Giftfic for Literary Eagle, who did cover art for Joie de Vivre. She wanted a non-depressing story to round out this collection. My original attempt at it was a story where SEELE took little Shinji when Gendo would have abandoned him anyway thinking he would make a good hostage against Gendo (hah) and had him raised with Kaworu, but I didn't really have inspiration for that beyond the scene where the two of them first met.

Then I realized that, given what's been revealed about Rebuild…

Oh, and personally, Gendo is just such a sub to Yui, I'm sorry. Or really no, I'm not.

Holding the kitten to his chest, Shinji walked towards the sound of the piano. That was definitely a real piano, not just a recording, even though all the little imperfections he'd heard were the result of an unturned instrument, not an unskilled player. It was a miracle the piano was even this intact, amidst the wreckage.

A white-haired boy came into view and Shinji paused, suddenly feeling… Well, this must be the person who used to live here. Shinji had destroyed his home, so he shouldn't expect this person to do anything other than yell at him. Muddled fear and anticipation gripped him as he held the kitten carefully, and stepped forward.

"Ode to Joy. I heard the song here: it's Ode to Joy," the boy said, and turned.

"He looks like Rei," was what Shinji thought, suddenly struck with a feeling of recognition. Yet while Rei wasn't in touch with her emotions, this boy's eyes were open and vulnerable. They were unreadable not because they were blank, but because there were so many feelings flowing through them, overwhelming him. "He's trembling?" Shinji realized. Walking carefully towards him, he asked, "Are you okay?" suddenly filled with fear again, but not fear of hatred or rejection. Was it the resemblance to Ayanami, who he had seen wounded too many times, making him worried?

"Concern for something other than yourself," the boy breathed, and slung himself over the piano bench.

Before Shinji could react there were arms around him, and his reaction when he finally processed that this was happening, stumbling back, made him lose his balance.

The other boy's arms around his body were the only things keeping him from falling.

"It's just like back then," Shinji heard him say as he tried to get his feet back under him. "I finally managed to meet you again! You! Every time I tried to change anything, to meet you earlier, either you didn't exist or you were a different person or I messed up and I was why you weren't there to meet me… I brought food. For the cat," he said when the kitten finally lost its temper and scratched at him, wanting to be put down before the huge things crushed it or tipped over and crushed it.

He didn't seem to mind, almost snatching it from Shinji's hands as Shinji tried to regain his mental balance now.

Yes. Definitely like Rei. In that he was weird. Also he was humming: it was weird that it was off-key, when if his piano-playing was so perfect he had to know better than that, but the sound of it was whimsical enough that Shinji realized the other boy just didn't care, was just humming for the sake of playing with the sound as the struggling cat was put down on top of the piano, in among sushi platters. There was a strange, natural grace to the very imperfection of the sound: art, not artifice.

"Do I know you?" Shinji asked, remembering the first day he came to Tokyo-3, how he'd thought he'd seen a girl that looked like Rei in the street before he even met Rei. It couldn't have been her, though, not when Rei was so badly wounded. Another way they were alike: they both gave him the same feeling of déjà vu.

The same feeling of 'I have to protect this person' he'd had when he looked at Rei's broken body and knew that she would die if he refused to pilot the Eva.

"I don't know. Do you?" the white-haired boy asked him, tilting his head curiously as he poked the cat's mouth with a piece of tuna. "I'm Kaworu Nagisa, and of course you're Shinji Ikari. I know you, but everyone knows you."

Knew what a failure and a screw-up he was.

He was the reason Touji was dead.

When he looked down at his shoes, that was when he heard a quick patter of footsteps again, found arms around him again. "You're sad for other people, aren't you?" the boy said excitedly. "Because of the precious people you've lost. That's who you are!" Shinji felt soft lips nuzzle his cheek: pure affection, like a kitten's lick. "I'm so glad that you're you. You'll let me be one of your precious people, right? I know a lot more now and I'll try really hard to keep you from hating me."

