Asuka didn't feel the finger that poked at her face amidst the ruins, or the forehead that leaned against hers. Didn't hear the sigh of frustration when she didn't wake up, followed with a small noise of confusion and worry when she kept not waking up. She wasn't doing this to be mean, right? She couldn't be doing it to worry him, since Lilim worrying about each other?

Was she really sick? He knew that Lilim were easy to kill, they'd taught him how. She wasn't bleeding, but the angel had attacked her mind, so…

Caught up in the fear that there was something in her mind, that the angel was raping her mind, she didn't register another presence, didn't (couldn't) panic harder when her body calmed down against her will. Instead she fled into that imposed serenity the way she might have fled into unconsciousness, anything to get away from the violation, from that knowledge of weakness and failure.

Her mind was broken, was terrifying shards that cut her and made her bleed, that revealed that she'd been a broken, weak and battered thing all along.

Even to survive, she hadn't been able to open her mind to the Eva. Let something else in, when the angelic presence that had broken in was already raping her mind? She'd frantically tried to shield herself and her secrets because she didn't want to die.

Entering someone else's mind, fleeing from her own memories: she seized that opportunity, grasped that offered lifeline with everything she had without even thinking about it.

"You're not like this." It wasn't like Asuka to run away, to be broken and bowed, clinging out of terror. Worry, uncertainty: how did he fix this? "Maybe if I remind you what you are like?"

Seeing/remembering him peering around the wall, a feeling in his gut that Asuka's mind identified as anticipation under the curiosity. Kaworu thought he'd heard her voice in there.

"I looked in here because I heard you talking."

This was her, really her, in the flesh, but she sounded upset, so he didn't go 'Aha!' that he'd thought this was her voice and he was right.

At the time, Asuka thought the trace of dismay on his face when she spotted him was, 'oh crap, caught,' but he really hadn't known there was anything weird about being where he was.

At least she'd been talking about her sync ratio, so that was what was making her unhappy? Well, that was easy to fix.

"Do you know what?" he'd said proudly, and she'd thought he was mocking her but he'd just been happy that he could help. Caring for each other was what family did, and seconds after meeting his sister there was already something he could do! He could fix this for her and then she would feel better. "The Eva won't move unless you open your heart to it."

At least he hadn't been dismayed when she'd yelled at him, because yelling at people was what Asuka did when she was frustrated. He thought she was brave and honest like that.

Especially because normally people were terrified of him (why?) and so Asuka treating him like she did just anyone who offered advice unasked?

He'd just stood there half-smiling when she collapsed from all the strain, but he'd thought she was being dramatic, frustrated that someone was right. She'd said, "Oh," right before, hadn't she? So that was alright, then.

Now that she knew about the Eva, she'd definitely beat Arael, right? Except she hadn't opened her mind even after Arael broke in, and that woman hadn't woken up to protect Asuka.

That woman was Asuka's mother, but in Kaworu's mind she was a shadowed presence, with a white coat, needles and knives. A cold voice that loomed over him while he lay on bare, cold metal. He was frightened of her, the way Asuka was frightened of the husk that petted and praised the doll. Was it the same? Was the woman Kaworu knew not her mother either?

Kaworu would rather think of her. Watching her training and simulation runs: he'd learned a lot of words he wasn't supposed to know from her. He was just supposed to be studying what normal people could and couldn't do with Evas, but it pleased Asuka that he'd admired her (that someone found her worth admiring).

Especially when the old men found out what Dr. Sohryu had done.

"She's like me," Kaworu thought.

Except Asuka wasn't kept in tubes when she wasn't being trained or experimented on. Except the cold woman said she loved her daughter, that she'd made her with those genes so she would be the best and not just to have a good tool. So love was something that made Lilim hurt other Lilim to defend those they loved? Ah, that explained why they wanted people who loved the pilots to go into the Evas.

Except that woman hadn't defended Asuka, so what was she even good for?

Kaworu protected Asuka. So he loved her more, he was much better family than that woman. She could feel pride and happiness like a puppy's at the thought. A child anticipating approval.

