I did warn you that this was going to be a Bad Ending Route. You can't go on and on about a threat and never have it materialize.

It turned out that when Tabris said he could be in two places at once, he meant he could pay attention to what was going on in two places at once. He was more than capable of having more than two bodies, which didn't make Misato any happier about her odds of killing him, if it came to that.

He'd conjured up a spare body for Shinji to use, while he sat on Ritsuko's desk and helped her research angel abilities. Not being able to speak didn't seem to be slowing down the collaboration there, or was it that Ritsuko spoke cat?

Dr. Itoh still stayed at least a meter away from 'Tabby-cat' at all times: according to Ritsuko the first time he'd come into WILLE's lab to find Kaworu there in that form, the cat had meowed up at him and he'd jumped back about a meter and responded with one of the better 'you're kidding, right?' looks she'd ever seen, and being the one to brief people on the fucked-up nature of the Evas meant that Ritsuko had seen a lot of those looks in her time.

Nothing did calm unconcern like a cat, but it hadn't escaped Ritsuko's notice that Shinji came by to pick up Tabris when the research session was done instead of it turning into another all-nighter. Oh, supposedly it was because he wanted help training Asuka in how to use her AT field for terraforming so WILLE could start growing their own produce without having the other angel encroach on part of their mobile base or any of their hidey-holes.

The glare he'd given Dr. Itoh would have been evidence that no, it wasn't a coincidence, but then Shinji always glared at Dr. Itoh, when he acknowledged the man's existence at all. Better evidence was that if Shinji needed someone to demonstrate the things he couldn't actually do himself, he could have just asked Rei.

Since Shinji was inhabiting that body most of the time Tabris had made it look more like Shinji, but too much of a resemblance would have been a bad thing, given that Shinji was hated the world over right now.

"That's Aya-Rei," Misato knew the day Shinji showed up in her office with a lithe Siamese in his arms.

He nodded. "Her soul keeps getting drawn towards the Geofront, so it's easy for him to trap her in clones there. Having a second body might…" Shinji bit back the rest of that (he still didn't trust her, even now, not when it came to his family). "They like Tabby-cat here," he said instead. "So she'll be happier than just stuck in NERV with only us to talk to, besides him." Gendo.

A lot of people were very happy to see a cat, when rats getting into a single food stockpile would be an unmitigated disaster. People always exclaimed when they saw Tabby for the first time, that it had been a year or more since they last saw a cat. The looks of gratitude in their eyes when someone told them that yes, they were allowed to pet it, and no one in the know had the heart to tell the rest of WILLE that it wasn't a real cat.

Asuka conscripted Rei into service as her own shoulder pet, in the absence of a parrot. That worried Misato a little since the angels were supposed to be after Lilith as well as Adam, or at least Lilith was enough to draw them towards Tokyo-3, but when a week went by without a Fourth Impact she relaxed again.

The unused break room was where Shinji stashed his body when he wasn't using it, leaving it curled up on the couch, and it became his unofficial bedroom since no one wanted a repeat of the time someone panicked since they'd found a young man who wasn't breathing.

So it was a surprise when Misato went in there and heard three sets of soft breaths, the boy and the cat curled up in the hollow of his arms, another guarding his back.

The way Shinji clasped Rei like he had to reassure himself, even in sleep, that his family was safe? It was as sad as it was cute. A boy trapped in agelessness, like Shinji, shouldn't have his face pinched with worry in his sleep. Even so it was cute, and sweet, and it was hard to remember the last time she'd seen something with even a touch of innocence in this place. There was no safety or shelter here, not for anyone, but Shinji's determination to protect Rei made her wish there was. Made her feel like there should be, when family was trying so hard to protect…

Like when her father put her in the capsule. Because she was his daughter, and he wanted to protect her more than he wanted to survive himself.

Shinji had run towards the angel to save Rei. Kaworu, who rested here as well, was willing to die to restore the world where Shinji lived, so he could survive. Except Shinji didn't want him to do that, no more than Misato wanted her own father to die, and Rei couldn't want her brother to die because of her, and Misato found herself gripping the back of the couch remembering the sickening movement of the ocean around her, the thirst clawing at her throat as she drifted, not knowing what had happened except that some part of her had felt her father die and all she could do was try to destroy that awareness, try to hope for rescue, hope that she wasn't alone that he wasn't dead why was he dead because of that monster but was it her fault he hadn't come in the capsule with her she was alone…

A furry head rubbed against her fingers, softness and warmth and concern, hoping to wake her out of those dark thoughts.

"What have I told you about reading my mind?" she growled down at the kitty – ahem, the angel.

Another rub, and then Tabris was perched on the armrest by Shinji's head. "I wouldn't dare intrude," he told her, and there was a wry twist to his lips that made her believe him, because it hinted that there was a reason besides respect of her. Damn. Mind. "Cats can tell when humans are upset."

