#annie-isms

Word Count: 11k

Author’s Note: i think this ended up getting away from me… if i can't make them happy then at least i can make them have really good sex

In the next week or two, things never really settle down. The world exists in a strange sunset state, and truthfully it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone when everything changes. The battle of Trost was a game-changer, and the military’s efforts had ramped up. 

Within the few days it took for the city to be cleaned up and some semblance of order to be restored, all of your effort goes into keeping your mind off of some darker thoughts. Once the bodies are cleaned up the work gets a lot easier, though it’s still unnerving to come across entirely destroyed scenes with half-washed blood still streaking the rubble. 

It’s chilling. You want to ignore it and turn your back to the hoses, but it seems disrespectful. Instead, you watch the water run red down the streets for what feels like hours before finally, it turns clear. 

Your heart stays cracked open. After that night in the barracks, Annie’s attitude went back to more or less normal. She ices you out and every time you try to check in, she pushes you further away. It’s like she wants to pretend like that night in your room never happened. She wants to act like she never had that moment of weakness like she never connected with you and lay herself bare. 

It’s typical of her when you stop and think about it. Yet you can’t help but take it extremely personally when she ignores you straight to your face. Had it meant nothing to her? Was that level of openness the thing that was going to drive you away from her in the end? 

It doesn’t make much sense, but you blame yourself. You could’ve done something differently.  You regret letting the conversation get as dark as it did. Had you fucked everything up without being able to pinpoint why? 

Was she running away from you? Had you finally said something that would chase her away for good; had it been the things you kept secret for so long? Or had you given her the wrong idea about what you wanted from her? Should you have kissed her, or tried to get her mind off of the subject entirely?

There are a few times whenever you’re on cleanup that you and Annie are in the same area. When you try to talk to her, she will literally walk away. So, the only conversations you have with her are during meal times. 

Most of what she brings up on her own has to do with graduation. You all know that she’s going into the Military Police… it’s the obvious choice for her to take, and the days have ticked away until now it’s only a matter of time until she leaves. 

You, on the other hand, have a more serious choice to make. Not being in the top 10 gives you two options, and you aren’t particularly excited about either of them. 

Annie, however, makes it very clear what she wants you to do. 

“Choose the Garrison. It’s where you’re going to be the safest,” she urges you, without being prompted. “Don’t be reckless. A little bit of excitement isn’t worth your life.” 

You roll your eyes. “Says you, who gets to go to the interior no matter what.” 

“It’s not like I’m going to enjoy it! I’m doing what I can to stay alive, too,” she argues back, “I’ll be doing thankless grunt work just the same as you. So will everyone who joins the Scouts.” 

“At least the Scouts are actually trying to accomplish something!” you retort. 

“And how long have they been working toward the same goal? It’s not worth getting yourself killed for.” When you don’t respond, she taps your leg underneath the table with her foot. “Think about how many of the Scouts die every mission. How can you guarantee that you won’t be one of them?”

You cross your arms in indigence. “I’ll keep fighting.”

“You’re not Eren Jaeger,” she tells you flatly. She doesn’t elaborate beyond that, but she’s right. 

You don’t have Titan superpowers. You don’t even have the same unstoppable spirit or half as much of a drive as he does. You’re not Eren Jaeger, but… if this isn’t a calling then you’re not sure you’ve ever had one. 

After seeing action, you aren’t going to be satisfied playing it safe on the sidelines. You can’t stand the idea of your everyday life becoming standing around to fulfill orders. The Wall Garrison is full of glorified security guards when it comes down to it.

You want to be a part of something real, something that could make a difference. You know Annie won’t understand even if you explain til you’re blue in the face. She says to stay alive, to stay safe, but she also tells you to live. How can you justify throwing your life away down a career path that you know is going to leave you miserable? You don’t want to join the Garrison. 

The Scouts feel like your only real option. You don’t have the top ten to whisk you away into MP service, and your only other option is running away. And you’re so very tired of running. Where exactly is there left to go, anyway? The walls are starting to feel very cramped. 

All you know is that you want Annie in your future somehow. 

The night before graduation, you go to bed filled with anxiety that she’s going to ignore you up until the very last second you have with her. Then you’ll never get to see her again. 

Okay, you’ll see her again. But if she won’t even say goodbye, would it even be something you’re excited for?

You fall asleep imagining what it would be like if she was there with you. You think back to every time it had happened in the past, and you try to recall the feeling of her arms around you. What it felt like to have her embracing you, stroking your hair, easing you into sleep. It’s the only way you can get there. 

Your sleep is light and fitful, as it had been all week. You spend long times with your eyes closed but not always sleeping. It’s a little miserable, to be honest. You’re tossing and turning in and out of consciousness. Then, the sound of a knock at the window startles you fully awake. 

At first, you thought you had imagined it, so you roll over and snuggle into your blankets. But then you hear another knock, more frantic – or insistent, maybe? – makes you bolt awake and look around. Sure enough, in the hazy light from the streetlamps, there’s a figure hanging outside of the second-story window of the room you’re staying in. 

Then, you think it’s some odd kind of dream. Not quite a nightmare, but you’re used to having half-baked ideas or fears manifesting in your subconscious. You look down at your hands, trying to figure out if you’re dreaming or not. 

Another knock comes from the window, more insistent this time. Throwing your blankets aside, you make your way across the room to undo the latch. Your visitor was pulling on the window from the outside, so you barely have to put any effort into hoisting it open – only for you to hop aside as you’re nearly kicked in the face. They come in boots first, and as you’re hit in the face and arms with the grappling hooks you realize they’re strapped into a full set of 3DM gear. 

“What are you doing?” you ask loudly. 

The figure shushes you, and when you try to speak again, slaps a hand over your mouth. You land on your back with the intruder straddling you. It’s a little overly familiar, and your first instinct is to struggle. Was this a robbery, or worse, an assault? You struggle hard until your hands are pinned above your head, and in the process, the hood of their cloak is thrown back. 

It’s Annie. 

Oh. You relax, and stop struggling. 

“Why the fuck didn’t you just come through the door?!” you hiss. Finally, she lets go of your wrists. You sit up on your elbows, still confused but no longer afraid. 

Now that you’re quiet she climbs off of you to close the window. She pulls it down quickly, but slows and takes care that the window shuts silently. When she turns around, she motions for you to stay down. You swear that she’s looking over her shoulder, acting more nervous and jumpy than usual. 

“What the fuck, Annie?” you ask, more intensely now but you stay quiet. 

“I came to see you,” she tells you breathlessly. Flashlights shine in the window briefly, and then again a few seconds later. 

Your heart hammers in your chest. “Are you running away?” 

She waves her hand dismissively, though if you aren’t mistaken, you see panic flashing in her eyes. There’s a shout from the street and the both of you look over, but she keeps your attention on her. 

“No, I was running to you,” Annie insists, “I wanted to see you… I mean, I want to talk to you.” 

Your heart skips a beat, and the part of you that desperately wants her approval bends. Do you really care, if it means that she’s here? 

“Well, I wanted to talk to you, too,” you admit. But you can’t ignore the gnawing pit in your stomach that rears at the noises from the square below. 

Nervously, you try to approach the subject as you stand once again. “What’s going on down there? It seems kind of urgent.”

“Who knows?” Annie deflects. She physically pushes you back onto the bed. “They’re probably just trying to stop us from sneaking into each other’s dorms like this.”

All the sound in your throat dies when you see her looking down at your lips. Again, you wonder if this is a dream as you stare at her. 

“You still haven’t explained what the hell you’re doing…” you point out. 

“I came to see you,” she repeats, simply. She begins unstrapping herself from the gear and throws her cloak on the end of your bed.

You blink. That doesn’t give you any answers. “Alright, but why did you come in through my window? Why do you have 3DM gear at this hour?” you ask. “They aren’t… chasing you, right?”