Her training, her victories and high scores in the simulations. He was showing them to her, ignoring the people talking around the edges of the memories about her performance the way he had back then.

Image after image of herself, proud and determined, gloating in victory and frustrated when she wasn't doing well enough (yet), and "that's right, this is me." She was Asuka and she was strong. She'd tried to be the best to please her mother, but that wasn't the only reason.

To please people, though? To be admired the way Kaworu admired her, thought, "This is my little sister," so she was like him, so maybe he could be like her? Even if she wasn't really free of the old men, she wasn't resigned to being their servant. She'd fight it, maybe? If she knew?

"You wanted a friend," Asuka knew, remembering how she'd wanted someone like her herself. Someone who wasn't just competition or an inferior. She hadn't had a father, and her mother loved the doll more. A brother, though?

An older brother was annoying: he might think that he was better than her. He felt more like a little brother, like he didn't know anything, so curious and worried that Asuka might not like him. Like Asuka might be afraid of him, might reject him because she was afraid of him, and that was just ridiculous.

She snorted at the thought, floating in this red place.

For a moment she became aware that her eyes were closed, so how was she watching old footage of her training sessions and tests?

It was like, like something else-

Asuka's mind shied away from that thought, and she felt Kaworu's frown. That wasn't like her. Not like the Asuka he'd watched, so he pushed more of those memories at her.

Trying to remind her of who she was – yes, that was what she felt from him.

"What's a friend? I killed Arael," she heard from him, and there was something strange in how he'd saidthought it. No revulsion or triumph at the thought of killing: he might as well have been thinking of rearranging furniture, getting some obstacle out of the way that wasn't all that important, in and of itself. Something that had to be taken care of eventually. "So you're safe until Armisael comes. Then the old men will send people to kill me. I hope you're better by then."

If not, then she wasn't going to get better, or there would be nothing more he could do, except… It took her a slow moment to parse that he'd just talked about people killing him.

There hadn't been any fear associated with it: he might as well have been talking about a paper's due date. Something that was maybe a bit stressful, but only because it was a deadline and he wasn't sure he'd be done by then. It made her want to hit him.

A voice in her mind, a memory of her own, declaring that she'd rather die than withdraw, then go back to NERV a failure and be replaced, lose her place as a pilot, but she couldn't remember the context and a moment later she stopped trying.

Better to focus on the Asuka in Kaworu's memories. Better to be strong. Yes, that was the real Asuka, and if Kaworu was her half-brother, if her mother had chosen the same sperm donor they'd used to make Kaworu, then he was like Asuka and Asuka was worthwhile, therefore he was worth knowing. Just like Asuka was.

Something in her chest unclenched and she felt herself relax, mind and body drifting, curled up with Kaworu. With her brother.

She hadn't had family since her mother died. She'd never had a (little) brother or sister, she didn't know how, but she was the Great Asuka Langley Sohryu. She'd figure it out.

What was annoying was why was he worried about her? Why was he thinking about protecting her when he was the one who had people wanting to kill him? She didn't need anyone to protect her, and someone who was giving up without a fight, convinced some assassins were going to kick had their ass had no right to think that she was the one who needed protection.

It made her scowl, because how low had she sunk, that some little boy was worried about her?

Something kept her from looking around at his memories (she shied away from the question of why it seemed so wrong). Instead she focused on the memories he pushed at her, the 'this-is-Asuka.'

Yes, she was strong and brave and defiant and didn't take people's crap and worth admiring.

(She wasn't a broken little girl.)

Stripped of her confidence by her low sync ratio, by Arael's invasion, she grasped his tentative, hopeful confidence in her to herself. He couldn't be that dumb, if he understood how great she was.

(She didn't think in terms of bandages, or casts to hold broken pieces of her steady until they healed. Because she was Asuka, and she wasn't broken. Nothing would break her.)

She felt his glee, felt him think that yes, that was better. That was Asuka, and the ghost of the sensation of a hand patting her head, touching her hair and then pulling at it (not hard – that hurt) because he'd never been allowed to touch hair that was this long. He'd seen this color hair before, but only on her. He liked her, so he supposed he liked hair like this?