The boy drew back enough to smile at him, and somehow he'd taken Shinji's hands in his own. The bright, radiant joy of that smile made Shinji shiver, because someone this kind? As weirdly enthusiastic about it as they were?

"You're an Eva pilot," Shinji realized. "You're here to replace Touji." Because Touji was dead. One of Shinji's first real friends was dead, and now he couldn't show his face to Hikari or Kensuke, because Touji was dead.

"I'm here to replace Asuka," Kaworu corrected him. "I can pilot Unit 02, so she won't have to fight A-the next angel."

"Her sync ratio," Shinji realized, letting out a breath. "She'll hate that," but it was better than sending her out there to be killed if she wasn't good enough. She could just retire until she could pilot again, and stay safe. It made him wince, but at least most of her fury would be directed at Kaworu, and Shinji was used to Asuka. It was fine, as long as she stayed alive.

Kaworu nodded. "But she'll listen to me about opening her heart to the Eva once she's angry enough that I can pilot Unit 02 better than she can. I know how to save her, but you… I'm so glad I got to meet you again!"

And now Shinji was hugged tight again, overwhelmed by Kaworu's joy. Held tight, it felt as though some of that joy might pass into him by osmosis, that Kaworu was trying to press it into him, to cheer Shinji up by force of the arms around him.

"I've been ordered to observe you again, so we can spend time together! I brought a book on sleepovers for when you come stay with me!"

Stay with him? To get away from Asuka, who would be furious her Eva was being given to someone else?

That sounded like a really good idea.

Especially after Asuka punched Kaworu in the face after she ran into him right outside the bathroom and he told her that she needed to open her heart to the Eva and that was why he'd been sent to replace her. He really should have seen that coming.

Seeing how it didn't dim that smile, Shinji wondered if he had.

As Rei's cries echoed through the command chamber, Shinji pleaded with his father to, "Let me out there!"

It was clear that Gendo would have preferred to send Kaworu, but instead, "Shinji. Get in your Eva, proceed to Terminal Dogma and retrieve the Lance."

Shinji was too busy thinking "Finally!" to wonder why him, especially when Kaworu was already ready to go in Unit 02 or listen to Misato's demands for an explanation. Wouldn't doing that cause Third Impact? Shinji didn't care about the risk, not when... Rei…

"You're like me," were the first words Rei said when she opened her eyes, looking up at Kaworu.

So Shinji wasn't the only one who thought so, then?

Kaworu nodded, hand still touching her hair. "We've both been changed by bonds with others, so we are the same now, even though we weren't back then. At first I was the one who hadn't been changed, and then I was changed, but you reverted to your original state. But we both love the same person now, so we're the same. I've decided that's the most important thing."

"That we love him, and wish for his happiness," Rei said, closing her eyes and leaning into Kaworu's hand, as it slid down to cup the side of her face.

"Will you help me?" Kaworu asked her.

She frowned, opening her eyes again to look up at him. "You should not need to ask."

"You're not always the same person, just like…" Kaworu shuddered, curling in on himself a little.

"True," Rei acknowledged. "I was different, before I met Shinji. If I hadn't recovered quickly, I'm certain that the Commander would have ordered Dr. Akagi to finish off this me. I had hoped that my feelings would live on in the Third, but it seems they would not have revived in time to make any difference. How is it that your feelings live on?"

"They don't. Not in the Second. Or the Third, although there's only been a Third a handful of times, and usually the Second is pulled into the instrumentality too quickly for it to start remembering the way you did when you were the Third. I'm the only life on this world that possesses the Fruit of Wisdom and isn't born of Lilith," he explained. "To possess the fruits of both Life and Wisdom: the old men seem to think that would make someone a god."

"That is what the Ikaris believe as well."

"What are you talking about?" Shinji asked, finally speaking up. The rest of the conversation had gone well over his head, but now they were talking about him. Or his parents?

Two pale heads turned to him, Kaworu's shock of white and Rei's pale blue. Two pairs of matching red eyes examined him, and now there was more than a little fear in Kaworu's.