Annie shakes her head. “I’m sneaking around, not running,” she tries her very hardest to shrug it off, and you realize that she’s deliberately being distracting when she bats her eyelashes at you. It’s uncharacteristic if anything. “I’m in a different building. This is one of the last times I’ll be able to see you.” She struggles to get her gear down over her hips and tugs at it hard, to no avail. 

You shake your head in disbelief. “Do you really not get why this is weird? Are you alright?” 

When the straps won’t give, Annie opts to unbutton her pants instead, and after unhooking the leather straps around her waist she pushes everything off so that just her bare legs are visible. 

She shakes her head. 

“No, I’m not,” she says, and continues to unfasten herself from the harness of her uniform. “There’s something that I need to do before we go our separate ways. I never should have waited this long.” She strips it off the seconds the belts are undone. 

The sight of her in nothing but her hoodie and underwear is disarming, to say the least. You try not to stutter as you respond. 

“O-okay,” you say, barely breathing as she looks up at you with those big blue eyes. “What is it?” 

Annie crosses the distance between the two of you with a determination that she rarely ever shows. She grabs your face with purpose and pulls you into her, kissing you deeply. Your bottom lip slips between hers as she pulls you back onto the small twin-sized bed. 

It hardly feels real that she’s here right now. Kissing you, and slipping her hands up your shirt and beneath the waistband of your pants. Time seems to slow down, and you realize definitively that this was, in fact, happening. It’s all too sharp and real. 

You shiver at the cold air touching your legs as your pajama pants hit the floor, and the very tangible pressure that builds between your thighs is certainly not imagined. When she pulls away to lift her hoodie over her head you’re so overwhelmed with hormones and lust that you can’t think of anything other than her smooth skin and perky nipples. 

She kisses you again, more sloppily this time. A little bit of tongue gets thrown into the mix, and you’re so disoriented and shaken by the feeling of her roaming hands, that you almost freeze up. She pushes your shirt up and presses her tits against your bare skin. 

“Woah, Annie?” you ask, a little thrown, “Uh, are you sure—” 

“—Shhh,” she whispers, pressing her finger to her lips. “No talking right now.”

She falls to her knees, letting her hands drag down the sides of your body. She places kisses along your stomach as she sinks down, then on the inside of your thigh. The sensitivity and forwardness stun you for a moment. 

Annie uses your moment of disorientation to push you backward on the edge of the bed. She hooks her fingers around the waistband of your panties, then yanks them down with just as much causality as she stripped all of her own clothes off with. To emphasize, she takes off her own, too, and kicks them away. 

You sit up and prop yourself on your hands. As you gaze down your body, you’re greeted by the sight of her tucking her loose hair behind her ears to get it out of the way. She settles into a more comfortable position between your legs as her hands snake up and down your thighs.

Her thumbs dip dangerously close to touching sensitive, throbbing flesh. She has a smirk about her that makes you tremble, and it only gets worse when you notice that she literally licks her lips as she pushes your knees apart. The attention makes your face burn with shame as she looks between your legs with her mouth practically watering. 

It’s so over the top that you’re overwhelmed. Your lungs constrict and breathing becomes laborious. 

“Mmnnppnhh” you murmur, struggling to form words. You had meant for real words to come out, but it seems like you’re more affected by the feelings than you had thought. 

You huff and puff, before finally managing to get something out: “Stop teasing me like that,” you finally manage, though it just adds fuel to her ego. If anything, she gets even more bold and bites on the side of her bottom lip in a way that really gets you going. 

Holding back a moan, you shudder. The sight of her with her hands snaking up your thighs, wet lips hovering just above your skin. Finally, they come in contact with your inner thigh, just where it begins to swell. 

She kisses your skin firmly, then lets her mouth graze all the way up until your pubes brush the tip of her nose. You jump at the sensitivity, and once again it doesn’t feel real as she looks up at you from below. A shiver runs down your spine at the sensation of her tongue moving against your thigh. She pulls apart to kiss the same spot on your other thigh, then a little higher up. 

Doe eyes beg you to spread your legs just a little more, and you couldn’t resist even if you tried. Any embarrassment you might’ve had fades away when Annie licks her thumb, then uses it to gently part the folds of your pussy. 

The expression on her face is clouded with lust. It makes you feel ridiculously sexy considering the fact that you’ve got a major bedhead going and your military shirt is still up around your shoulders. She pushes one of your thighs up and to the side while maintaining eye contact to get a better angle, and you hold that position.

Annie doesn’t waste any time. She teases you at first, just ghosting her finger along the slit. She feels the wetness pooling at your opening and dips it inside, swirling and prodding through sensitive folds. 

Now that you’re spread open and vulnerable before her, you fully process the reality of the situation. Five minutes ago you were dead asleep and now Annie is here — not only is she here but she’s between your legs and inside of you, looking up at you like you’re everything she’s ever wanted. You swear that her gaze makes you even wetter. 

The slickness allows her to press her finger a little deeper, to push past the tight ring of muscle and into your warmth. Although it’s only an inch or so, it drives you absolutely insane when she keeps moving her finger in the same slow, circular motion inside of you. 

You writhe, trying to keep your hips still. It doesn’t work, and she gets this look on her face that sends a dangerous shock of electricity up through your abdomen. It feels dark and exhilarating and everything you could’ve hoped for. How are the expressions on her face turning you on more than the fact that her finger is buried in your cunt? The intensity of her gaze and the fact that you’re on the receiving end of it makes your head swim. 

When she finally pulls her finger out, she brings out a trail of slickness with her. She smears it against your clit, though she doesn’t give you any more satisfaction than an indirect brush. You’re about to start whining, maybe even begging for more, but Annie can tell that you’re aching for what she’s not giving you. 

There are no words spoken, but none are needed. Whatever you were going to say to her before seems unimportant now that looks between your face and your pussy. Your cheeks burn when you realize how close she’s getting, or how she has no intention of stopping. Maybe you’d die if she stopped right now. 

Her top lip and tongue meet the hot, sensitive flesh of your pussy at the same time. Her tongue smears in the slickness she’d drawn out and she uses it to her advantage. After she’s licked from the dripping opening back to the top, she finally gets down to business as intended. 

She finally gives your clit the attention it had been craving and you feel something inside of you melt. Her tongue gently flicks side to side to roll the sensitive bud around until she has you gasping above her. She’s gentle with you but she’s getting a little more aggressive with every swipe of her tongue. 

At some point, your hands scrabble down for purchase on the bedsheets. Now that you’re holding your own leg up, she moves her hand to rest on top of yours to interlock her fingers with you. You grip back so hard that it almost hurts your fingers. 

With your other arm, you try to prop yourself up on the heel of your hand. When she changes the way she moves her tongue, you fall right back on your elbow. It’s disarming and wonderful, and almost a little too much, but you just bite your lip and watch Annie’s head move between your thighs like you’re in a trance. 

Her lips close around your clit as she doubles down. If you’d thought you were feeling it before, the pressure in your abdomen doubles as spikes of pleasure radiate through you. It’s thrilling, even if the way she sucks on you gently makes you feel like something inside of you is going to burst. Tingles flow through your body down to your toes. 

Your breathing stops entirely when she glances up at you, lips still attached to you. Heavy-lidded, lustful eyes meet yours for a moment before she closes them in bliss. She moans as she breaks the vacuum seal of her mouth, then begins to lavish your clit with attention. 

Based on the sound of wet smacking that fills the room and the feeling of being completely surrounded, she’s using her lips now, too. Wet and sloppy open-mouthed kisses smear juices all around her cheeks and chin but she pays it no mind. 

She kisses your pussy like she’d kiss you on the mouth until she gets distracted and drags her tongue through your slick, hot center. It’s just for a moment, but it’s enough to send a rush of blood to your face. You blush so hard that your face is genuinely starting to get overheated. 