"And how do I know they aren't mindreaders?"

He shrugged, still smiling, because there really wasn't much she could do but take his word for it. Or Shinji's, when Shinji was on his side and probably quite willing to lie on the angel's behalf.

There was so much of human interaction that required trust, and for a veteran of NERV?

Ever-watchful Shinji, who had never trusted any adult from the beginning, made a noise of complaint, and she didn't know if it was because of her presence or because the warm weight was gone from his back. The angel turned his attention back to Shinji, dropping down onto the floor and picking Shinji up, one hand under his shoulders and another under his knees, so he could sit down, leaning back against the corner of the couch's back and the armrest in the kind of position that only a teenager could possibly find comfortable, especially with one of his knees drawn up under him in an asymmetrical sprawl that honestly made her back hurt just looking at it but was probably comfortable… for Shinji, once Tabris had him arranged.

"All that didn't wake him up?" she asked. Rei, too: if she was Rei, and the 'ground' under her started moving like that?

"He's not quite asleep." Shinji's head tilted forward a little as Kaworu rubbed the back of his neck with his knuckles, digging them in on either side of Shinji's spine to go after the tension that had to be there (Misato barely remembered a time when her neck didn't ache, a consequence of going through life waiting for the next attack) almost absently, the way someone could pet a cat while carrying on a conversation. "Shinji wished to cook for his sister, but resources are limited," and even Shinji could only do so much with the UN standard rations. "The brain remembers details that the conscious mind does not, especially scent and taste."

"So he's feeding her in their dreams?" Misato asked. "I almost wish…" that she could get in on that. The rations were mind-numbing, monotonous, a reminder that food was limited and there was no savor left in life. To be tired of rations was to be tired of life: that was becoming a truism. Many who left the former behind on their plates soon opted out of the latter.

"He is a very good cook," Kaworu agreed with a smile.

"…Taking credit for it?" she asked him.

"No, I was raised on the moonbase. They might have experimented with my abilities and the hydroponics, but cooking? When I was created for a higher purpose?" His smile was mocking now, because it was as ridiculous as it was wrong that SEELE could consider death a higher purpose than bringing others joy and the sustenance they needed to live. "Shinji is almost entirely self-taught," he said proudly.

Misato couldn't believe she was seriously considering asking Shinji if he could do something, anything with WILLE's food, but even if according to SEELE's doctrine Shinji had become a god or something during Third Impact, some miracles were beyond anyone.

Well, if angels could turn organic matter into other organic matter, then they might be able to transform the rations into something with a less vague resemblance to food, but Kaworu had just admitted he couldn't cook, Asuka certainly couldn't and apparently Rei was still learning what good food was, forget how to make it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked her.

"Wondering if we should appoint you and Rei morale officers." Or mascots. "You're good at cheering people up." At worming their way into people's hearts, Tabby-cat with his affectionate nature and Rei with her elegant but skittish shyness. Always looking so surprised and touched when people stroked her head and told her how cute she was instead of hitting her: the consensus was that she was a stray who had somehow managed to survive being hunted for food long enough for Ritsuko to find her and use her to test out some artificial taurine source.

Ritsuko wasn't the only one who had lost a pet to the need to conserve food. Pen-Pen… Misato had brought him home, then Shinji, for the sake of relief from the loneliness that was life. Same reason she brought men back to her place. It was nice to have another living thing around, some living thing that cared for her, at least as long as she kept the food and/or sex coming. Something to fill the silence.

"Thank you," Kaworu said, sincerely complimented. "I've tried to help him find happiness, despite everything."

"Why him?" Misato asked, wondering what the feeling was she felt rising up inside her. "Why him and not me?" Oh, that was it. No wonder she'd had trouble distinguishing it, when it was the emotion that always tinged everything she felt. Anger. "Because he was going to be a pilot, while I was just left there?" He'd only helped Shinji because the pilot would be useful, and he dared pretend that he was kind?

"Shinji was part of the prophecies. In their eyes, he was important. I was even briefed on him, Asuka and Rei, since someday it would be my task to defeat them. You, what you saw, what they did to you: supposedly you were damaged by what you experienced and undergoing care. I didn't know the truth. I infiltrated their computer systems and records, but they weren't keeping records of what they did to you."

Of course they wouldn't. "Even the angels aren't all-knowing?"