Rei's, too. "The two of us, we are the same," she said slowly. "We were both made to be tools."

"The old men want to set off Third Impact their way," Kaworu said. "Your old man, too. SEELE wants to use me, except for Keel who wants me to… let myself die so he can use the Mass-Production Evas and humanity can attain godhood by its own power. Gendo and Yui Ikari want to use Adam's flesh and her." He glanced at Rei to illustrate who he meant by her. "That's how I can pilot Unit 02 even though it hasn't been reset for me, and how I could wake her up. How I messed with the cameras to hide that she's woken up and we're having this conversation, too."

Shinji was silent for a moment. Despite what Misato demanded of his father, yet more proof that they were all being lied to about what would cause Third Impact, about what was really going on, he hadn't really needed that proof. He'd known from the beginning that his father couldn't be up to anything good. If anything, it was surprising that Rei admitted it. "So you're like the Evas?"

"The exact opposite of the Evas, actually," Kaworu said brightly, and it was a relief to see him grin again. "The Evas are Lilim – that's your kind of human – souls in bodies made from the flesh of Adam or Lilith."

So, the opposite of that would be…

Shinji hadn't even completed the thought when Rei confessed, "I contain the soul of Lilith. She is the one hidden in Terminal Dogma, and without her soul, even reaching Lilith's flesh would not let the angels trigger Third Impact."

"That isn't why you were made, though." What did Gendo Ikari care about protecting the world from Third Impact? "It's half of why I was made, though," Kaworu said, smile gone. Both of them were looking away from Shinji now, so afraid of rejection it was impossible to be afraid of them. "Otherwise, Adam would heal herself and wake up eventually. Second Impact was triggered by what they did to create me and nearly destroy her before she woke up and went looking for an angel to cause what you refer to as Third Impact. She and the other angels would have destroyed all you Lilim anyway. If her soul wasn't contained… Now she has reason to hate the Lilim for what they did to her, not just Lilith for taking her planet."

"Rei… Even if you are an angel, you're my… my friend. And Kaworu, you didn't have to help Rei like that, or tell me something like this. I couldn't ever hate either of you," Shinji said, and was struck with déjà vu. Again.

I never said I hated you.

Finding himself suddenly hugged by an affectionate Kaworu was starting to feel, if not normal, more nice than weird. People weren't so demonstrative, so being hugged wasn't normal in absolute terms, but it seemed normal by Kaworu standards. That he was just someone who was so open with his feelings, and what he felt for Shinji was, well, this.

It made him blush and want to protest that he wasn't really a very good person, that he didn't deserve this. Not when he was a coward and he'd failed Touji. He, he wanted to accept this, though. He wanted someone to feel this way about him. He wanted someone to be glad to see him.

His arms were hanging stiffly at his sides.

He was being incredibly cruel, he realized.

It was hard, to raise his arms. To wrap them around Kaworu. He wasn't just being hugged anymore: he was hugging someone now. He hadn't had this since he was small. His mother.

His mother who died.

If Kaworu and Rei were angels, his father was going to order him to kill them. Misato, too. That was the only thing they wanted him around for. Asuka had already asked – no, demanded – why Misato wasn't throwing her out, since she wasn't a pilot anymore. 'Standby' or no standby.

…Did Misato suspect? Was that why she'd said, so darkly, that she was sure they'd need Asuka again soon, that they'd be forced to give her another chance? Hopefully that was only because they'd lost Rei, right?

That was when they heard the alarm.

Rei started to push herself up.

"No," Kaworu told her. "Don't be a fool. I showed you that if you fight this angel, you'll die. You won't be yourself anymore, just like what the last angel would have done to Asuka."

Asuka? Shinji was startled, but then it made perfect, horrible sense. She would have wanted to prove herself, since her sync rate was low. It would have been Asuka out there instead of Rei. Was Kaworu only able to help Rei like this because she was another angel?

