do something. He had been hunting through shop after shop, searching for anything he could use to help her, but so far he'd had no luck. He hadn't even been back to their beach in two days, and his panicked fears as to Asuka's condition were driving thoughts of his own failure out of his mind for the first time since he'd left his mother and returned to life.

In the permanent twilight, Shinji finally spotted a pharmacist's sign. He broke a window and crawled in, ducking behind the counter and beginning to go through racks of pills. He knew what he was looking for, if only he could find it. His fingers wrapped around a large bottle, stenciled in English letters with a Japanese label along one side. Shinji sighed, relieved. It was penicillin, exactly what he'd been hoping to find. He retrieved several tubes of antibiotic ointment from a nearby shelf, shoving them into a battered backpack he'd been using to carry supplies. On his way out, he stopped and grabbed a notebook and a package of pens, purely on impulse. He mounted the bicycle he'd been using to travel, quickly building up speed and heading for the beach. His mind was spinning as the ghostly face of the Last Angel grew slowly closer. He finally had a chance to redeem his cowardice…but did he really deserve it? He didn't think he did. Even if he managed to save her life, it would never wash away the blood on his hands from before. He'd murdered the entire world, caused the death of every human being. There was no redemption from that. He was just like his father after all.

He finally arrived back at the beach, leaping off the bike and dashing over to Asuka's prone form. He'd become much more athletic over the last few days, the constant strain of traversing a broken landscape helping to build lean muscle on his formerly skinny frame. He turned Asuka over, slightly relieved to see that she was still breathing. He quickly unwrapped her arm, but froze as the final layer of gauze fell away, revealing her injury. Her arm had been neatly bisected, and as its binding fell away the two halves of the flesh flopped apart, oozing blood. Shinji gulped, simultaneously holding back tears and vomit. This was HIS fault, he knew. If he hadn't hesitated, if he'd only listened to Misato and gotten to the Cage in time…he could've prevented this. He could've stopped her from being horribly maimed. He was nothing but a weak, spineless wimp, just as Asuka had always accused him of being. He didn't deserve to be alive, and he didn't deserve to have any companionship. He was so scared of being alone, though. It was the reason he'd returned to this world. He couldn't stand the idea of being alone, of never being able to talk to anyone again…so even though he wasn't worthy of life, he would do his best to save Asuka. Not because it was right, or because it was his duty, but because he was scared, and all he wanted was for her to help him, for her to sit up and yell at him…and stay with him. He just wanted someone to talk to.

He retrieved the antibiotic ointment from his backpack, along with gauze he'd found at a supermarket yesterday. He slathered the gooey paste onto Asuka's arm, trying not to look at it too much. Fitting the sides back together the best he could, he re-wrapped the arm clumsily in as much gauze as he could, trying to keep it tight. He knew he was doing it wrong, but it was the best he could do. When that was done, he gulped again and quickly pulled Asuka's eyepatch off. He gasped in horror at the empty socket revealed underneath, and this time he lost control of his stomach. He ran into the surf, vomiting and moaning, sobbing at the ruin of his former roommate, her beauty eradicated by his cowardice. After a few minutes, his stomach was empty. He wiped his lips, panting as he went back over to where the girl lay silent and unresponsive on the sand. He grimaced, filling the empty socket with another tube of antibacterial ointment and covering it with more gauze. Finally, he lifted her into his lap, her head resting against his stomach. He held her nose with one hand, then fed her two penicillin tablets and poured water into her mouth from a bottle. She coughed, spluttered, but swallowed the pills. Shinji sighed, disappointed that the water hadn't woken her up. All he could do now was continue to feed her the tablets and hope she woke up at some point soon. He gently slid out from under her torso, resting her once more on the ivory sand and moving away. He threw some more wood on the fire, wishing that he knew what time it was, or even what day. He had no idea how long he might have been inside Unit 01, and since their return there had been no sign of any time passing.

