This is actually a sequel to the previous chapter (I know, I'm breaking a policy). Well, a combination of a missing scene explaining how Kaworu died since Shinji wasn't responsible & a sequel.

I think I'm going to warn for suicide, even though said suicide is canon. Although here it's assisted suicide instead of Suicide By Cop.

One of the perks of looking after Rei was that Ritsuko had a medical license and could write prescriptions. One of the perks of 'working for' SEELE was that Kaworu had cash, and had brought prettymuch all of it to give to her because what else would he have to spend it on, since she was taking Suki with her?

"Is this it?" he asked her, once he made it out of the twenty-four hour pharmacy.

Just to be on the safe side, she opened the bottle and looked at the pills. "Yes," she said, and saw him give a little sigh of relief, shoulders relaxing.

"Thank you," he told her, hugging the kitten to his chest.

"Don't thank me yet," she warned him, deeply-rooted cynicism coming to the fore. He wasn't the only one the world hated, after all. "Just because it has worked as intended on Rei doesn't guarantee it will do what you want."

"It should. Or I hope so," he corrected himself, but she could see the renewed tension that came with hope. "Thank you for writing it for me." Even though he'd warned her it could get her in trouble with SEELE.

"It's a narcotic. As long as you're careful, why should they think it had anything to do with you? I might just have needed the money," Ritsuko said, pushing her back her dyed-blonde hair with familiar frustration. At least he was so much more… real than Rei had ever been.

No one who liked cats could possibly be all bad. "I've told you how to get back to Tokyo-3 without triggering the alarms," a backdoor Gendo had made her put in to hide Rei's AT field if she ever did something Gendo ordered her to, "so…"

"I don't want to go back to Tokyo-3," he told her. "There's too much risk they'll find me in time."

"So I guess we'll keep heading north along the coast." Put some distance between them and this place before it started getting closer to dawn.

"…Thank you," he said, looking surprised she said 'we' instead of trying to get rid of him now that she'd repaid her debt.

"I'm not going to take Suki away from you now."

"Thank you," Kaworu said again, voice quiet and vulnerable this time, shoulders squeezed in like he was trying to make himself small. Either because the compassion in her words hurt, or because he was sounding like a child, like someone giving a shit was so new to him? Well, given that he'd been raised by those damn old men who had made her strip naked to interrogate her, basic human decency probably did come as a surprise.

He was quiet after they got in the car, except for a few soft murmurs when Suki wanted a response. It was Ritsuko that spotted a cove and pulled over when the sky started to brighten.

"It's perfect," he said when they climbed down the rocks to the level of the sand, watching waves break against yet more jagged black rock, the sea here far too treacherous to swim. "Thank-"

"You don't have to keep thanking me," Ritsuko said, interrupting him. His voice was too soft, too vulnerable: too close to crying, and she didn't want to cry herself. "Give me the pill bottle."

"It does mean a lot," he told her as she smashed the capsules on a rock with another rock. "That you'd do this for me."

"Even animals get put to sleep." Or maybe it wasn't human mercy but remembering the terrified faces of the clones as their bodies fell apart. She could have sedated them first, it would just have taken the press of one more button.

Then again, maybe it was the way she'd felt then, when she'd told Misato to go ahead and kill her, and Misato hadn't, just looked startled by the very idea and she must think Ritsuko was so pathetic, easily tricked and whiny and… Well, killing an(other) angel would be Ritsuko's last act as a member of NERV. The angel had to be put down, as a danger to humanity: there was no reason not to be decent about it instead of letting him go back to be shot or experimented on to see if Gendo could get any use out of him before finally killing him.

No reason not to keep him company until the end.

Once again Ritsuko considered finishing off the bottle once he was asleep, but she'd promised to look after the cat, hadn't she? Unless she poisoned Suki too, let Kaworu be together in death with the one creature that loved him, but… No. He wanted Suki to live, that was what was stopping her. Unlike her, Kaworu wanted to live, and knew he couldn't. When she had the option of surviving, when he'd rescued her and given her the chance he couldn't have, it really would be pathetic, even cruel, not to take it. To throw away what this boy deserved.