Strange, that it was easy to think of them as angels, even though they weren't monsters.

Strange that knowing they were angels didn't make them seem like monsters at all, even though one of the angels did this to Rei, and another… But it wasn't that angel that killed Touji, now was it?

"But, Shinji…"

"I'll fight Armisael," Kaworu promised her. "Seriously, this time."

"This time?"

Kaworu nodded instead of answering the question. "Everything's going to be perfect this time, I know it. Since I managed to meet you again, and you granted my wish. Even last time you granted my wish, even if it was the wrong wish. I really thought you hated me until you proved you didn't, but since you did care for me and you used your hands I'm going to make everything perfect for you and you'll love me back."

An excited, happy stream of words that caught Shinji up in them, drowned him in the warm red of Kaworu's eyes except he could still breathe there, like LCL. Even though he couldn't think, couldn't understand any of this.

Except it felt warm. "We've met before, then?" he managed to say, because that did explain everything.

Maybe even how he felt right now. He still wasn't used to being hugged, but his arms around Kaworu felt like he should know this, somehow. Felt right.

If this is truly what you want… If this is your one wish… I can't grant anyone else's wishes, I can't make anyone happy. If killing angels is all I'm good for, then isn't it a good thing that I can make someone happy by doing that?

"If I can keep you from having to suffer anymore… If this will show you that I don't hate you," some part of Shinji said, as the rest of him listened, not knowing what would come out of his mouth next. "What you did for the cat was what you wanted for yourself, wasn't it? You were never cruel, I just didn't understand you. You wanted me to touch you, wanted me to accept your feelings and your wishes. I smiled, because making you happy made me happy. Because it made me happy to do something for you. To free you, the way I wanted to be freed. I realized I did return your feelings, I was drawn to you, but it was too late."

"You do remember me." Kaworu looked amazed, again, like Shinji was the most amazing thing and Kaworu could stare at him forever and still be enthralled, even though Shinji wasn't interesting or smart or handsome or anything. "This feeling: I want to kiss you right now. I want to kiss you so much."

This feeling… is this love?

What would it be like if you loved me back?

Kaworu was peering at him now, clearly having realized a moment after he said it that saying it at all, never mind so bluntly, might disturb Shinji.

"Were we… lovers?" Shinji found himself asking, not certain whether it was surprise, morbid curiosity or hope that forced the question past his lips.

"I loved you." Ducking his head to the side, Kaworu said, "You ha-"

"I never hated you!" Sudden fury that made him grip Kaworu's shoulders, made him want to shake him, to push him back (banging into the lockers when there were no lockers in this room) and corner him. "I never hated you," Shinji said softly once the moment passed. "I know I never did. Not if I reacted that way. You frustrated me, but I never hated you. I wanted you to know that." Still wanted him to know that, enough to pull such an immediate reaction out of him. "You can't have been my enemy," Shinji knew, and relaxed a little, relieved. "Even if you are an angel, you weren't my enemy." Not when the thought of anything happening to Kaworu was like, like if something happened to Rei. "You looked sad when you thought I wouldn't want to kiss you: I don't want to see you like that. You wanted to be one of my precious people, someone I wanted to protect? You already are. I, I don't want you to make that face. I don't want you to be sad, I don't want you to die."

I don't want you to be sad enough that you want to die.

"I think I was attracted to you." It was a lot easier to say that in the past tense, about a Shinji that wasn't the same as the Shinji here and now. "I couldn't help it. But kissing is…"

"Like being naked together," Kaworu nodded and Shinji nearly sputtered because how had they gone from discussing what would actually be his first kiss to getting na-naked?! "But you don't mind touching me now even when you're not angry, and you want me to live, so that's two out of three."

"Two out of three whats?" was what Shinji wanted to know, still blushing.

"Signs you love me back," Kaworu said happily. "I want to touch you, and kiss you, and I want you to live because I love you.

"No one's every said they loved me before. Except you," Shinji realized. "You told me that before, didn't you?"