Digging in the backpack, Shinji pulled out the notebook and pens he'd grabbed earlier. He stared at them, trying to remember what he wanted them for. He'd never been a writer. The only creative writing he'd ever done was for school, and he only earned passing grades. That was him, all his life. Average. Ordinary. Invisible. Unwanted, unloved, and unnoticed by everyone around him. They pretended, they faked smiles and acted like they wanted him around, but Shinji knew the truth. His aunt and uncle only wanted him because of the money his father gave them. His teachers talked to him because it was their obligation. He'd accepted it. He'd never wanted anything out of life. He had no dreams or aspirations. It wasn't like he'd ever leave his mark on the world. Now that nothing mattered anymore, Shinji found that he wanted to write. He wanted to be able to show that he had existed, even if no one else would ever read it. He wanted to leave some trace of his existence. Pulling a pen from the pack, he opened the notebook to its first page and began to write.

My name is Shinji Ikari. I'm 14 years old. I used to be a nobody, one of the invisible people who nobody notices, the ones you see on the street every day and think "oh, I recognize them", but don't really THINK about. I went to school, I did my chores, and I kept to myself. I never wanted anything from my life. I didn't really care about anything. When Father sent for me, the only real emotion I felt was resentment. He'd never wanted me before, but now that there was a "use" for me I was suddenly important to him again. I was bitter. I AM bitter. But living in Tokyo-3 with Misato-san and Asuka…I think it changed me. I started to care about people. I started to worry about the safety of Misato-san, and Asuka, and Ayanami, and the friends I'd made at my new school. I think I was finally starting to care about myself, too. About what happened to me. I laughed for real for the first time during this period. I was watching Toji and Kensuke goof off, and Kensuke managed to catch Toji ogling the girls on the running track during gym class. Toji was mad, and he started going after Kensuke, but they both broke up laughing. I started laughing too. I don't know why. It just….felt right, I guess. That was the first time I ever laughed with friends. The first time I ever HAD friends to laugh with, really. Everything seemed like it was going to be okay, even after things like the Twelfth Angel, where I almost died. I was wrong, though. I'm always wrong. It would've been better for me if I'd stayed with my aunt and uncle, if I'd refused to obey my father's command. Things just kept getting worse. Toji was almost killed in Unit 03 when it was infected by an Angel, and his injuries were done by my hands, after my father took control. I ran away, over and over again, but I kept coming back, all because I wanted my father to approve of me. I just wanted him to love me. That's not bad, right? That's not bad at all. Then the Fourteenth Angel came, injuring Asuka and Ayanami, and I was trapped in my Eva for a month. And the Fifteenth Angel broke Asuka's mind open and ruined her confidence….and the Sixteenth killed Ayanami, even though they said she survived. She wasn't the same. It wasn't her that came back from that explosion, it was someone else, and that just made it worse, because she was the person I'd started to care about the most. She was even worse than me, so closed-off and shy and quiet…but she was starting to open up. She smiled at me once. It made me happy. But the person that they were calling "Rei" after Unit 00's self-destruct wasn't her. It looked like her, but it didn't act like her. And then….Kaworu. Oh, God, Kaworu…I'm so sorry. I didn't want to do it, but you made me…you deserved to live, not me. I'm willing to murder my friends for my own survival, or let them die because I'm too much of a coward to go fight for them. You were at least a good person, even if you were an Angel. Maybe humanity was never meant to survive. But you made it so that we would. You made me kill you so you wouldn't kill us. I didn't want to…