He was looking at that powder like it was a lifeline, leaning forward so intently, and if he was Rei she would have told him to get the hell out of her personal space, although not quite in those words. Instead, she couldn't help ruffling his hair. "They say that pets look like their owners," she told him when he looked up at her with the startled eyes of a stray. "You two must have been meant for each other." So alike, the dying, half-grown kitten and the angel under a death sentence. Two orphans with no one to take them in, two children who would never live to grow up.

Now, though, Suki had a chance because of Kaworu, the chance Kaworu never had, and the twist of her red-painted lips was bitter when she realized that his wish for Suki to live was a reflection of his own wish. Saving the one like him, finding Suki someone who would care for him, was as close as Kaworu could ever come to having that for himself, to fulfilling his own dreams.

The angel's eyes were wet, startled by and grateful for her kindness and so close to tears because of it. Tears of gratitude and tears for what he could never have.

For what he only had now, what she was giving him out of pity.

She smoothed his hair this time, white-silver that somehow matched her own false gold, feeling how it was just a little wet with seaspray. He was too nervous, worried that she would stop being willing to touch him to react the way a cat would to being petted, but she knew from his wide red eyes that he appreciated it. "Let me get some cans of juice from the car," she told him, petting him a little more as a promise she'd be back down instead of ditching him.

Ritsuko did wonder what she was doing since he was an angel as she made her way back up the slope to where she'd parked, but eh, screw it. She'd looked after Rei for years and nothing except her heart had suffered from it, while this one was a poor kid instead of a little bitch.

Sparing him a few hours wasn't a big deal.

It would be to him, though.

She saw that he'd brushed the powder into one of his hands when she got back down. "How much of this should I eat?" he asked her.

"That should be enough," she said, opening a can and handing it to him.

Now that they were at the moment of truth, she almost wanted to tell him not to do it. That he could come with her. Hell, Misato had taken in a boy around his age and it had taken weeks for it to become an utter disaster. Ritsuko had learned her lesson about bitches like Asuka while Misato was tied up in a dark room, so she knew better than that.

It was a ridiculous idea, of course. Escaped NERV scientist and angel road trip! Fleeing across an island with all the forces of SEELE, NERV, Japan and the UN in pursuit? No, she'd just get them both killed. All three of them killed and he'd blame himself, spend his last days guilty and afraid for her. This was his last wish, this was the death he wanted. By the sea, in the open air, with the company of his cat. And her company, if he wanted it.

He'd already swallowed, anyway. Not that this meant it was too late. That was the thing about teenagers: they tended to pick methods of suicide that sucked. It made sense from an evolutionary standpoint: if someone wanted them to live, they lived. If no one did, they died. A litmus test.

Watching him drink the juice to wash the taste out of his mouth: that was when Ritsuko realized she wanted him to live. That she'd really like to try to drag him to a hospital before he fell asleep for that last time.

But she couldn't save him. Nor could she look for someone else who could, the way he'd found her to take in the cat he'd known he couldn't look after from the moment he picked it up.

He leaned against her unprompted when she sat down next to him, and she didn't push him away, even when he grasped at her coat. "Did you bring the bowl and cream for Suki?"

"Yes." They were in one of the bags she'd brought down. "I'll take care of it."

"Thank you." This thank you she permitted, because it was on behalf of his cat more than himself.

Suki was perfectly happy to stop romping around (they were both glad to see he had more energy now) and come back to lick cream up out of a bowl. He might or might not have been weak enough at the start to actually need the milk warmed and given to him from a bottle, but he could certainly lap it up now. Kaworu seemed to view this as a sign he was getting better instead of a hint that Ritsuko had made extra trouble for him. Not that Suki had been unhappy with the bottle: poor little thing must have missed his mother.

The relief and gratitude made Kaworu cuddle up to her as though she was his mother, leaning against her side and hugging her arm.