Was that why part of him remembered Kaworu?

It had to be. How could he ever forget someone telling they loved him and meaning it? Because all of Kaworu's emotions showed in his eyes: there was no way he could ever lie with them. Did he even know how to lie? "Say it again," Shinji asked him. "That you love me."

Kaworu blinked at him, and now there was color in his pale cheeks. "You care about my feelings? You, I love you," he said, and there was wetness gleaming in the corners of his eyes now.

The other boy (a boy, but he looked so pretty, no, so perfect) sniffled, and some impulse in Shinji made him wipe away those tears (get them away, make him stop being sad, because if he is miserable he will die again and you'll lose someone that loves you). That was what made Kaworu burst into tears, fling himself against Shinji's chest again not holding Shinji to him, but pleading to be held to Shinji. Hands grasping at his chest instead of wrapped around his back.

Of course his arms wrapped around him, some instinct telling him what to do, to tuck that silver head under his chin, and that was when his phone rang. Misato, surely, wanting to know where the hell he was when there was an angel attacking and neither he nor Unit 02's new pilot had reported in. "We have to go," he told Kaworu.

Asuka was already in Unit 02, and Kaworu was ordered to standby just like Shinji during the last angel attack. If the last angel would have hurt Asuka, and this one was supposed to kill Rei? Shinji didn't want her out there, and even as he scrambled to catch up with her he was relieved to hear Kaworu talking to Gendo, something about the committee's orders, but Gendo countered with the spear and how the committee was upset with both of them over that: had Kaworu exceeded his authority to save Asuka by claiming he had orders to take over as Unit 02's pilot right away?

It looked like he had. And he sucked at lying: Shinji could hear the suspicion in Misato's voice when she caught on, he didn't need to glance at the screen. That was good, since he was already trying to dodge this angel, and it was taking over Asuka's Eva.

Like, like Touji…

Maybe he didn't deserve to be happy, he thought with sudden clarity as he watched the angel's tendrils crawl up through the skin of his arm.

Someone… Rei?

No, that was him, just with hair like Rei's, and why did he look so much like Rei? If it was just the difference lighter hair made, then shouldn't he have mistaken the angel for Kaworu? When this was Kaworu's brother? Unless Shinji really did look that much like Rei.

"You… don't feel the same way we do. How can that be?"

Feelings? Shinji felt surprisingly normal, for someone with an angel messing with his head. He should be glad that he wasn't being tortured like Rei. Or maybe there was something about the bleak, empty feeling in his heart. "These aren't my feelings. But they feel just like mine." He looked back up at the angel. "You're lonely, aren't you?"

So the angels really were people, like Kaworu, and Rei (Kaworu and Rei really were people, but Shinji already knew that). This despair, this need for something he'd only felt so long ago that he barely even remembered it: "You're just like me. You're lonely, just like me."

"No." The angel shook his head viciously. "There is loneliness in your heart, but something is letting you forget that loneliness." How? Why did Shinji have some relief from his pain, when the angel didn't?

Someone loved him, Shinji realized, only now noticing that the warm feeling in his heart was still there, even though Kaworu wasn't. This was the feeling he'd first felt when Kaworu hugged him. Or maybe it was a feeling from long ago.

"Adam? Our mother is the reason you aren't alone? Our mother, in a Lilim body?" Teeth just like Shinji's clenched, and the fire in those red eyes was tainted by bitter hatred.

The angel was in his mind, Shinji realized, and felt very stupid that he'd only figured this out now. He could still see the Eva's entry plug and the landscape through the screen, a strange double vision. So the sea of LCL the angel arose out, that stretched out into the endless distance, was in his mind.

Just like what happened to Rei, he though, and what was happening to Asuka now? Had Kaworu only managed to buy her less than a day?

Rei. Panic crushed down on him, because there was still Unit 00 to send out to fight the angel. Rei's Eva. When Rei was supposed to die, here and now.