He shook his head. "It's even worse than that. According to SEELE's dogma, possession of both an S2 engine and a brain, the 'Fruits of Life and Wisdom,' makes someone a god. All-powerful," Tabris said, and couldn't help but laugh. "They seem to think that this is an enviable state. Sometimes I think… I'm so useless and ineffectual, I can't help anyone at all. If this is what they consider godhood, perhaps showing them the truth would shatter their dreams, make them stop this. But when they're so deluded as to call the broken ones 'perfect beings,' or any angel complete in and of themselves when we were made for the benefit of others? They want an end to the pain of loneliness, they think it's possible to stop needing other people, and that's absolutely not true."

"Life is pain. Anyone who says different-"

"That's wrong! Pain is a part of life, but it's not supposed to be like this! This loneliness… All of you are so alone now, but once the other angels are… gone," dead, that meant, and she saw the angel wince at the thought, "you can have your heritage back, have the stars back. Reach out to each other's souls again, without having to be afraid! Don't just accept that life is nothing but pain and despair! It's true that without others, loneliness is inevitable and will always return, but that's just the same as how hunger is inevitable without food."

Said the boy who didn't eat, Misato thought, but then again the angels needed S2 engines to function. They were still getting energy from somewhere, even if S2 engines were perpetual motion machines.

"It's a part of life, but it's not a reason to despair. Reaching out to others to sate loneliness is supposed to lead you to happiness, just like food can make people happy." The angel looked down and she followed his gaze, to see his hand on the head of a boy who had done just that, who had cooked for them just because he wanted to, spent time every day making meals that made her drool just thinking about them, after years of nothing but rations.

The angel was right, she had to admit it: there was a time when eating wasn't just staving off hunger but something to look forward to, in and of itself.

When sex was something she did because it was fun, not just because she needed to stop thinking for awhile. When it wasn't just a matter of the two of them using each other to forget, but something she and Kaji, she and Ritsuko, she and some hot guy at a bar did together, just because they wanted to feel good and know they'd made someone else feel good.

Yes: it was true that for Misato there was always an element of hunger there, of need. The need to feel someone's skin, to taste someone's sweat and smell their lust. To prove to herself that this was real, she wasn't locked up in that room anymore, wasn't alone.

There, in the dark: she knew the hell of loneliness. She knew the desperate need to connect to someone, anyone. She'd thought that was the default, what life was like if no one else was around, but it wasn't normal for no one else to be around. There were millions of people (there'd been billions, once upon a time) and they sought each other out. What she'd experienced? It wasn't natural. It wasn't normal. People weren't doomed to be alone from the moments of their births: they couldn't be born in the first place if they were alone! They were born with families and then they sought out friends, lovers: it wasn't natural to be alone!

But she'd lost her family. The world had lost billions of people, families friends lovers, in Second Impact.

Then it happened again.

The pain of loss: no one wanted to go through that again, and again. So they closed their hearts, tried to tell themselves that it was natural to be alone, that they could survive on their own, that they didn't need anyone… But existence without anyone else there, Misato knew very well, was a living hell.

So people began to think that life was hell, was like being tied up in that dark room and even if she screamed they weren't going to come, weren't going to let her out.

So the world started wanting it to stop. Wanted to stop hurting.

"So that's what Kaji was talking about!" she realized. "They really are trying to make all of us suicidal!"

"Trying to make sure that your souls will submit to complementation, instead of breaking free," Kaworu agreed. "They claim to believe that complementation is destiny, is perfection, and no one would turn it down or ever wish to leave. Yet they are so afraid that the souls of the Lilim will flee their 'embrace,' seek their next lives, and leave them alone with their failure and despair. Just like they claim they wish to end human suffering even as they work to intensify it."

Misato's body shook, just once, her fingernails digging hard into the back of the couch, tearing through the old fabric. Not a shudder, a shudder was born of fear or dread but this was anger, a moment of white-hot, destructive rage. Not the long-burning coals she'd kept carefully banked and tended, to preserve them and their heat until she could finally do something. This was a bomb going off in her chest, the shockwave jolting her entire body, radiating outwards. The kind of anger that made people flip tables, break their own furniture because they had to hurt something before they could calm down. The need to lash out at the world.

"Kaworu!"

She wasn't expecting the punch that hit her face, as Shinji surged up and the pale-haired angel disintegrated into LCL. "How could you… If he's dead, if I can't…"

It was an Ayanami… It was Rei that caught Shinji, as he let his body fall, discarding it like the puppet it was.

"What… just… happened?" Misato wanted to know, staring at the LCL that had spattered the walls. She could feel droplets of it sliding down her forehead, her cheeks: they were going to have to decontaminate this room, she thought, before Rei waved her hand and made all of it vanish.

"The AT field is the light of the soul. Angelic AT fields enclose their bodies, allowing them to shape matter as they will and endure hostile environments. Lilim AT Fields protect their minds, so they can connect to other minds freely without needing to worry about identity contamination, losing their individuality. You lashed out. My soul was entirely within Shinji's Absolute Territory, so I was protected by his barrier. Shinji likened it to an Eva hitting a wall with a punch backed by its AT field. What happens if there is a Lilim between their fist and the wall?" That was a rhetorical question. "The Lilim possess AT Fields, but they do not protect them from physical damage."

