It was supposed to be the best day of my life.

I run down the halls in my best dress, slamming doors, and I don't even care that I'm making all the doctors angry and embarassing Papa. I don't care about anything except that I've been chosen as a pilot, and that maybe finally being worth something will make Mama remember me.

I must keep this a secret, but I'll only tell you, Mama.

Mama has been in the hospital for months now, coddling a doll she thinks is me. I'm nothing to her. I'm dirt, but surely she can't see me in some stupid, lifeless doll when I've become so much.

Look at me, Mama!

One more door, and I'm practically throwing myself into it.

Look at me!

She does look. It's all she does.

I remember freezing in the doorway, stuck staring at that godawful look of happiness on her face. I was six and the last image of my mother would be of her hanging from the ceiling like nothing could have made her happier and that doll... That damn doll was just hanging there beside her.

I hated it. I hated her.

I hated my father for carrying me away.

I hated that disgusting trollop he was kissing behind closed doors, while my mother just sat there cooing to her precious doll and pretending I didn't exist.

I hated all of it.

But I never cried, not once. Why should I?

No one was ever going to make it better, so it was best that I take care of myself and not waste the emotion.

There is a girl at the Main Gauche, newly through the Rift and more than a little surly, and who wouldn't be? It wasn't like she wasn't in the middle of saving the world or anything.

And she doesn't even have her Eva anymore. That really gets to her, and, of course, stupid Shinji is probably hogging all the glory now that she's gone.

They'll miss her. They had better miss her. Of course, the self-deprecating part of her thinks that they're probably celebrating that that bitch Asuka is gone and they don't have to put up with her whining and competitive attitude and her... General Asuka-ness.

She's sitting under a tree (a tree "belonging" to a specific angel, to be specific) with her knees drawn up to her chest and sulking, which is what she's prone to do when she gets into a mood.