And then the end came. It turned out that Ayanami was an Angel too, and my father made her begin Third Impact. I saw it while I was inside her. She took me into her, and showed me a lot of different things, more than I could understand. She murdered everyone on Earth, because I was scared and tired of being hurt. Their blood is on my hands. I can smell it. I can see it some days, and I can taste it in everything I eat and every breath I take. I killed everyone. You were wrong, Kaworu. Angels weren't humanity's enemy. Humans were always more dangerous to each other than any Angel could be. You made me kill you for nothing, because I just killed everyone else too. Even though I chose to come back, and chose to make it possible for them to come back too, it's all still my fault. Now Asuka and I are the only people on Earth. I killed Ayanami. I had to, to be able to come back. I killed the girl I….did I love her? I think I did. I'm not sure. She made me happy, I know that. And I killed her. It's her blood I taste, I think. Or maybe it's Kaworu's, the blood that stained my hands at the moment of his death. Either way, it's my fault. Everything is my fault, and now Asuka and I are the only ones left. Asuka should be dead. She died because I was too scared of my own death to go help her. She died fighting, at least. She didn't give up. She wasn't scared. She fought back. She's so much better than I could ever be. She's not a murderer or a coward. But I am. So why am I still here? I know I chose to be here, but why? Because I'm still a coward. I was more scared of death than I was of life. And now we're the only ones here.

I'm so sorry, Kaworu…you died for nothing, so that scum like me could survive.

Shinji closed the notebook, staring emptily into the flames crackling before him. He felt drained and tired, as if he'd lived a thousand years in the time it took to write out his thoughts and feelings. All of it was true, he knew. He HAD killed Kaworu for nothing. He'd killed EVERYONE.

And even now he was too much of a coward to kill himself to make up for it.

It had been fifteen days since her defeat, and Asuka Langley Sohryu awoke slowly. Her head was pounding, and it felt like there was a weight on her stomach making it hard to breathe. She felt a little better than before, though. Her fever felt like it was gone, and her arm wasn't screaming in agony now, though it still hurt more than any injury she'd ever had. She opened her eyes slowly, looking down. The Third Child's head was resting on her stomach, his eyes closed as he slept, curled up near her. The fire was still crackling nearby, so he must not have been asleep for too long. Empty pill bottles and ointment tubes were scattered near the fire, explaining why her arm felt so slippery. He must've been treating the injuries while she was unconscious. She stared at him, the expression in her single eye unreadable. Someone who knew her VERY well might have realized that she was, for the first time in her life, reconsidering her position on something. He'd tried to save her life, even though he knew she hated him. It didn't really matter to her why he'd done it. He'd probably saved her life…at least he was a good enough person to do that. She decided to take a risk. She spoke quietly, the sound of her voice the first real noise she'd heard since her death.

"Hey, Third. Wake up."

Shinji awoke with a start, sitting up quickly, his face flushing with shame. "I'm sorry, Asuka! I didn't mean to-" He stopped, eyes widening as the situation penetrated his still-foggy brain. "Asuka….you're awake!"

He pulled her upright and into an impulsive hug, sobbing. Asuka grimaced, groaning. "Let go of me, idiot. You're hurting me!"

Shinji flushed, quickly releasing his companion. Asuka shook her head, voice flat and quiet. "Why'd you do it?"

Shinji flushed, confused, equally quiet. "W-well, you told me to…"

Asuka cut him off. "Not that, moron. Why'd you give me pills and stuff? Why'd you waste the time?"

Shinji blinked. "Well….umm," he stammered. "I…I didn't want to be alone, I guess…and…I didn't want you to die again…" He looked away as he said this, his own shame at her death bubbling to the surface. "I know it was my fault the first time, Asuka…I'll never forgive myself for it. I couldn't let it happen again."

Asuka froze, shocked, but quickly recovered. She spoke again, still quiet. "And I'll never forgive you either. Remember that, Third. And don't touch me again without my permission."

She laid down on the sand, rolling away from Shinji and laying on her good side. Inwardly, she cursed her own cowardly weakness. She knew things had changed. He'd saved her life. He'd been keeping her fed while she did nothing but laid here on the beach. She didn't even really hate him anymore…so why was she still being so nasty to him? Was it because she was afraid of what would happen if she stopped? He might take advantage of her, or he might try to control her or order her around…but he wouldn't, she knew. He was never a leader. He wasn't capable of it. She didn't know what to do, so instead of trying something new she was being the same as always. She was pitiful. She couldn't change. It was hopeless to even try, a waste of effort and time.

She fell into a light, fitful sleep, her dreams filled with roaring leviathans and a single pitiful girl, begging for forgiveness and and rescue from horrors that never stopped.