Kaworu, Kaworu would pilot it, but would Gendo let him?

Of course. He won't risk Rei, Shinji knew. Not after she'd been rendered catatonic earlier. He'd never seen Gendo look so upset, never see him honestly care about what happened to someone else.

He'd never felt so jealous.

It wasn't until Gendo left that Shinji was allowed in to see Rei: sitting there in the hallway for hours, and only Kaworu touching his arm, whispering once that it would be alright had let him endure it.

Asuka had only come to yell at Kaworu, to say that this wouldn't have happened if she was allowed to pilot, and Shinji could still taste the blood in his mouth from when she punched him after he slammed her up against the wall and told her that if she said that again, if she did…

When Kaworu might have saved her life by keeping her from fighting that angel?

What was happening to her now, when the angel was inside her Eva too?

"So you really do care about those other than yourself." The angel looked a little doubtful, that eyebrow raised, but intrigued. "Is that what Our Mother sees in you?"

"Your mother?"

"Adam." The angel made a face. "Kaworu."

"I don't really know what he sees in me? I don't remember whatever made him fall in love with me," Shinji said blankly. Why was Kaworu in love with him, anyway? Was Rei in love with him too? At the time he'd thought that couldn't possibly be what they meant, but, but, how could both of them possibly be in love with him? Even Kaworu loving him, anyone loving him was so, so weird and unprecedented and surely only Kaworu was weird enough to love someone like him.

"Oh, so you've escaped this feeling by reaching our mother."

Mother.

A warm presence, something that filled so much of the world, and then she was gone.

Kaworu was warm, and loving, so of course the angels had to miss him. Of course they would try to find him, if he was taken from them.

It was an effort to speak aloud instead of just in this space inside his head. "Kaworu, I'm fine! Asuka, are you okay?"

"Don't be ridiculous, idiot! This pathetic thing…" might be holding her Eva down, but Asuka wasn't out: one of the screens showed her clenching her fists, trying to move despite the tendrils under her skin.

"Call out to him," the angel ordered. "Make the Lilim give back my mother!"

Oh no. Oh no no no.

Because if they sent Rei, she would die, but the angel wanted Kaworu. If Kaworu came? Hadn't Rei said something about how the angels couldn't start Third Impact with Lilith without her soul? So could they start it if this one got his tentacles on Kaworu?

"Yes, I will become one with my Mother and we will be together eternally," the angel said, and for the first time there was a trace of happiness there, at that thought. At the thought of never being alone again.

Now Shinji ached for the angel, because he understood the appeal. He understood that feeling, the dark emptiness of having no one that wanted him for him, only as a tool to pilot the Eva. He'd lived with it for years, having it drag him further and further down into darkness and despair. Then he met Kaworu, someone that loved him just for him, or at least had nothing to do with anything Shinji did except caring for others? He could keep doing that. It wasn't anywhere near as hard as Eva piloting. It wasn't like Shinji was that compassionate.

Kaworu must just have really low standards, but that itself was kind of reassuring, since as long as they stayed this low Shinji would still meet them. Kaworu wouldn't realize that Shinji had to be pathetic and worthless, if all they wanted him for was this. If so many people had judged him and found him wanting, wanted to throw him away or leave him behind.

"You're like me," Shinji said, and not just because the angel was wearing his face. "Your mother left you. These feelings."

Red eyes stared at him from his own face, surprise mingled with dawning desire. Not sexual desire, thank goodness, but a bone-deep wanting. "Will you become one with me? If my mother loves you, then if we become one, she will love me and want to be one with me."

It was a miracle neither Rei nor Kaworu were out here already: Rei would be the obvious one to send, since it was her Eva, if she wasn't recovering from the last angel attack. It wasn't as though that would make Gendo hesitate to send her out anyway… Well, it wouldn't if it was Shinji. Who knew, when it was Rei?

