ris

Armin's been thinking about it.

He's tried to understand it better, grasp the concept, wrap his fingers and mind around this invisible power but it evades him. Because he wishes more than anyone else in the world that he could defeat time. His mother told him greed would be the downfall of any man but he is greedy. He's greedy in his desire to defeat time and step over it, like one would over a mound of dirt. Because in his nightmares, time doesn't exist. Deep in the bed of sleep, everything clamours all at once: friends, death, growing pains, life, blood, laughter and loss. Time doesn't exist for the nightmares, but it does when he wakes up and remembers it's been 20 years and his home is so far away, just like his youth and memories, slipping through his fingers with every passing second. Growing distant. Will he remember it all in another 20 years? Will he remember Eren's face when he's conscious and awake? Or will it only come when he's asleep, simply to disappear as soon as his eyes crack open to the glint of sunlight through the curtains?

Armin doesn't like time. It makes him ache, hurt and cry. It makes him want to curl his fingers around its neck and throttle it to dust. Let that be his last and final kill. Why can't it? Somedays, he feels so angry. At the world, mainly, for not stopping even for a second. But when most of that anger recedes, watching the steam rising from his coffee, he realizes, there is nothing in this world worth hating more than himself. As he is now, growing, ageing, living - a breathing, functioning vessel of burden and lies.

Time, a god? What god? He'd like to toss it over his shoulder and accept his defeat and settle for hating it the rest of his life.

But then sometimes time shows him, in little glimpses and moments, that it is not all cruel. A successful negotiation, a signature pressed on paper, a firm handshake. These are the things that make up his life for the most part. Endless talks and back and forth, big words and politeness beyond fault. Even so, there is a glimmer of satisfaction at the end of it for being useful, despite it all. That even if he can't go home much and see Mikasa, he can watch the others growing, ageing, living - breathing, functioning happy people who light up his world too.

The months pass like that, with seasons painting the great outdoors a different colour each time he pays attention. Sometimes he gets to sit under the ancient plum tree and enjoy a bun hot off Connie's restaurant just opposite while his old friend bustles about with orders and drinks. When Jean and Pieck arrive, it's with a loud argument over who makes better coffee. He laughs because Jean may be in his forties but he still dresses to impress, and it works on everyone but his own wife. Armin looks at his hand - the world has changed and his heavy pocketwatch exhanged for a wristwatch. It's such a small thing. A gift from Annie for his 38th birthday. He's fond of it so much that he once took a bath with it on and almost broke it. The memory makes him smile.

Time doesn't seem so bad when he thinks of the last twenty years and the fleeting moments he can still remember that made it up. Stolen kisses on the first few nights after the world ended and the agonising hunt of finding asylum someplace that still existed. His first proper meal and sleep in months. Annie, then still a girl and he still a boy, breathless and fumbling over how to treat each other. His first swim in a lake, his first suit and tie. Then a blur of how he got a title and a name and cameras always in his face. Painful nights when Eren came to him, just staring in silence with bloody hands. Nights he woke up screaming and sweating. Nights he slept like a baby. Nights when he didn't sleep at all, nights when he stayed up reading, nights when he slept with Annie. Reiner and Jean kidnapping him for some birthday or other, the chaos they ended up causing in Denrube. Tense faceoffs in big shiny halls, accusations, heartbreak, failure, fears. Connie dragging them all out for a picnic in the woods that one year and then running for their lives at the shadowy figure of a deer. Waking up with Annie each morning, and when they were apart, the telephone calls. Oh, those telephone calls. How he longed to see her as she spoke through the horrid static filling the phone lines; even then he drank in the low, cool hum of her voice like it was the only source of light he had to see his travels to their ends. And when he went back to her, the soothing scent of her hair engulfing him as he pulled her into his arms. Yes, Annie was older to begin with but he could never tell it; she always looked so beautiful and young; all the more so once she started to laugh on a regular basis.

Time has passed. The years - oh, they have passed.

Now she's here, turning the corner, a smile on her lips when her eyes find Armin under the tree, with the others. She tells him the children are staying at a friend's house for the night. He kisses her. They are in their forties, it's autumn, and tomorrow, the local inventors will reveal they've made something big and new. He's excited. Reiner waves at them, and the edges of his hairline are hinting at grey, but he still grins like he's nineteen. In this moment, Armin's happy. His heart is full. Yes, time is passing, even now, and he has yet to defeat it, but the ring on his finger is still intact.

As Connie puts away his apron and leaps out to join them, Armin thinks he'll hate god another time.