Everything is so overwhelming in the best of ways. And although you don’t feel brave enough to be as forward as the motion implies, you strip off your shirt. As soon as it comes over your shoulders you feel better. The uninterrupted air against your skin makes you feel a little less smothered.

In the moment it takes for you to shift and your shirt aside, Annie pushes your other leg upward to expose you even further. She exhales, then takes a deep breath. It’s not even cold, but even just the force of her exhaling against the scorching hot flesh between your legs leaves you oversensitive – you’ve never felt so needy in your entire life. 

While you practically buck your hips into her mouth, she leans back in. This time she presses her tongue against your opening. At first, she only touches you with her tongue, tracing circles around the slippery hole. But quickly she presses further inside, getting over any hesitation or embarrassment. 

This time, she doesn’t tease you. It’s not quite as intensely pleasurable as when she’d been on your clit, but the feeling of her tongue tracing and prodding at the entrance of your hole sends a shiver down your spine. 

You shudder as Annie sinks her tongue inside. At first, it seems like she’s trying to keep it neat, but she quickly abandons that in favor of being effective. Her tongue barely dips inside to tease you, mostly just to fuck with you. You huff in annoyance at the way she seems to delight in your frustration. 

It gets sloppy again as she extends her tongue deeper, soaking her cheeks. Her nose presses against your clit, by accident at first, but she keeps it there when she hears the moan it elicits from you. A deep chuckle in the back of her throat vibrates inside of you deliciously. 

A noise ekes out from your mouth without you meaning to, and you can’t help but thread your fingers through her hair. She hums in protest, and the vibrations send a jolt of pleasure up to your spine. It spurs you on and makes you grasp harder. 

Cruelly, she pulls her tongue out of you. She moves her attention back up to your clit to give it tiny little kitten licks, unsatisfying compared to the fantastic head she’d been giving earlier. You catch your breath, and as you gain awareness of your surroundings again, you realize that she’s wincing. 

You look down at your hand in her hair, then immediately release it. Annie lifts her head to glare at you. Her hair is entirely fucked up from its bun, so you sheepishly smooth it down even though it doesn’t help much at all. 

“Sorry…” you mutter, biting your lip in embarrassment. You didn’t even realize how carried away you were getting. 

Annie rolls her eyes and just pulls out the hair tie all together. Despite her reaction, she doesn’t actually look annoyed when she leans back onto her heels. She shakes her hair out, fluffing it behind her before she pulls it all back again into an uncharacteristically high ponytail that even includes her bangs. 

Oh shit, you notice, she looks really fucking cute like that. You barely have a moment to admire the look before she pushes your knees apart again. She’s a lot rougher with you now and grasps your thighs with such intensity that her knuckles turn white. 

You realize that shit is getting real. 

The slurping noise that Annie makes when she runs her tongue up your pussy from bottom to top is so embarrassing that it makes you freeze in embarrassment. Every muscle in your body pulls taut. She teases you all over for a while until you’re left whining with no clue what she’ll do next. Finally, she latches back onto your clit with determination. 

The pressure makes you feel like you’re floating, and divine unfiltered pleasure curls inside of you at the soft stroking of her tongue. Your head is hot and everything is so oversensitive. Her arms reach around your body to hold your hips, as you cannot find the control to keep yourself still on your own. 

You’re a little surprised that Annie isn’t annoyed with you for moving so much. She takes it all in stride, shockingly, considering how little shit she takes in every other situation. But her tongue keeps moving, her head anchored into place. 

Now she moves in a way that you couldn’t even identify based on feeling alone – some kind of delicious combination of both her lips and tongue that makes something in your gut feels like it's dissolving, and something hot and dangerous begins to sprout in its place. 

To keep yourself from crying out, you have to bite your finger. You squeak and moan, completely breathless as you’re lost to pleasure. Every feeling is heightened, and even the feeling of her fingers on your skin sears like it burns. She takes your hips in her hands to grip your ass, digging into the squishy flesh to hold you in place.

Her clutch on you is so tight that her fingernails pierce you, and it hurts, but what she’s doing with her mouth is so overwhelmingly good that you couldn’t bear for anything to change. The pain and the pleasure build up into a thrumming pressure inside of you. 

She doesn’t seem to have any intentions of stopping or slowing down, thankfully. Her tongue wraps around your clit, lips sealing over you to create a delicious suction. You can’t stop the noises that are coming out of your throat so you bite your lip so hard that you taste blood. 

One glance down your body at the sight of Annie going to town on your dripping cunt is enough to send your eyes rolling to the back of your skull. The way her head bobs back and forth is intoxicating, along with the swish of her new hairstyle. 

Watching the connection between your bodies makes you feel nearly light-headed. You catch flashes of her tongue moving against you. She moans into you like she’s getting pleasure from it herself, but when her balance falters you wonder if she’s touching herself. 

She breaks the connection to take a ragged breath of air, and you take the brief reprieve as an opportunity to sit up and confirm what you had suspected – one of her hands has moved between her thighs. A blush spreads deeply through you at the sight of her furrowed brows and the o-shape of her mouth hanging open. 

Wetness drips from you shamefully, and Annie’s hips stutter once more before she buckles down once again. With her free arm, she scoops you up by the hips and draws your pussy back into reach of her lips. 

Her tongue immediately finds its home stroking around your clit, up, down, sideways, in zigzags from top to bottom, anything just to elicit a reaction. She makes like she’s never eaten before, unafraid to wander. She teases you again, tongue lapping at the folds of your cunt to savor the taste, and burying herself inside of you just to feel you squeeze down around her tongue. 

When she finally pushes two fingers inside, you feel like all of your prayers have been answered; the waves of pleasure radiating from the soft pressure of her tongue on your clit keeps you squirming, but the subtle stretch of her fingers deep inside of you that sends lightning into every one of your fingers and toes. 

It’s not fair, she’s only pushed them in to the second knuckle. For a minute she presses inside of you until she finds the soft pad of flesh she was looking for — her fingers are precise, and two is enough to stir up something deep inside of you. 

Gently she thrusts in and out a few times. It feels good no matter how she moves, but you do notice that she’s shifting how she holds them. At some point, you subconsciously let yourself relax, and she pushes in about an inch deeper and crooks her fingers just so. 

And then you see stars. 

A huff down below from Annie, never ceasing in her ministrations. She begins to move more quickly inside of you, and every time she thrusts inside of you your entire body goes blank. You’re both hot and cold, electrified and drained, lucid and completely out of it. 

Every press of her fingers inside of you builds up to something hot and precarious that threatens to spill over. You cry out, and your heels slip from Annie’s shoulders. Now you hold yourself up on your elbows with your legs just dangling, but you’re so deliciously, irresistibly close that you don’t care how she bends or pushes you as long as she just keeps going. 

Annie gazes up at you reverently, but just for a moment. She has work to do that she takes very seriously, and she’s getting you closer and closer to completion the more she moves her lips around your clit like that… Her tongue darts into the mix every so often to add a dash of pillowy softness to the white-hot stimulation being hammered in. 

She licks and sucks gently, eagerly, glancing up at you with an expression you can only describe as desperate. The answer as to why is unclear. Desperate to make you feel good, or to leave you satisfied? Maybe desperation to be seen and valued, or the desire to connect? 

Is it that deep, or does she just want to make you cum? 

Her gaze bores into yours from below as her fingers hit something tender deep inside of you – it robs you of breath, you’ve never felt anything like this before. Her eyes flash, and she intensifies what she’s doing. She’s touched you, put her mouth on you, made you come before, but it wasn’t like this. She’s put her fingers inside of you before too, but not like this. 

The sheer eroticism of the moment is what hurdles you toward the edge faster than you expected. She’s made you feel a lot of things, but she’s never made you feel like you’re tossing and turning in an ocean of pleasure. 