Worry let him focus on the outside world, and realize that the pounding in his ears wasn't just his heartbeat. Another Eva. "Don't come!" he yelled, but knew what he wanted would be ignored, as always. "The angel wants to catch you, too!" It wanted to catch Kaworu, but if it would kill Rei? Maybe Kaworu could protect himself somehow, if he was another angel?

"It's alright, Shinji."

Kaworu.

Who didn't even make an effort to avoid the angel's strike, even as Misato demanded to know what the hell he thought he was doing.

"Becoming one just means the new being wouldn't be either of us. We would be dead, both of us. All of us. You want to kill this entire world, just because you're lonely? You want to kill yourself, to escape your loneliness? Because there's no difference between complementation and suicide! Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves!" Kaworu raged, teeth bared and Shinji really hoped that was a reflection, a trick of the light, that made his eyes glow for a moment. He hoped Misato would believe that, since it was too much to hope she hadn't noticed. "Love? Loving someone means wanting them to live! You want to become one with me, when that would make me cease to be: that means you want me to die! That's the opposite of love! There are people on this world who want to live! Those who want to deprive them of their lives, their chances to find happiness, so that they can be together in death? People like that are disgusting! If you want to die, then die! I won't let you kill anyone else!"

Mother is angry.

Mother hates me.

Those weren't Shinji's feelings, even if he felt them as his own. They were the feelings of the angel who had grabbed him now, was trying to pry his mouth open now, because Mother had rejected becoming one with him, mother hated him, but if he was Shinji then his mother would love him again.

Shinji wanted to tell him it didn't work that way. If Kaworu was right, then if the angel took him over what was left wouldn't be Shinji anymore. Maybe Kaworu might love the new person, his standards seemed a little low (not a murdering bastard?), but possibly not, when that person would be a reminder that Shinji was dead.

"Let go of him!" Kaworu's voice, not in the distant, wavering outside but in this space, in this shared mind.

So it had to be Kaworu's arms that pulled the other angel off him.

It was definitely Kaworu's fist that gave the other angel a black eye, Shinji saw when he opened his own.

"I didn't want to do this," Kaworu said, low and angry, standing there on the mental sea of LCL, glaring down at the angel he'd knocked to the ground, "but come and get me."

The sea was gone: Shinji blinked and a moment later the outer world regained its clarity. He could feel the tendrils pulling out of his body, leaving his Eva.

Everything, rushing towards Unit 00. Towards Kaworu.

Shinji was still getting his Eva to its feet, trying to get over there to help him, when Unit 00 exploded.

The shockwave knocked him back down to his knees, and he wished the blast had deafened him. Because then he wouldn't have had to hear Maya's shocked voice reporting that the Magi had detected another AT field.

Maybe if looking directly at the blast had blinded him, he wouldn't have had to see Kaworu hovering there, knowing that NERV's cameras had to be seeing the same thing. Seeing Kaworu glow like this made Shinji so deeply afraid. Not for himself, but, "He's going to die."

"If you have to die, it's kinder for it to be at the hands of the person you love," Kaworu said, seemingly to himself, and that did not help Shinji's feeling of foreboding. "I would have offered to kill you kindly, with my hands, but you just had to try to kill Shinji, didn't you. People who try to hurt him: they don't deserve any kindness. Not when they wanted to hurt someone so kind." He looked up now, and Shinji knew he'd been addressing the angel. The dead angel.

"Shinji, Kaworu is the Twelfth Angel." It was Misato saying his name that got Shinji's attention: he'd been tuning out the sound coming from NERV because he didn't want to hear it.

This was it. This was when he would be ordered to kill Kaworu. His grip tightened on the controls. He wouldn't do it. He absolutely won't do it. He got into this thing to protect Rei: even if his father used the dummy plug to make him kill Touji, he won't. He won't be used to harm anyone he cares about ever again, no matter how his father tries to make it happen.

Kaworu put his hands on the hips of his plugsuit. "Hey, Shinji's old man!" he called. "I'll bring your wife out of the Eva, give her a Lilim body again, if you help me against the other old men! She'll still have an S2 engine, so she'll have the fruits of Life and Wisdom and be a 'god' if that qualifies anyway! You won't have to worry any more about the old men killing her!"

