Asuka lay naked in a bathtub. Her uniform was folded neatly by her side, her balled up socks tucked into her shoes.

"Sync rate zero. No capacity to be the second child. No reason for me to exist," she whispered to herself, the look of sorrow etched onto her face. "Nobody looks at me, not papa or mama. Nobody. I've got no reason to keep on living." She produced a kitchen knife and moved it towards her wrist.

"Nothing really matters to me, in the end," Asuka thought of some fitting last words. She felt the knife touch her skin.

A door slid open. Asuka turned her head to see the silhouette of a man. She expected a section 2 agent but it wasn't. She saw brown hair and a pair of blue eyes. His blue eyes. She pulled the knife away from her wrist before she made the cut. Shinji rushed forward.

"Please don't do it, Asuka," Shinji got down on his knees next to the bath where Asuka lay and begged. "I need you Asuka. Please come home." Tears began to form in his eyes.

"Even in the end people only want me around because they need me," Asuka sighed, dejectedly, and placed the knife back onto her wrist. "Nobody truly cares about me. No one will look at me."

"No! Please Asuka I care for you, I really do," the panic was rising through Shinji's voice as he saw what she was about to do.

"You don't really care. No one does." Asuka pushed down on her wrist. The knife pierced the skin.

Blood began to pool in the bathtub.

"NO!" Shinji screamed at the top of his lungs, "You don't have to do this, Asuka." He leapt from where he was sat and tried to help. He tried to pinch down on the artery but Asuka pushed him away. Shinji fought her and could feel her strength diminishing. Asuka felt herself getting weaker and light headed. She saw Shinji panicking to stop the blood. It would all be over soon, all her pain, all her suffering.

Asuka began seeing visions, fading in and out. She saw visions of her youth and of her angel fights but mostly she saw visions of him. Him at the kitchen in their apartment, him in his Evangelion, giving it his best even if it wasn't enough. There was a strange feeling she felt about him but she couldn't place it. She could feel her feelings gravitate towards him but was this just a silly feeling of attraction brought on by living together for months or was this something deeper.

The boy that she loved was panicking over her. That feeling, the feeling that she couldn't place whenever she thought about Shinji. It was love. She realised that now. She saw him scrambling to close her artery. Maybe someone cared after all. Someone really cared about who she was, not what she does. Maybe there was another way to stop the pain.

"SAVE ME SHINJI!" Asuka screamed as she stopped fighting back. She didn't want to die anymore. Shinji ripped his shirt off and wrapped it around Asuka's arm. Asuka felt part of her strength come back and the bleeding slowed. Asuka slowly sat up and she wrapped her arms around Shinji's bare chest, his shirt still wrapped around her arm. Blood trickled down his torso but Shinji didn't care because Asuka had come back from her darkest hour. He felt a warm liquid on his shoulder that he thought was blood, but Asuka was crying her eyes out. It was her tears. She had let Shinji see past her tough girl act into the vulnerable but beautiful girl below. A girl who could cry. A girl who needed love.

"Shinji, you really do care," she said in between sobs. Shinji returned Asuka's hug. "Shinji, I love you, I just didn't know it." The two were locked in embrace, her bare breasts held against his bare chest, but Asuka could feel herself getting light headed. Not after all this. Asuka didn't want to go now. Shinji placed her gently on the ground as she went limp and her eyes closed. His face was the last thing she saw.

Asuka felt her eyelids open and she saw an unfamiliar ceiling. She looked around and saw a blood transfusion bag hanging off a rack with the name written on in bold. She felt something holding onto her hand and looked down towards it. She saw a bandage around her wrist but past that she saw another hand holding onto hers. She followed the arm connected to it to its owner. He had bags under his eyes and was looking the worse for wear but it was still him. Shinji squeezed on her hand to confirm his presence when he noticed that she was awake. He smiled at her and she smiled weakly back at him.

"You had me so worried, Asuka," Shinji kneeled at the side of her bed and took her hand in both of his. "It doesn't always seem like it but I care about you, Asuka. I care about you more than anything else in the world." Tears began to form in his eyes. He looked into her eyes and continued.

"I looked everywhere for you for a week, everywhere," Shinji said through his sobs. "I'm so lucky I thought to check Hikari's old place." Asuka was the one squeezing his hand this time. "Asuka, I love you and I don't ever want you to leave me," Shinji's eyes were teared over by now.

"Shinji, I don't ever want to leave you either," Asuka placed a weak hand on his face. "I learned more in those few minutes than I have in the rest of my life. I learned that you love me, and for who I am, not what I do." Asuka pulled Shinji in towards her bed. "And I learned that I love you." She wrapped her arms around him and he pulled her up off her pillows that were propping her up and into a big hug, their second that day.

Asuka pulled her head off of Shinji's shoulder and moved in for a kiss. She felt his lips touch hers and he felt her tongue enter his mouth. She tasted beautiful