Finally, you metaphorically anchor your feet into the sand and spring back up to the surface. As the water rushes back into your face and the light of the sun grows brighter and brighter your head spins even more. You break through the surface and gasp for air, and with the relief of air filling your lungs comes along with your release. 

You come hard, with your hands twisted in the bedsheets and Annie’s tongue softly toying with you. Your legs go completely rigid, and the moan in your throat chokes you – a strangled noise comes out instead, and then you nearly dissolve as your entire body turns into jelly. Her grip on you stays firm so that you can ride out your orgasm wrapped up in her arms.

Her tongue traces along the tip of your clit, swirling just enough to draw out the last shivers of your orgasm. You audibly moan when she pulls away, still throbbing with oversensitivity as she looks up at you mischievously. 

You need to hold her, to touch her. All of a sudden, you launch your upper body down and scoop Annie up underneath her arms into a tight hug. You nearly pull her on top of you, and it takes her a moment to rearrange herself so that she’s holding you back, but she won’t let go once she gets there.

Since you’re right next to her face, you can’t help but kiss her. Even though you fully expected to smell yourself on her breath it’s so much more visceral when slickness smears across your cheek. It’s humiliating, but then she looks at you. That’s all it takes for you to lean in and kiss her properly, even if it leaves you bright red and blushing.  

You let her go with a moan when an involuntary convulsion wracks through your body. Remnants of electricity spark to your toes again as they twitch. She nuzzles your cheek with the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes in contentment. Before she sinks back down to her knees, she kisses the same spot she’d nuzzled. 

She doesn’t break the silence between you, unsurprisingly. A gentle, quiet moment passes with her still kneeling between your legs. 

When you finally regain the ability to speak, you ask still a bit breathlessly: “That… is what you came here for?” 

Annie nods smugly, then presses another kiss onto the inside of your thigh. “I wanted to say goodbye properly before graduation.” 

Your throat goes dry. Swallowing, you try to steer the conversation in another direction. 

“Well, that was a hell of a goodbye…” you mutter. 

“How else am I supposed to leave an impression?” she asks. Her fingers tighten in the fleshy plush of your ass, and the way her eyes rake over your body leaves you feeling even more breathless than before. “Now you’ll have something to fantasize about when you get lonely.” 

“You’ve got that right,” you chuckle, and your gaze can’t help but wander down between her legs in return, “but are you going to let me give you something to fantasize about, too?” 

She exhales heavily, and her eyes drift away from yours in embarrassment. She presses her thighs together involuntarily as she bites her lip.

“All you had to do was ask,” she mutters distractedly, struggling to suppress her arousal. 

Maybe seeing her so needy emboldens you, but you’re still shocked when the words come out of your mouth before you fully process what you’re about to say. “I saw you touching yourself… I know you liked doing that as much as I liked watching it.” 

She goes bright red, from the top of her head down to her chest. 

“Wh – That’s – You, hey! You were moaning and shit. It was really hot!” she stutters. Annie ends up releasing her hold on you in her embarrassment, and you take the opportunity to sink down to your knees next to her on the floor. 

For a moment she looks at you incredulously, but quickly melts when you nudge her legs apart. Your hand slips between her toned thighs and through wiry blonde curls. She buckles when your fingers dip into wetness

“Ohhh, that’s not fair,” she mutters, “nngh.” She throws her arms around your shoulders for support, almost whimpering. Her hips buck against you 

“What’s not fair?” you ask, feigning cluelessness. 

“You’re mean,” she pouts, “I didn’t tease you at all.” 

You scoff at the audacity. “That’s a fucking lie and you know it.” 

As if to accentuate your point, you let your fingers ghost right around her pleasure spots, not quite touching them but making her want for it, making her drip in anticipation. 

“So what?” she demands, “Does that mean you’re not going to let me cum?”

“On the contrary,” you reply, smirking. “I don’t think it’s going to take much…” 

Your fingers find her clit, and she gasps. You’re barely touching her, just trailing your slick fingers up around the sensitive bud. 

Her blush darkens when you look at her, so she tries to turn away, to get out of it. For a moment she looks off to the side and she even closes her eyes. As her breathing grows more ragged, she loses some of her inhibitions. 

At first, she only looks at you out of the corner of her eye, too timid to face you. That’s okay, you know that she loves it by the way she lets breathy moans slip out from between her lips and tilts her hips into your touch. She’s so turned on that her clit is rock hard, so you gently push back the hood to expose it. 

Annie’s breath hitches at the sensitivity. You keep on, taking it between your middle and ring fingers. All you have to do is glide your fingers over the sensitive bud to have her moaning and convulsing over you. It’s almost too much, judging by the way her thighs tremble, so you move down. 

Briefly, you slip your middle finger inside of her. Just an inch or so, enough to draw out more slickness. Her head falls back, and for the first time that night, she lets herself be a little vocal.

It’s not much, just a repressed: “Mmmpphh,” before she takes her lip between her teeth. 

The noise lights some kind of fire in your gut, and your fingers swirl with more purpose. You still aren’t going to give in to what she wants, but you can’t not touch her. The pads of your fingers rub directly on her clit, and her eyes shoot open. 

Both of her hands fly to your shoulders for support, and for the first time, she turns to face you. When your eyes meet, her lip pouts to silently beg for more. You’re torn between giving her what she wants and teasing out some more pretty little noises. 

It’s like she can sense that you’re considering drawing it out even more, because she immediately shakes her head. Her desire is written all over her face, in the way she chews on her lip and how her eyes beg, plead for release. Even if she wasn’t practically thrusting down against your fingers, the way her hands are shaking gives her away immediately. 

And as much as you want to pleasure her, the power goes to your head a little bit. You lighten your touch – you don’t pull away but you change from languid strokes to tiny little circles with hardly any pressure. 

Not for one second is she having any of that shit. With a whine, she lets her legs slide apart further still, and in the process, it lowers her hips. She grinds down into your touch, exhaling hard. 

The lewdness of the both of you looking down her body and watching your hand move sinks it all at once. It makes you bold once again for reasons beyond your comprehension. 

Honestly, it’s just as embarrassing for you to say it as it is for Annie to hear it, but before you know it you’re tantalizing her in a way you didn’t realize you were capable of. “You like that, don’t you? You like the way my fingers feel…”

“Mmmfph,” she groans, biting her lip hard. She breathes in shakily as she nods, “Uh-huh.”

“You can’t even speak,” you tease, smirking as you lean in. “You can’t–”

Unexpectedly, Annie shuts you up by shoving her lips against yours. It works quite effectively so it’s not like you can criticize her decision. Her tongue pushes past your lips, flicking against your own. The kiss is wet and messy and loud and passionate,

“Don’t talk to me about what I ‘can’t’ do,” she says between kisses, “I’m still perfectly capable…” 

Compared to her usual demeanor, she’s completely uncollected. You have your doubts, but you aren’t going to argue with her. 

“I see that,” you say instead, and try not to let the smugness creep into your voice when her hips buck against your hand again. 

A whine builds in the back of her throat as she struggles to find words. 

“Shut up,” she eventually spits, with no venom behind her words. She’s desperate, lashing out because she doesn’t know how else to react. Her eyes flit from side to side indecisively before she finally huffs in defeat. “Come on, just give it to me already. This is embarrassing…” 

“No, it’s sweet,” you croon, and you lean in to kiss her neck softly, “Tell me what you want.”

Annie shakes her head. “You already know. You do.” To emphasize, she tilts her hips upward and then thrusts down. She tries to angle herself so that your fingers brush against her opening. 

You change the way you swirl your fingers in response. She moans and her hands begin to shake, trembling as she clings to your shoulders. The noises in the back of her throat have turned into full-on whimpering and at this point, it’s clear that she can’t hold back for very much longer. 