It… wasn't a bad feeling. "Don't fall asleep just yet, alright?" Ritsuko combed her fingers through his hair and reflected that no, she wasn't old enough to be his mother. Even if he felt young somehow, a bitter knowledge of the world and how it was out to get him combined with an almost-innocence that probably came with not having been let out in it much.

He shook his head. "This is perfect. Just like I dreamed of, except Shinji isn't here." The boy wanted to stay awake, wanted to savor these wonderful last moments.

"Like father, like son," Ritsuko said bitterly. Well. One more way they were alike. Like mother like daughter like son, ditched by Ikaris for Rei. "Sorry you're stuck with an old woman."

"No, you've been very kind." He pressed his face against her jacket now, and she knew more tears must be welling up. "I wish I'd been with you instead of with them. The First Child…" how could she not know how lucky she was?

Envy of Rei: one more way they were alike. Ritsuko hated Rei partially because she had Gendo's care and attention: Gendo had even sent her to be violated by the eyes of those old men so Rei didn't have to go strip and explain what happened to SEELE. "I'd have liked that too." Kaworu wouldn't have resembled Gendo's dead wife. Kaworu wouldn't have imitated Gendo's hidden disgust with her. "I would have gotten you a cat." Before letting him socialize with humans, as a trial run and because cats were much more likeable than people.

"This feeling… I love you," was what Kaworu said, after shuddering and clinging tighter to her. "You've helped Suki and… you've been so kind. You've granted my last request." His one wish. His one choice, to choose the manner of his death, and he wanted to spend it with her.

"Kind is not a word people often use to describe me." But perhaps she was making an exception for this boy. She would have described what he was feeling now as adoration born of gratitude, not love, but it wasn't like he was trying to get into her pants. It said some really sad things about how rarely he'd been treated with consideration before, how rarely people had paid attention to what he wanted, but life was a bitch and humans were selfish bastards. "Try not to cry, you'll worry Suki," she said, and knew the real reason was that his tears, even if they were born of messed-up happiness, would hurt her. She already felt like there was a knifeblade lodged in her heart.

Yet it was a clean pain somehow, different from her self-hatred and loneliness born of Gendo's rejection. This boy loved her, and was going to die, and that was wrong. So it was right that she, that someone, ache and mourn on his behalf. The opposite of the way Gendo, the way no one had cared about her heartbreak and disgrace. Kaworu wasn't going to have to die alone and unloved, so she said, "You can call me mother, if you like." Because he didn't have one and she, she would be honored.

He was struck dumb for a long moment as red eyes looked up at her in wonder through long, pale eyelashes. The word, the concept was a foreign one to him, but even stranger was the idea that anyone would offer it to him when he wasn't even human.

She watched his heart break with happiness, with simple joy. A child's. A human's.

Ritsuko knew she'd be a lousy mother, but he wouldn't live long enough for her to fuck him up. All she had to do was be quiet and hold him.

Until he fell asleep with his head on her lap.

Until she verified that his heart had finally stopped beating.

The first order of business was to pick him up and put him somewhere out of sight of the road, so no one would call the cops and this quiet beach, his final resting place, wouldn't be swarmed by first cops and then probably NERV's angel body recovery/biohazard team. Fortunately there were enough rocks around that putting him behind one meant it wouldn't be easy to spot him from a boat, either.

Even though she made sure he could see the sunlit ocean, stretching out into the distance. As though that bright future was within his reach.

When Third Impact came for her it was with sandy arms in a white shirt, and moon-pale hair that smelled of the sea.

It was the same when Life came for her, except this time it wasn't with a smile full of promises but a heart full of worry that maybe she wouldn't want to return from Instrumentality, maybe she'd only let him think of her as his mother because it was a temporary thing, a brief comfort instead of a burden.

But he was proof that someone wanted her to live, someone treasured her individual identity, so she took his hand.

It wasn't the kind of love she had hoped for, but it was love, all the same.

"Um, Dr. Akagi?"

"Hey, wake up!"

Ritsuko groaned at the voices of the Ikari Brat and the Second Brat. "Kaworu?" Wasn't he here?

"Are you alright, Ritsuko?"