Shinji was used to his father's menacing silences, but was it only his imagination that this one seemed thoughtful?

"You can be together forever," Kaworu said, sing-song.

And smirked.

"Oh, Shinji… I'm sorry I had to leave you like that," a voice from so long ago said, holding him to her body.

Even though she'd come from his Eva, and his Eva was connected to so many horrible memories, he still felt safe here. Felt the corners of his eyes growing moist, a strange combination of old sorrow and new happiness, here amidst the wreckage of Tokyo-3. By the piano where he'd first met Kaworu.

"If I hadn't gone into the Eva, SEELE would have had me killed. I didn't know how much of me would survive, but at least this way I had a chance to keep protecting you."

"And at least that way you'd get to die on your own terms," Kaworu said, nodding. "So you'll keep your end of the bargain this time, too?"

"You asked me to hug Shinji and punish my husband for failing to take care of him, right?" Yui asked, smiling sweetly and kindly. "That man… I told him," she said, smile turning into a snarl, voice into a growl, and now Shinji could see the resemblance to his Eva, to the behemoth which had gone berserk to protect him, the monster that devoured an angel alive.

"Would you mind starting soon?" Kaworu asked, frowning as he held something that looked like a folded length of black cord out towards Yui. "I want to hold Shinji."

Now Kaworu was the one to make a surprised noise when he found someone's arms around him, Yui squishing him and Shinji together. "You're so cute, I could just eat you all up!" she exclaimed. Then her grip grew tighter, her eyes grew darker and, "If you don't make my Shinji happy, that's just what I'll do." She would damn well eat him alive, just like that other angel.

"Mom," Shinji whined, embarrassed, and then realized he sounded like a normal kid, one with normal, embarrassing parents.

"Making Shinji happy is the most important thing to me," Kaworu told her earnestly. "Well, after wanting him to live."

She smiled brightly at him. "You'll make a wonderful son-in-law. No excuse me, you two: I have to go discipline my husband." And if her eyes glowed for a moment, the way Unit 01's did when it was truly beyond furious, that just made Shinji feel even warmer. That his mother had been waiting for him, that his mother had wanted him to be safe and happy, all along.

"Are you happy now, Shinji?" Kaworu asked him as his mother stalked off, contemplatively whacking the bundle of cords Kaworu had brought her against the palm of her left hand.

Shinji nodded, mind skittering away from that folded-up leather, what it might actually be and what his mother was actually going to do with it and his father. He focused on Kaworu in self-defense.

He wasn't sure about the idea of, well, another guy. That bothered him a lot more than that Kaworu was an angel. His mother was talking about how Kaworu would be a good son-in-law?

The sun beat down on his shoulders, and over Kaworu's shoulder he could see the cat snoozing on top of the piano, surrounded by the remnants of sashimi trays and dreaming of whatever kittens dreamed of. More fish? That Kaworu would come back with more fish? It made Shinji realize how easily his thoughts drifted to Kaworu. How easy it would be to dream of Kaworu.

Kaworu wasn't smirking now, not when Shinji hadn't answered. The worry there: was Shinji unhappy? Was it Kaworu's fault somehow? Was he upset with Kaworu?

Someone caring that much about Shinji's opinion, wanting to know it. Someone caring this much about Shinji's feelings. The angel that smirked fearlessly at Gendo looked scared of Shinji now, of what he might say, because Shinji was just that important to him. The problem now was that Shinji really had no idea what to say. What he'd done to make Kaworu like him. "I'm fine. What would you like?" he asked, because he didn't want to lose this.

"…Can I hold your hand?" Kaworu asked, glancing slightly down at him out of the corners of red eyes. "Or I could play more music for you. Will you sit on the piano bench with me while I do that?"

So all he wanted in return for his caring was Shinji's company? "Sure," he said, blushing. "I can do that."