“Say it,” you encourage. Your words are playful but your fingers dance out of reach the longer she stays silent. 

Finally, when she rolls down into your hand and you pull away, she cracks. 

“Put them in,” she urges, “Put your fingers inside me, please.” 

Your lips curl back into a grin at the sound of her becoming undone. “Oh, put them in?” you muse, feigning cluelessness. “How many, just one?” 

Annie moans as you punctuate your question by slipping your middle finger inside her again, this time all the way in to the second knuckle. She shakes her head but takes a moment to gather herself. 

“Two… Give me two,” she begs, trembling. 

You’ve wanted to push them in so badly from the beginning, but it’s worth the wait. She’s so tight inside, but so wet that you slide in with ease. The noise that she makes is absolutely intoxicating, and all you want to do is get her to do it again. 

A gush of slick slides down the crease between your fingers, and you push it back into her as you fuck her carefully. At first, you keep it shallow so she can get used to it. 

“Does it feel okay?” you hum into her shoulder. 

Her cheeks darken, and even though she looks nervous she still nods. 

The more you move, you notice that her moans are getting a little more high-pitched. She’s barely making noise, but what she does is just loud enough for you to hear. It’s like she’s putting on a show just for you. She bucks her hips to meet your fingers halfway, and if the way that she glances at you out of the corner of her eye is any indication, she knows exactly what she’s doing. 

Her boldness notwithstanding, it apparently flusters her when you make direct eye contact with her, so your gaze stays down between the two of you. It makes the entire thing so much more erotic than it has to be, but maybe that’s part of what’s getting her off. 

Your fingers sink into the soft plush inside of her over and over again. As you go deeper, you feel her pussy contract around your fingers, involuntarily, by the sound of the moan she chokes down. She whines, breathing hard and groaning, nearly stuttering. 

Fuck, she’s so tight. 

“Kiss me,” she asks, and you don’t deny her for a moment. Your lips catch hers, and though it’s messy, it manages to capture the passion and intensity of the moment perfectly. 

Annie grinds down into your hand, trying to generate some friction from it.  Her elbow around your neck is so tight that you get dizzy – or maybe you’re dizzy because of everything else happening. 

When she doesn’t find any, she struggles to readjust herself. Her hips tilt up so that you can have better access. You release your embrace on her for just as long as it takes her to shift her right arm between you. 

She breaks out of your kiss with a delicious moan as her fingers reach her clit. Her breathing becomes more erratic and finally, she musters the courage to meet your gaze again. 

The eye contact is what does it, in the end. Within seconds she begins to buckle. The movements of her fingers on her clit quicken, and you feel her clench down around your fingers even more tightly, if such a thing was possible. 

“Nghh, fuck,” she pants, her voice reduced to a desperate whine, “I’m gonna cum…” 

She’s not touching you anymore, but pleasure spikes through you anyway. The noises she’s making combined with the sound that her wet pussy makes, makes your gut burn. Lust spurs you on through one last surge of energy, and for the last stretch, you push through the cramp in your forearm with determination. 

The tension bursts. As she comes, Annie buries her face into your neck with a guttural moan. Her cunt pulsates around you rhythmically, and she rocks her hips in tandem as she rides it out. Your fingers stay buried as deeply as you can get them lest she squeezes to try and keep you inside. 

She takes a shuddering breath before meeting your eyes again. It only lasts a moment before she’s closing in on you again, and sweeping you up in a kiss. You don’t even do it on purpose, but your fingers twitch inside of her. It causes a noticeable reaction from her, a cute little gasp or moan that she tries to hold back. 

Finally, you pull them out, and slowly, so that you can watch her reaction carefully. She shudders, her eyes rolled back in bliss. 

“Are you okay?” you ask her after a few seconds, whispering softly in her ear. 

She nods. The movement of her fingers on her clit has slowed. 

“Here, let’s lie down. Come on,” you urge her up onto the bed gently. Her hands shake, but she manages to gather herself enough to crawl up onto the mattress. 

The blanket is thin and only designed for one person, and you fully intend for her to take all of it for herself. Yet she lifts it up, gesturing for you to lie right beside her. You have to snuggle her close in order for your ass to fit underneath all the way. 

You sit in silence for a little while, and it’s nice. No talking, just holding one another and the occasional bout of small kisses. 

Finally, Annie is the one to break the silence. Of course, she brings up the one topic you want most to avoid. 

“I’ve been thinking about tomorrow, graduation.” 

Your heart skips a beat. “I have, too.”

She doesn’t give you the chance to get anything out before she talks, like usual. “I think you should choose the Wall Garrison,” she tells you for what feels like the millionth time. You nod, for what feels like the millionth time. Annie goes on. 

“I remember you saying some stuff in the past about going beyond the walls, but after Trost… you know that it would be safer for you to stay. You’ll do a couple of years of grunt work probably, but you’re smart. You’re good enough that if you really put your mind to it you could 

She hums as she speaks, nuzzling into your shoulder. She talks like it’s this whole fairy-tale that she’s already planned out. Even if you hadn’t just had a vulnerable moment with her, you can’t bring yourself to undo what amounts to fantasy.  

“Transferred to the interior, so I can be close to you?” you ask, smiling. You realize that it comes across like teasing when Annie shrinks away. 

“I mean, yeah. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” you tell her. 

“I want you to be safe,” she says, and she begins to walk her fingers up your body starting at your belly button. 

“What I want is to be with you. I’d run away with you right now if I could.” 

She shakes her head. “You can’t desert your military posting.” 

“I’m not going to. But I can still dream, right?” “They’re not going to court-martial me for thinking about running away with my girlfriend.”

Shockingly, she doesn’t react to your use of labels. Instead, she freezes her finger-walking to stare at you with huge watery eyes. You notice that her lower lip trembling. “You would really do that?”

You blush. “Of course. It would be so much easier if things could be different… you know, like they’re supposed to be.” 

She looks at you with no recognition in her expression and raises an eyebrow. 

When it doesn’t immediately click for her, you get even redder in embarrassment. You take a deep breath before you say the corniest thing of all time to a very serious girl. 

“Y’know… easy. Just you and me, growing old together.”

Annie laughs in your face. Immediately she seems to realize how rude it is. To be fair, she does look incredibly nervous. It’s not malicious, but she quickly slaps her hand over her mouth. Her reaction deflates you. Is the idea actually so stupid and far-fetched? 

Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry… I never expected you to say something like that.”

“To say that I want to be with you?” you frown, “That’s always what I’ve wanted.”

“It’s not even that,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I just don’t want to break your heart.”

You shake your head. That’s obviously something you’ve already considered. She isn’t exactly warm and welcoming, so you never had built up the expectation for her to coddle your feelings. Annie doesn’t care so much about that kind of thing. 

She’s tough as nails and she wants people to know it. She tries hard to keep it all bottled up, hidden away. You would’ve thought that she’d try her hardest to keep everyone out but she opened up to you. There were things that it was obvious she couldn’t bring herself to talk about, but everyone has baggage. There are still details about your life that she doesn’t know, either. 

She wipes at the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry… I’m not used to having someone care about me like this.”

“What do you mean?” 

“What I mean is that it’s me, and I know I’ll screw it up at some point,” she scoffs, “and besides, I know that you care about me, but I don’t deserve an easy life like that.” 

It always comes back to her pushing you away. Your heart clenches, and in your post-orgasmic cuddling bliss, you can’t bear to let her go on so badly about herself.  

“Yes, you do. I would give you the entire world if you just let me. I don’t only care about you, Annie…” A heavy moment lingers in the air as the tension mounts, building exponentially as you hesitate to follow up with what both of you already know: “I – I love you.”

There it is. It’s out in the open now. After all these years, you’ve said it out loud. You both already knew it, but now there’s no more ignoring the subject. 