"The offer still stands." Hadn't he felt that while they were entwined in the sea of instrumentality? Or was that just her inner-him, the one who had represented proof that someone could love her, as flawed as she was?

"Mother." She felt him take her hand between both of his as she leaned up to cough some remaining LCL out of her lungs. Immersion in that stuff was absolutely disgusting.

"What about Suki?" was the next thing she asked, while wiping her eyes.

"He's fine. I was able to recall him too, since animals have a primitive consciousness."

"What about Misato?" the Ikari brat asked.

"What about Kaji?" the other one demanded.

"Kaji was killed by someone from NERV, and since there wasn't a vessel waiting to catch his soul, unlike me, he wasn't on this planet to be drawn into the instrumentality," Kaworu told them. "And I did look for Misato, since she's R-Mother's friend, but either she already left, she was never there or she didn't want me to find her."

"Since you're an angel." Ritsuko blinked her eyes open in time to see Asuka's scowl. "What about my mother?" the German girl demanded.

"The soul in your Eva? I can try. At least I will recognize her, even if she won't recognize me because her heart was shut away."

"While you piloted her. An angel piloting…"

"Shut up!" Ritsuko ordered the girl as she sat up. "Don't you dare insult him, you damn spoiled brat. Not when you helped defend NERV and Unit 01 long enough for Ikari and the Committee to do this!" Reduce everything and everyone to a barren, red-tinted world.

"Dr. Akagi…" Shinji said slowly. "They shot Misato."

"And Misato should have known what she was really working for, if she hadn't stuck her fingers in her ears in order to kill angels." That was cruel, but Ritsuko had suffered and Misato hadn't even noticed, so focused on her revenge. "You're too young to remember the wars after Second Impact. What it was like. Billions of lives, Ikari, and the extinction of the human race. But then, you never really cared about that, did you?" She looked at him contemptuously. "Too busy with your Oedipus complex." Pathetic.

Kaworu put a hand on her arm, reminding her that he was there, that he had feelings for Shinji because of the damned First Child.

"Well," she shouldn't waste time on these two anyway. "We are officially outside the bounds of the scenario. All organic matter was returned to the primordial soup, correct?" she asked Kaworu, who nodded.

"And you pulled me out, but that won't solve the food problem." Fortunately there weren't enough people breathing for there to be an oxygen problem anytime soon.

"He pulled out an animal before you," Asuka told her. "So at least we'll have meat."

"Don't look at Suki like that," Kaworu said, shielding the cat with his arms and glaring at the other former pilot. "I am a True Successor: I should be able to turn all this LCL into new life, but not right now."

"Why not?" Ritsuko wondered, trying to wring a as much as possible out of her clothes.

"Because human personalities are not evenly distributed through the mass. If I convert all of it I would be overwriting souls that haven't already chosen to give up their individual identities," which Kaworu thought was a damn stupid thing to choose, and if they wanted to be one with the universe, well, so was broccoli. "Reshaping small quantities into food will be safe, though."

"But what about the people who aren't here?" Shinji wondered.

Now he worried about them. "Three days," Ritsuko decided. "After that, if they're not coming, they're not coming." And the brave souls who had returned to life on their own shouldn't die for the sake of the uncaring masses.

But what did it say that the Ikari brat and the other one returned to life before she did? Well, Ritsuko wouldn't have considered herself an especially brave or worthy person anyway.

"Shouldn't we go look for someplace to sleep?" Shinji asked when it started to get dark.

"Nothing organic survived," Ritsuko reminded him. "No fabric, either natural or made from plastic, because plastic is made from oil which comes from living things." Or once-living, but it was still organic matter. "No grass, or topsoil. Sorry, but sand like this is as soft a bed as we're going to find."

"Right, you idiot," Asuka said as though she was the one to think of it. "Just hurry up and cook my dinner."

"Who said I was feeding you?" Kaworu wondered as he made sure the kindling he'd called up out of the LCL was dry enough to catch fire. "I'm the one who brought this food, and I don't like people who threaten to eat my cat and call my friend an idiot."

"And I don't like angels who wander into the girls' bathroom and try to tell me how to pilot my Eva!"