The hair stuck to his hand, and Asuka realized that she was sticky.

LCL, she was covered in it, like she'd just gotten out of the entry plug. Ugh, she needed to shower.

It was Asuka that pulled away in order to open her eyes.

Pale hair and orange-red eyes, just like that doll's, but their exact opposite. Rei's eyes were lifeless, everything hidden behind a mask of emotionlessness to the point that Asuka doubted she had hidden depths, that there were any emotions to hide.

They boy's – Kaworu's – were utterly unshielded, like he didn't even know that hiding their emotions was something people did, so other people didn't think they were weak. So other people didn't attack their vulnerabilities. Not that she had any of those.

He was too distracted by poking at her hair to register that their chests weren't pressed together anymore, and she grimaced when she saw that his entire shirt was soaked in LCL. That was going to stain.

"You're better now, right?" he asked with a grin, clearly congratulating himself.

"I'm fine," she said shortly, but didn't push him away, instead putting a hand on his chest as she sat up, looking around. Why was she in her plugsuit, covered in LCL, out in the wreckage of Tokyo-3? Where was her Eva? The last thing she remembered was…

Well, she'd met the new kid in the bathroom – a memory of annoyance made her look down at him. Kaworu was still lying there in the grass: he blinked up at her, wondering why she was looking at him now. "Sister? Sister," he said again, happily.

On her father's side, through the sperm bank, so no wonder she hadn't met him before… Except… Well, it made sense that they would have wanted him to be like her, since she was the best of the pilots and he was supposed to be a pilot too, but why had her mother never told her about him?

Sure, who knew how many people had kids by the same sperm donor, but she could at least have told Asuka he existed, introduced them or something. What if she'd met Kaworu and neither of them knew he was her brother? He was kind of cute, she guessed. She would say handsome, except for the fact that he was mentally eight, so cute was the word. Mentally defective people (like Shinji) weren't her type. "What are we doing here?"

"The piano is here." He pointed at it. "I wasn't supposed to be in a place like this. So I like it here."

His attitude made her think of little kids and their secret forts in the woods. As a big sister, she should be flattered that he was showing her this, she guessed, but it didn't answer the question.

Pushing back her hair and ignoring his frown that she was taking his toy out of reach, Asuka thought to herself that she should maybe try using smaller words, except she already had.

Kaworu frowned and poked the other things he was curious about.

"Pervert!" she stopped just short of punching him.

"What's a pervert?"

"Someone who touches and looks at people's bodies when they don't have permission! Someone who goes into women's bathrooms when they might be undressed in there!" she added for good measure, remembering the last time this came up.

"Then can I have permission?" since that would solve that problem.

So he thought that was a clever idea now, thought it was that simple? "No! Because you're my brother and that's just creepy."

"But I want to look," he said petulantly. "It's a difference between you and me, isn't it? And people look at my body all the time, so it's not fair that I can't look at anyone else's."

Urk. "People look at your body?"

He nodded. "Like that woman. Your mother."

"Well, physical exams are different," she said, calming down a little. "That's why I said they have to have permission."

"But she looked at me even when I didn't want her to, just like the old men."

'Old men' sounded like other doctors, but why did she have this feeling that wasn't it? "Were they doctors?" she asked, because the alternative.

"No," he told her. "Doctors are the people with knives and needles, and the old men never had those, so they can't be doctors."

"Why was my mother giving you a physical anyway?" Asuka wanted to know. "She worked on the Evas." So why would they have her examining some random kid, even if he was a pilot.

If he'd impressed her enough that she wanted his same genes for Asuka, then why had she never told Asuka about him? About the competition? "You are a pilot, right?"

"I was supposed to be, but I won't be now," he said, looking at something above and behind her.

Asuka glanced that way to see one of the JSDF aircraft. Maybe she could flag it down and get a ride back to NERV? Why was she out here in her plugsuit, anyway? She might have brought it out to show him, since he wasn't going to be a pilot (still, maybe he could replace Shinji, who had screwed up and gotten Touji killed, or Rei), but why were they covered in LCL?