Her face is shadowed, but there isn’t much of an expression on her face anyway. She looks a bit panicked if anything and her speechless stuttering only emphasizes that: “I… I – ” 

You know you just hit her with a lot of overwhelming information. It’s Annie, you expected her to not have the most normal reaction to something that you had both already known for a long time. 

You knew she wouldn’t say it back, and not because she didn’t feel the same way. 

There’s some kind of emotional block in her brain that won’t let her access those feelings inside of herself. You watch her struggle with it right in front of your eyes, but you know there’s nothing to be done. 

You rub her back comfortingly. “It’s okay. I know.” 

Annie’s chest heaves as she sobs. Furiously she wipes away her tears. 

“Yeah? I just can’t… I don’t—” she hiccups. 

Before she can say something to ruin it, you kiss her. This time, you’re the one trying to shut her up. 

“Really, you don’t have to explain. I think that I love you anyway…” you admit. 

Although you aren’t sure what you do expect, it’s certainly a surprise when she fully bursts into tears. You had meant to be reassuring, so you’re hesitant to comfort her again. For a moment she heaves and struggles to breathe while your hand hovers above her shoulders. 

You’re already close enough that hugging her is the only option that makes sense, so you decide to go ahead and deal with the potential fallout if she hates it. You wrap your arms around her tightly to envelop the whole ball that she’s curled herself in. Leaning your head against her shoulder to pull her close, you end up being successful in your attempts to calm her over time. 

There’s a sniff, then a shudder, and then a sigh. Annie seems worn out all of a sudden. Hours of physical activity will leave her unfazed but one sentence out of her emotional comfort zone is more than she can take. You’ve never met anyone like that before. 

“...you okay?” you whisper to her after a few seconds.

She nods, but you aren’t convinced. You give her a bit of a stern look in hopes that she’ll give you a real answer. Unsurprisingly, she stays silent. 

You wish you could go back to five minutes ago, when you felt so close to her that you didn’t need words to communicate. Part of it was just the post-sex haze of togetherness that always fades after the pleasure has ebbed. Does that make it less real? 

It was hard to open up to Annie when she’s so closed off. That connection that you crave can’t ever go anywhere if she isn’t willing to take it anywhere. Maybe it’s the best thing for your relationship right now to go your separate ways. Just for a little while, so that you can look forward to seeing each other again. 

No, that’s not what you want. You want to follow her everywhere she goes, to throw rocks at her window, to give her flowers and take her out to dinner. If only things were different. If you were a different person or lived a different life maybe this could be easier. 

Once again your heart sinks as you have to consider the choice that lies before you. It was a conversation you’d been avoiding for a good while with Annie since you know she isn’t going to approve of the path you’ll take. Many times you’d talked about the future you wanted for yourselves, and hopefully someday, with one another. 

But then the Battle of Trost changed everything. Sitting around wasn’t an option anymore. 

It’s going to hurt her even more when she finds out that you’re lying, but you can’t bring yourself to bring this moment to end here. Not when it’s the last moment in the conceivable future that you’ll ever have with her. 

Yes, you’ll see her tomorrow. You’ll stand next to her, eat with her. She’ll be next to you physically and she’ll talk to you, look at you. Maybe she’ll even slip her hand into yours when nobody is looking for the briefest of moments. 

But this is the last time she’s going to nuzzle into your neck like this. She’s not going to press her lips against your skin, or exhale into your hair. You’re not breaking up – did you ever get together in the first place? Regardless, this interaction doesn’t feel like an ending so much as a transition. 

You’ll see her again, there’s plenty ahead of you and so much time to apologize. For choosing the Scouts, for not keeping yourself safe, for ruining the ideas she has for the future... The worst-case scenario would be that she’s mad at you, right? You can deal with that, you’ll send her letters until she gets over it. 

Right now, you’ll let yourself live in her fantasy. You allow yourself to dream about things that might be if the circumstances were right. Why was the world constantly getting in your way?

The moments you had with her are so fleeting, but they’ve shaped you so wholly that you can’t imagine your future without her. There’s no way you would ever let go of something so rare and precious. 

Annie sits up, and the moment ends. You knew it was coming. The sun is beginning to rise and color the room the faintest shade of pale orange. 

“I shouldn’t be here when people start to wake up…” she says, looking wistful. 

It seems like she doesn’t want to leave, and you’re in no hurry to see that happen. You wish she would stay. No one would think too hard about it, not if you just went straight to breakfast, right? 

She would never stay. Part of it had to do with the way your relationship evolved – sneaking around and meeting behind the training barracks or out in the woods. You’ve never been able to sleep in together or lie around cuddling while taking each other in. This honestly might be the longest you’ve been able to do that, in these early morning hours. 

It’s heartbreaking that you know it’ll be a little while until you have the chance to do this again. A month or two at most, which doesn’t seem like much. But you’ve been spoiled by the training corps and the proximity that it lent you to her. Even if you didn’t mess around, or kiss, you could at least see her. 

It doesn’t feel like an ending when she pulls her shirt back on and stands up. She’s not saying goodbye forever whenever she leans in to press her lips against your forehead. It’s a silent: see you later, nothing more and nothing less. 

She picks up your clothes from the floor and places them in front of you. She crosses the room as you begin to dress yourself. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for you to join her, but when you get to your feet she’s hastily flipping the page of the notebook. 

“What is that?” you ask, furrowing your eyebrows. 

Annie blushes and pushes the notebook away. “You can look at it when I’m gone. Kiss me one more time.” 

It’s not a request and you have no plans to deny her. You’re soft and gentle with it, much to Annie’s chagrin. She leans into you with an insistence bordering on hunger as lips become tongue and she pulls your body into hers. One arm slings around your neck and she exhales through her nose hard. 

You back her up into the wall, softly. She leans forward to crash into you again and her free hand wanders up to squeeze your tit beneath the shirt. Finally, the two of you break apart to breathe. You pant, head swimming, as she stares right into your soul. Right as you’re about to beg her to stay, she cuts you off with another kiss. 

It’s probably best that you didn’t say anything, anyway. You’re ready to lunge back into her, so you’re surprised when her hands slide down your arms to your wrists. After flipping your hands upside down, the palms of her hands tickle against yours before your fingers intertwine. 

This last kiss is pure affection. No aggressive tongue shoving past your teeth, no wandering hands beneath your shirt. It effectively brings the moment down just as quickly as it had been wound up. 

“Thank you,” Annie whispers into the corner of your lips. “For always being there whenever I need you.”

You squeeze her hands. There’s no response that she hasn’t heard you say a million times over. This time you stay silent and just look down at her reverently. 

She pulls away from you and  Immediately, you miss her touch. She picks up her 3DM gear, boots, and everything she’d been wearing besides her hoodie and khakis. She passes right by you on her way out of the room. 

Before she turns the doorknob, she pauses to cast one last glance at you. 

You want her affection so badly that you feel like you might burst. It’s embarrassing, really, the power that she holds over you. 

All you can do is say your words from earlier again as you look down at the ground. “I love you,” you repeat quietly. Nothing else comes out. 

Annie stands in the doorway for a moment, looking bashful. She’s blushing again, you notice, as she looks down. Her lip trembles as she struggles to find words. As she looks back over to the desk she gives up. Not in exasperation, but by shrinking back into herself. 

“Look at the notebook, idiot,” she tells you, and the door closes.  And then she’s gone. 

You’re alone again, and part of you feels like you hallucinated the whole thing. If it wasn’t for the notebook, which you rush to, that has tangible marks of pressure from the pen, you might have thought it didn’t happen at all. 

You know that you are not dreaming, but it still feels like it when you see those three little words written on the page. She couldn’t say it out loud, but she feels it. 

I love you. 