"Ahem," Ritsuko said, looking at Asuka with eyes that were clearly unamused by this bullshit. "Which one of you can adjust his sync ratio at will?" And which one had failed at piloting the instant Misato gave her enough rope to hang herself? "And I'm afraid I agree with Kaworu. You are a very rude young lady, and I don't tolerate cruelty to cats. I'm not Misato, and I have no reason to put up with your immature dramatics as a favor to Kaji. I don't approve of people who take advantage of others, either. You can start minding your manners tonight or you can start fending for yourself tomorrow. Rather pathetic, isn't it, when someone who graduated college doesn't know how to say please or thank you."

Normally Asuka sucked up to the adults around her, but she seemed to assume that no one was going to stick up for Shinji. Normally Ritsuko wouldn't have, true, but Kaworu had and now Ritsuko felt obligated to stick up for Kaworu. "Now shut your mouth and stop distracting Kaworu: it's already getting dark."

Kaworu's smile was as good as a, "Thank you, Mother." He wasn't used to people sticking up for him any more than Shinji was, it seemed. He knelt by the wood he'd made from the sea, and both the other pilots gasped when they saw an AT field appear in his hands. Kaworu frowned a little, focusing his attention, until the kindling finally caught fire.

"I'll take over from there," Ritsuko said, waving him aside. "Shinji, would you mind being in charge of the cooking?"

"No, Dr. Akagi." The boy looked surprised that anyone would ask, but Ritsuko was currently setting an example of how Asuka had better behave towards the others.

"Good, thank you." Ritsuko frowned. "It's a pity we're not on a hill, but at least anyone out there will be able to see the smoke for a couple more hours, and they'll see the light if they're close enough. Kaworu, I'll try to show you how to take care of a fire tonight so you can keep it going tomorrow while the rest of us look for an intact building close enough to the beach to be practical." Close enough to their only source of food, bedding, and even drinking water, since Kaworu could filter the LCl and salt out of the liquid.

It wasn't much like camping with Misato and Kaji. For one thing, Shinji and Asuka's teasing was more verbal abuse, not to mention one-sided, and they weren't having sex in the tents they didn't have. Asuka went so far as to designate one side of the fire the girls' side (No Perverts Allowed), which Ritsuko didn't care about because it was a warm night anyway and the fire was really just so they could have cooked food and a signal beacon for other… Not exactly survivors, but whatever. So she just formed sand into a shape that felt comfortable for her back and lay down after dinner. Kaworu slept on the side of her away from the fire, in case she had to get up in the night to tend it, and Shinji slept by Kaworu's other side because this put both of them and a bonfire between him and Asuka.

Maybe he was gay and Kaworu had a chance after all. Ritsuko hadn't been kidding about the Oedipus complex: that might very well be the only reason he'd been attracted to Rei, whose giant head might have seemed like it was staring at them if those eyes weren't so vacant.

When she woke up the next morning Kaworu was already up, trying to figure out how to milk a cow he must have pulled out of the LCL for Suki's sake. After that was accomplished and Shinji had everything he needed to make breakfast for them, Kaworu realized they needed hay for the cows to eat, and more logs for the fire, and ingredients for lunch, and so Ritsuko woke Asuka up to help her carry what Kaworu pulled out of the LCL that wasn't a living creature further up the beach, since dragging it would give the LCL a chance to eat away at it.

Chickens were next, and pulling up sheaves of wheat instead of regular grass for the cows gave them something to peck at.

Then Ritsuko had to break up a near fight about how "I did not bring them back to life just so that you could kill them!" and also banned Asuka from going hunting after they heard birdsong that Kaworu said he wasn't responsible for, because they didn't know how many animals would come back on their own and they needed a gene pool.

The next thing Kaworu pulled out of the LCL was Maya, because, "She was looking for you, Mother. She would have come out on her own, but this was faster."