And the angels possessed AT Fields that didn't protect them from mental damage? "That's how Asuka did it," Misato realized.

Rei nodded, looking worried. Was she biting her lip? "Tabris was worried when he first came here that your anger would cause you to kill him even without knowing what you were doing. He was watching you for intent to kill, but for you to lash out like that? He had no warning."

"Because you didn't warn me," that she could do something like that. Misato couldn't blame them for not revealing a vulnerability to her, a way for Lilim to kill angels (so easy! They'd never needed SEELE's damn Evas, those traps, those doomsday machines!), but she refused to feel responsible for something she hadn't meant to do or known she could do. Not when Kaworu should have damn well known it was dangerous to talk to her, to provoke her. Had he underestimated her?

Or had he just wanted to die?

"Shinji?" Rei asked, head turning as quickly as a striking snake, Misato utterly forgotten.

"I don't know," he said, opening worried eyes. "I don't know which one… I've always felt them together, I don't know which soul was his. What if… like Asuka…" He blinked up at Rei. "Rei, how can you…"

"It would let us know," she said, looking aside. "It is what he would want."

"If he still can't use the Spear of Cassius, that would mean it's him," Shinji agreed, sitting up. "But… I'm afraid to find out."

"He would have wanted to stay for you-"

"Are you saying that Asuka wanted to die?!" Shinji demanded of Rei, then forced himself to take a deep breath. "Sorry. Tabris was powerful, almost as powerful as Adam and Lilith, so maybe?" It wasn't like the difference in power level between Asuka and Bardiel. "Even though his soul was the one that was awake, the one on the outside, so wouldn't he have been hit first?" Another deep breath. "The Spear is the fastest way to find out."

"Gendo Ikari had it removed from my body," Rei said. "I will see if I can find one of the workers who moved it."

"I can't let him out until I know it's him," Shinji said as he pushed himself up, hands on the arm of the couch, refusing to look in Misato's direction. "He thinks he's Tabris, but Bardiel thinks he's Asuka. I was trying to save Tabris' personality, I just don't know which soul I loaded it into." A laugh tore itself from his chest. "If it is Adam, then Tabris got his wish, didn't he? Adam can use the Spear to fix this world: that's what you're thinking, isn't it Rei? Because even if he helped you, even if he saved you, he's not one of your children… Sorry," he said, seeing the look on Rei's face. "Sorry." His shoulders sagged, defeated. "Help me, Rei," he begged.

His sister stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him, and Shinji clung tight. The only lifeline he had left, the only person he had left to protect. He still wasn't looking at Misato.

Was it that he was afraid he'd kill her if he was reminded that she existed, that she was alive and Kaworu might be dead?

Or was she already dead to him?

Misato knew that she really should care. That there was something wrong with her that she didn't. Not when it sounded like either way, an angel was dead, and compared to the world's survival it was really hard to care about Shinji and his feelings.

No, that wasn't it.

After everything that had happened, it was just hard to care about anything. She should have been excited that they might have a way to fix this world, she should have been pushing Asuka to train harder. She could try to mourn, she could try to hope, but all she found when she reached down into her chest were anger and emptiness.

Had she ever been fighting to save this world? Or just to avenge it? To avenge herself? Was that why she couldn't empathize with Shinji's desperation to save someone? To save his family, when hers was gone?

"They got me," she realized. "I thought I was fighting them still: is that why they let me? Because they knew I was already in their clutches, that I couldn't give anyone hope when there wasn't any left in me to give?" Had she just been going through the motions?

Had she given up on trying to kill Kaworu, on trying to kill an angel, that angel, because she was seriously giving him a chance or because she didn't have it in her to care anymore? She hadn't even tried to come up with a plan to kill Shinji, and according to Ritsuko he was just as capable of triggering a Fourth Impact as any angel. He was a danger to the world: it shouldn't matter that he'd been a sweet kid once.

Bile rose in her throat, and she knew this was how Kaworu had felt when he realized how deeply they had their claws into him.

The child who had reached out just because she was curious, the angel who had waited for a future that was sure to come: she wasn't that child anymore. He wasn't that innocent anymore.

Both of them, trying to fight SEELE. Both of them already dead, just going through the motions? Had the world already lost? Did it matter if the seas were restored, when SEELE could just trigger a Fourth Impact to punish the world for daring to hope?

Shinji and Rei were gone: she didn't know if they'd left through the door or just vanished.

She didn't know anything, not anymore. How could she, when no one was telling anyone else the truth, not until it was too late?