It sends you into hysterics. She loves you, she loves you, she loves you. She loves you. It hits you like a ton of bricks and you have to fight the urge to run out into the hallway and throw your arms around her aagain. All you want is to drag her back and do everything you’d just done all over again, and more.

On some level, you suppose that you already knew. Why else would she open up to you the way she did? But writing it, admitting it, is something totally different. 

She loves you. You would do anything for her. 

So the next day, when there’s a surprise 3DM gear inspection, you push down your suspicions. From the get-go, you feel that something is off, and it takes you a little while to understand how serious it is. 

Once you’re gathered up in a line amongst your peers you learn even more shocking information. The Titans, Sawney and Bean they were called, who had been captured a little while ago. 

They had been slain before dawn, by someone who got away with 3DM gear. Military officials were checking every piece of gear for gas usage, repair history, and documented physical appearances. You’re specifically asked if you had seen anyone who had been sneaking around with no good explanation.  

Someone like Annie. It isn’t lost upon you. 

As you stand up in front of the higher-ranking officers while they inspect your gear and that of your peers, your heart beats in your ears so loudly that you can’t hear anything except the rushing of blood. 

If last night hadn’t happened, there’s a possibility you might have said something. It didn’t make any sense to you as to what her motivation was if she had killed the Titans, but it was undeniable how shady her actions were. How did this help anything? It seemed like she was working

In the end, it’s the note that says ‘I love you,’ that’s folded up in your front left pocket that makes you keep quiet. It was like she said, you tell yourself that over and over again. She wanted to see you, to touch you, to be with you one last time. You could believe her… right? 

Even if you did give in to the part of yourself that doesn’t believe her, did you care enough to give her up with no real proof, or without talking to her first? You know that the answer is no. You keep your mouth shut

She knows that you aren’t stupid. She has to realize that your silence was the only way you know how to prove your trustworthiness in her eyes, and you hope that it will be enough to balance out how angry she’s going to be 

Angry, or upset? You wouldn’t have the time with her to work out her reaction when she was miles away in a different regiment. You were both going to be miserable. Over and over again you have to remind yourself that you’re going to see her again. 

That night at the graduation ceremony, you stand beside Annie. She uses Bertholdt and Reiner as human shields so that she can hold your hand unnoticed. The call for everyone who won’t join the Scouts comes, and she turns around stunned when you don’t move along with her. She yanks on your hand again. 

You feel like absolute garbage as you watch the realization dawn on her face that you’re not coming with her, but you feel even worse when her eyes fill with tears. She lets go of your hand, and you find yourself reaching after her. She’s already gone, but you still cry out. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, and you clutch the note in your pocket. 

You don’t say I love you. The words choke on the way out and die in your throat. 

It’s all you can do to stay standing. Your heart breaks, and you feel like you’re shattering like glass, but it’s not the end. You’ll see her again soon and you’ll apologize. She’ll kiss you like no time has passed and everything is resumed right where you left it last night when she slipped out of the door. 

You’ll see her again. 

Word Count: 17.4k

Author’s Note: sorry just sorry, all around. this chapter took me forever to write. life stuff and also because for some reason with this one i've been overwhelmed by the fear of Being Cringe?? i don't really care about that so i'm not really sure why

thank you so very much to the lovely @eiimikos for agreeing to beta read this for me! i appreciate you & your time more than i can properly express considering ... the content. QUEEN SHIT ONLY!

“State your name for the record, please,” says the military officer, their pen scratching against the top sheet of a hefty stack of files. 

“Cadet Lastname…” you reply nervously, “Y/N.” 

Another scratch of the pen, and the officer adjusts their glasses. You haven’t been in the Survey Corps long enough to learn everyone’s names, but you recognized this one – they’re a Section Leader. 

One of the nice ones, if you remembered correctly. Though now that you’re up close, they’re a lot more intimidating than you had anticipated, even if they are a little… kooky? 

“Alright cadet, let’s go ahead and get started. I assume that you know why you’re here.” 

You twiddle your thumbs underneath the table. “I know that everyone in my training class is being interviewed. It has to do with the failed expedition, right?” 

“Yes. As you know, we’re looking for what might be behind the attacks on the Scouting Legion. We suspect it to be an Intelligent Titan hiding within our midst.”

“And you think I know something about that?” you ask. Suddenly, you’re scared. Alarm bells start going off in the back of your head and there’s a pit gnawing in your stomach. 

“We have reason to believe you’re well-acquainted with our primary suspect,” Hanji continues as your stomach drops, “Tell me everything that you know about Annie Leonhardt.”

It’s like your entire world slows down. Your gut twists as nausea bubbles up your throat. Trying to remain calm seems impossible, and you’re sure that your physical reaction gives you away. Sweat drips down your brow as your heart races, your pupils dilating. 

Eventually, all that comes out is a tiny squeak. “Annie?” 

The officer nods. Surprisingly, they don’t seem to pick up on your nervousness and instead they begin to elaborate. “Yes. Annie Leonhardt, stationed with the Military Police, graduated from the same Training Corps as you did. She was fourth in your graduating class,” they elaborate. 

Your face burns. “Yeah. I – I know who she is.” 

“Can you explain the nature of your relationship?” they ask, and to your horror, they start writing again. 

Panic starts to set in. “Um, friends?” you say, and you break out into a cold sweat, “We’re uh… close? Um… we’re friends, I think. Uh, close friends.” 

They look up at you, somewhat in amusement. It’s humiliating. You want to disappear into the floor. At least it gets them to stop writing, even if they are giving you a knowing smirk. 

“You’re… close friends?” Hanji repeats. 

Your face goes a bright red. You want to find a better way to define it; to explain that you did spend a lot of time together without making yourself seem like you’re some kind of teenage harlot or a stupid lust-addled kid who’s in over her head. 

“Yuh-huh,” is what comes out instead. 

Shifting nervously in your seat is an obvious tell, but it’s so oppressively uncomfortable that you physically can’t sit still. You scratch your cheek and push your hair back behind an ear. 

“Ohh-kay, moving on then…” “During the Scouting Expedition, did you have any close contact with the Female-form Titan?” 

“No, not really. I saw it, but only from a distance.”

“Her,” Hanji corrects, “not it.” 

Your blood grows cold. She couldn’t be suggesting what was growing increasingly obvious with every moment. It feels like you can’t breathe – do you even want to? 

“You… you think that Annie–?” 

“One of your comrades has said the Titan physically resembles Leonhardt. Can you speak to this, as her… uhm, close friend?” 

Something clicks into place that makes you go entirely rigid. It… did. Even beyond the outward monstrous traits and visible muscle, your brain suddenly makes sense of certain details that just didn’t fit. Why HAD the Female Titan looked so familiar? Why did you feel like you recognized the way it held itself up, or the way it moved while it ran? 

No, this was Annie you’re talking about. You knew her. You LOVED her. If she was caught up in this somehow, it had to be a mistake. You wish that you could talk to her… It would make you feel a lot less conflicted if you could get her side of the story here. You’re hesitant to say anything that might get her in more trouble than she was already in. 

Finally, you answer. “Well, Annie has blonde hair, too?” you squeak. It’s weak, and both of you know it. 

In return, you get a dead-eyed glare. “I see… That’s really all you have to say about that?” 

You want so badly to be able to trust Annie. If you could find her and ask her to explain all this evidence, to explain her weird and sketchy behavior, maybe it would make some sense. Maybe you could help her, or at the very least figure out what to tell the military for them to take her into captivity peacefully…

You feel yourself starting to shake. “Just that — it’s not her,” you mutter, “it can’t be her. She wouldn’t do this.” 

Hanji looks up at you, glasses glinting in the firelight. They give you an odd look, one of pity. 

“All the evidence is pointing in another direction,” they explain. Although their intention is to convey seriousness, the harshness in their voice makes you shrink away. “Either you didn’t know her as well as you think you do, or you’re hiding something too. I want to let you know that if you’re in league with those who wish to bring harm to–”  

“–No!” you interrupt, “I would never do that. Never!” Immediately you cover your mouth, but Hanji still gives you a stern look. 