Other people started arriving around noon, which Ritsuko was certain was because they were attracted by the smell of lunch, forcing Shinji to keep cooking and Kaworu to keep getting fish, potatoes, sharpened sticks for Shinji to jam into the sand and cook things on and such. That was when the inevitable, "How is he doing that?" questions started, although Ritsuko was able to derail some of them by telling various people to go see if they could find some salt, and work on expanding the fire so Shinji had more cooking space (or help cook, if they knew how to cook like this).

At least until the returned soldiers, who had gotten organized a fair distance away after recognizing the Second, Third and Fifth Children in addition to Dr. Akagi, stormed the beach. Even without much in the way of weapons but rocks and metal poles, there wasn't much the former NERV-employee and civilian group could do about an organized force's surprise attack.

Not, at least, without Kaworu raising his AT field.

At that point it was a standoff, with Shinji hiding half-behind Kaworu, Asuka standing in front of everyone with her fists clenched (the girl was brave, you had to give her that), Maya next to Ritsuko and…

Amidst the cries of shock, alarm and dismay as others realized that they were caught between an angel and an army that had been slaughtering them and might not see Third Impact as a reason to stop (quite the contrary), Kaworu realized that he couldn't see, "Suki!" A half-panicked, levitating and glowing angel didn't help anyone keep their composure, but at least the soldiers appeared to be focused on him instead of clubbing down the fleeing civilians and NERV personnel.

Ritsuko knew, with perception honed by years of cat ownership, that Suki had to be in the middle of the soldiers trying to make friends with one of them.

Yes, she was right, she knew as Kaworu dived. There was a shout to get away when he moved in, probably so that they could rush him, but the order wasn't given when they saw that he'd grabbed a small cat and curled around it, intending to shelter the small creature with his body as well as his AT field.

These were soldiers: they weren't going to hesitate because he looked like a human or had a cat, not when he was an angel. Dr. Akagi still cried, "Stop!" and prayed to the gods of her ancestors that some kind of officer had returned, that there was someone who was paid to think in that mob. She didn't know what Tabr-what Kaworu would do if he thought she, Shinji or Suki were threatened. He had his AT field, so he shouldn't need to use lethal force to protect himself… right?

"Dr. Ritsuko Akagi?" a voice said.

"Yes?" she said, straightening. She couldn't make out the speaker, but it would make sense for him to stay behind cover, out of sight of an angel.

"The information you gave us didn't say anything about those white Evas, and our briefing said the Fifth Child was dead."

"Those were sent by SEELE. I worked for NERV, I didn't know anything about what they had planned. As for Kaworu, he did die. I gave him the poison he took and examined his body myself. Unfortunately, SEELE had a replica of the dummy plug system waiting to capture his soul so they could use it without having to worry about an inconvenient mind or memories. Kaworu was their version of the First Child."

"You betrayed us?" Asuka demanded angrily.

"I betrayed Gendo Ikari's plans to destroy the world! You're the one who fought to defend that bastard!"

"They were shooting civilians, Ritsuko," Shinji said quietly. "Misato, I think Misato died dragging me to safety. If they gave us a chance to surrender, my father didn't tell any of us about it, and they were shooting even people who had their hands up and were trying to surrender."

"The Committee warned us that we had very little time left before Commander Ikari used one of the Evas and pilots to trigger Third Impact. At first we thought the white Evas were being sent as reinforcements to take down the rogue Evas." Then they'd seen the brutality with which Unit 02 was devoured, and that strange… there wasn't any word for it but ritual involving the captured Unit 01. "You say he took poison?"

"I did," Kaworu said, looking around him with red eyes that were a mix of worried and defiant. "Since I refused to cause Third Impact and I knew that SEELE would have me hunted down and killed for defying them. They had me created and tried to control my entire life: I didn't want them to dictate my death, too. But even that was a trap." Damn it! He tried not to let his anger at those old men show too much, lest these other Lilim take it as hatred of their race or a threat. "Dr. Akagi was kind enough to stay with me until I fell asleep, and adopt Suki. I won't let you hurt her, or Shinji."

He would have looked more threatening and less like a wet cat himself if his cat wasn't licking his fingers and purring. Since not looking threatening was safer for all of them, though…

"The Committee created you?"