Black panic in the core of her, as she realized that there really was a hole in her memory, and what had happened? Was it an angel? She knew it was an angel somehow, but trying to remember made her body want to shiver.

She didn't let it. Asuka wasn't someone who shivered or showed weakness. So she bit the bullet and asked him, "Why are we here, in this field, right now? Why am I in my plugsuit, and why are you covered in LCL if you aren't a pilot?"

"…I'm covered in LCL most of the time," he said, but finally sat up. "Will you listen to me play the piano?" he asked hopefully.

"Will you tell me what the hell is going on?"

He looked to the side. "But once I do that, you won't want to be my sister anymore. I'll just be a tool or something to kill to you, the way I was to that woman. Like all the Lilim."

She stared at him as he got up. Back turned to her, he walked the short distance to the piano and sat down to play. Or rather to pick at the keys, fear, hesitance and upset in every discordant note. Asuka grimaced and wondered why the ugly sound hadn't startled awake the small white cat that lay in the grass a few meters away.

She wasn't accomplishing anything by sitting around here, and it wasn't like her, so she stood up, hands on her hips, and loomed over him. "If you won't tell me, then I need to get back to NERV." And shower. The LCL was sticking to her skin, and that wasn't all that was sticking. Lying down on the ground, she now had grass, twigs and who knew what else glued to her. She grimaced as she wiped one of her forearms, trying to remove the debris.

He was silent for a moment, before he said, "They'll come here to kill me, if you just wait. Then I guess they can give you a ride back to NERV or something? It won't take long, it might even be faster than walking yourself."

"What? Someone's trying to kill you?" And why would assassins give her a lift instead of killing the witness? Kaworu just didn't know anything about anything, did he? "If people are trying to kill you, then you should come back to NERV with me. You're one of the children, aren't you? Even if you think we don't need another pilot, Misato will still put you under guard or something."

"I'm sick of being under guard," he told her, and his head bowed now, over the keys. "They'll want me dead too, just like you will. It has to do with who my mother is." A few angry notes. "They forced her to bring me into the world to be their servant, and they'll destroy me since I'm not doing what they want. Just like the Evas. I hope they destroy that woman, since what good is she if she didn't protect you?"

That was, that was fucked up, but somehow confusion overpowered righteous anger on his behalf, because this didn't make any sense. She didn't want it to make any sense. Didn't want to make that connection between 'that woman' and her mother, between her mother being Kaworu's doctor and someone forcing a woman to have a kid? So other people could use him as a slave or something? Even if the world did need pilots, that was just messed up. That didn't happen and her mother couldn't have been involved in something like that, but somehow she knew he wasn't lying.

Taking him roughly by the arm, she told him, "I'm not leaving you here to get killed. You're coming with me back to NERV."

"…What is it with the Lilim here and grabbing people all the time?" he wanted to know, looking up at her with his head cocked to the side as she tried to pull him up off the piano bench. "The Third Child, too."

"It's probably because you're an idiot," she said without much acrimony. He was just a replacement she didn't need, it wasn't like having to treat Shinji as an equal, when he had no training whatsoever and was just going to get the rest of them, like Touji, killed. He had no business being in an Eva, and Gendo Ikari had to be insane. At first she'd thought it was clearly favoritism, but if anything he seemed to want his son to get killed.

"…Will you call me Brother?" he asked, demonstrating his idiocy.

"No way! Not even if you are older than me!" she told him, letting go of him to put her hands on her hips. "I'm way too old for that sort of thing! And you act like a little kid anyway!"

He looked so downcast that she had to tell him that, "It's not that I don't believe that you're my brother, or half brother." And why did she believe that? "It's just embarrassing to call people that at my age. You can call me sister, if you want." Big sister.

Yes: definitely an idiot: he perked up at that, and clearly had no idea that he should find that embarrassing. Shouldn't that be obvious from what she'd said? She was too old to do that, so didn't it follow that he was also too old, since he was older (and taller) than her?

At least it finally made him stand up eagerly, more like springing to his feet, and she could tug him along, pulling his arm hard enough that he had to take a step out from behind the piano bench to regain his balance and avoid falling over.

She let him hold her hand so she could drag him along by it.