"Yes, using the DNA of your sort of human. So I'm half-Lilim," he said, raising his chin. "I never wanted instrumentality and it was the Thirteenth Angel that caused Third Impact: Homo Sapiens, the Children of Lilith. You, or the old men anyway. I don't know what happened exactly because I didn't come back to myself until I was already in the Black Egg, but I meant to die and stay dead so they couldn't use me. It was the old men who wouldn't let me be free, but now they're gone, or I hope so, I'm free and I want to live. Shinji, Suki and Ritsuko too. The bodies of Adam and Lilith are gone, and without them it shouldn't be possible to set off another Impact anyway. So what are you going to do? Plants don't have enough of a consciousness to bring themselves back to life: unless the First Child returns I'm the only one who can fix this planet so you Lilim can survive. If you kill Shinji or Ritsuko, or Suki, if you're all like the old men, like SEELE," his voice wavered with grief at the thought of losing his two precious people, "I won't. If you're willing to behave instead of hurting people you can even stay here and I'll get food for you too, as long as Mo-Ritsuko and the others don't mind."

"I'm not cooking for them," Shinji said, fists clenched. Hell no! "Those bastards killed Misato!"

"Why should you?" Kaworu wondered, starting to walk back towards them, still holding Suki. "Unless it was like how you Lilim are more willing to touch people when you're angry. They wanted to stop this," he reminded Shinji, waving at the red sea and the giant head. "I know you wanted to kill Gendo Ikari, and someone should have killed the old men years ago. I…" He hesitated, standing next to Ritsuko. "I don't know how to deal with people, you're all so weird. I wasn't allowed out until the old men sent me to NERV. Is this how I should handle it, or should I stop talking?" Was he getting her in trouble, making things worse?

He felt better when Ritsuko ruffled his silver hair, and it put a little smile on his lips that she at least was willing to touch him. Wanted him to live. Even if what she said was, "Don't ask me, I'm not good with people either." That was Kaji. Up until one of them killed him, anyway. "But whatever happens, it's up to them. You're a good kid, so I know you won't pick a fight with them or give them an actual reason to try to kill you. You can't help the way those bastards made you, and it's saving all of us from starving to death right now." She looked up at the soldiers. "So, are you going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, or let him prove that he's no one's enemy but the bastards who did this to our planet?"

As more and more people came out of the red sea and converged on the one area they could find real food, the next two days had Kaworu busy standing in the surf, calling everything edible out of it he could think of and knew well enough to make out of LCL while Ritsuko tried to hold off people who wanted him to pull out their friends and family when it would take him too long to try to find them and explain that it wasn't Kaworu's fault that either the people who stayed in there were going to be overwritten or the people who had come out were going to starve to death.

She hoped it helped that Kaworu was a hard worker, that he started when he woke up and didn't stop until he was practically staggering and couldn't think well enough to think of anything. That first day, it was Shinji that helped him get far enough up the beach that he wouldn't get soaked when he lay down to sleep and then went to find Ritsuko.

It fell to her to look after Suki as well as trying to deal with angry people who wanted a target they could take their anger out on, and that was exactly why she wasn't letting the cat out of her sight. She didn't trust a beach full of angry and hungry people with something so important to an angel, much less something that was made out of meat. Humans had done enough horrible things to innocent cats throughout history, and Kaworu would be devastated if something happened to Suki because of him.

Somehow, the world forgot that it hated them both (it probably helped that it was a new world) and no one tried (very hard) to kill either of them after that, or no one who got past the military bodyguards Kaworu eventually got first as their only food source and then as the one who fixed the planet. Eventually they had a house by the sea, with a third bedroom for Shinji, a lab for her and a practice room for the boys.

Not to mention fewer cats than she had expected. Kaworu had managed to make a friend his own age in Shinji. Although Ritsuko wasn't sure she exactly approved of having an Ikari under her roof, even if it was instead of equivalent mass in cats.

Perhaps Shinji's presence was proof that Kaworu still had a fondness for taking in strays.

And now it's done. I'm not promising continuations of any of the others, mind.