“I’m sorry…” you say, and curse yourself for how much it sounds like an afterthought. 

They don't acknowledge it anyway. Another few moments are filled with the sound of pen on paper, then they flip a page. 

“If there’s something you know, you need to tell me now. The longer you keep this information to yourself, the less trustworthy you seem. I want to be able to talk to you freely, Y/N. The next step from here is a jail cell.”

You’re sweating, but a chill runs down your spine. This was very quickly getting a lot more serious than you thought was possible. “You can trust me… I really think that you’re wrong about Annie, though. She’s not as heartless as everyone else thinks.” 

You’re getting increasingly shrill, but Hanji is surprisingly listening intently. They nod, then close the file and set the pen down on top of it.  

Now, they approach you on a personal level. “You care about her, right?” they ask. 

Your blush returns. “What?” 

“It’s okay. You’re young. You’re allowed to have feelings.” 

“That’s not even the point I’m making. Listen to me, I know her,” you insist, “and she would tell me if she had killed anyone – I know that she would have told–”

Your voice dies in your throat as you remember all the odd things she’s said over the years that don’t add up. All of the apologies for seemingly no reason, the guilt and overwhelm when hearing about the victims of the walls, and especially after the Battle of Trost. 

Especially after Marco died. 

Your senses blurs together as you think about everything she’s ever said to you in a new light. You feel physically sick, freezing and burning hot, alight with pain and heartbreak but also completely numb. Annie’s voice echoes in your head, and your consciousness is bombarded with the memories of things she said that didn’t quite add up. 

“I’m not a good person,” she had said. “Maybe you should hate me,” she had said. “You don’t understand. Maybe I AM getting too attached…” 

You’re an idiot for not seeing it before. How could you overlook such obvious guilt, such strange behavior? Are you really so lovestruck that none of the weird things she’s said have conveyed otherwise? 

“I’m not the kind of person you can take home to your parents.” she told you once. You’d been so quick to shove off your parents that you didn’t stop to think about what she meant by that. 

“What I mean is that it’s me, and I know I’ll screw it up at some point… I know that you care about me, but I don’t deserve an easy life.” she had told you. You thought she was being self-derogatory. “I’m too much of a coward to deserve your kindness, or your love,” she’d said. Even if she was speaking from her heart, you hadn’t entertained the thought that she was being objective. 

Tears well up in your eyes. You want to disappear into your forearms. Is this really happening? 

Hanji gives you another sad, pitying look. “She has, hasn’t she? That’s what’s happening right now, isn’t it? Something doesn’t add up and you’ve just realized it.” 

“I – I… she…” you stutter, too overwhelmed to confirm, “No. It couldn’t be…”

A long beat passes where you’re given the space to process your feelings. Hanji puts down their pen and closes the file to talk to you properly, face to face. You lift your head to meet their gaze, though it still hangs low with shame. 

“Yes, it can. And it is. She is,” Hanji tells you, sternly. A chill goes down your spine at the conviction with which they speak. “I need to know everything. Did she ever tell you anything about a goal? Or a motive?”

“No… just to join the Military Police. Normal stuff… she wanted to stay alive.” 

They look up at you, and their expression is surprisingly soft. “We want to keep her alive, too. I think it’s important you understand that.” 

You nod. “Okay.” Although you’re still not comfortable, you feel a little bit more at ease after hearing that. 

“Well go on, then,” they urge. 

Wait, you’re supposed to say something? You break out into a cold sweat. 

What are they expecting, for you to break down every step of your relationship? That seems counterproductive at best and invasive at worst. You feel yourself shriveling right back up. 

“Uhh, what’s the question?” you squeak, knowing full well that one was not asked. This is much more pressure than you’re prepared to handle. 

Hanji just sighs, seemingly disappointed. You wonder what information they could possibly be expecting for you to volunteer under these circumstances. Apparently much more than you’re capable of or are comfortable with. 

They move on. “Well, what about the night that my two captured Titans were killed? Were you aware of her whereabouts in the early morning the day before your graduation?”

You freeze. That was the night she had climbed in through your window. 

It felt like ages ago at this point, but between the undeniable weirdness when she came in, the steaminess just after, and finally the ‘I love you’ note, ensures that you certainly won’t be forgetting that encounter anytime soon. 

The decision you made back then to stay quiet looms in the back of your mind. You swallow dryly, now knowing for certain that it was the wrong choice. 

“She… she came to see me,” you admit. “Before the morning rounds…” 

Immediately, Hanji’s look sharpens. They look you straight in the eye. “When did you see her and how long did she stay? Did she visit you before or after the Titans were killed?” 

“Early, before the sun,” you stutter, “She stayed for about an hour. I think it was after.” 

Suddenly, an accusatory finger pointed toward you.  “So she told you that she had killed them?” 

You blanch and scramble to correct yourself. “No! No, she didn’t say a thing. All I know is that she showed up. She was acting weird.”

“Elaborate, please.” 

You start blushing, and you hope that the yellowish light doesn’t give way to how red you’ve become. “I don’t know. She came through the window and she had on a full set of ODM gear. She wasn’t talking a lot.” 

“A full set of ODM gear – does that include blades?” Hanji asks, “What did she say while she was there?” 

“Yes,” is all you reply with. You feel the stare it earns you and you shut down a little bit. 

“Why did she visit you?” she asks, more pointedly. “What did you talk about?” 

You stare straight ahead and try to hold your face together. You do not make eye contact. “Uh… she really was NOT talking very much.” 

All you receive is a blank look in return, and a nod signaling for you to elaborate. 

You squirm in your seat. “She was… doing other stuff?” you say. 

Holy shit, really? Is there a way to go back in time and unsay something? 

Hanji stares at you for a few seconds trying to comprehend. The wheels turn in their mind, then they give you a bit of a look and an arch of the eyebrow. 

“Is that teenager lingo for ‘sex’ these days?” they ask. “All this vaguity is going above my head at this point.” 

The shame becomes too great, and you collapse with your head in your arms. Your ears are steaming. 

“I’ll go ahead and take that as a yes,” Hanji muses, chuckling to themself. “You know, you ARE allowed to have sex. Nobody with a pulse will judge you for that.” 

Did you seriously just admit in a military interview, to a superior officer, that you’d gotten laid? 

You’re not sure how to react, and you stay frozen up. “I’m not going to… get in trouble?” 

“Get in trouble?” they ask, like they have no idea what you’re talking about. 

Your blush is what eventually clues them in to the implications of what you’re asking. “Ohhh! Oh, of course not. That’s not what the issue is here. All I need to know is if she said anything about the Titans that morning, and anything else is your business. ” 

“No, she didn’t,” you reply, muffled by your arms. “All she said was that she wanted to see me. I heard people yelling but she didn’t want me to look.” 

“And just to confirm, you didn’t see the street below?” 

“No, I didn’t,” you reply, and without even really having a specific thing in mind, you add: “I’m sorry.” 

You’re sorry for being stupid. You’re sorry for not realizing what should have been glaringly obvious. Now you escalate beyond twiddling your thumbs. You graduate to full-on skin picking as you claw your cuticles haphazardly. 

“I think this is the hard evidence we needed” Hanji mutters, “Your testimony confirms that Annie Leonhardt was in the vicinity at the time of the killings equipped with full gear, just as we suspected. We hope to have her in custody by tomorrow night, if everything goes according to plan. You’ll be informed about the details of the operation as needed.” 

Their words make your blood run cold. You don’t want to be responsible for Annie’s downfall. 

“I don’t…” you choke, fighting back tears. “I don’t want her to be hurt. I think she would come with me willingly.” 

Hanji considers it. They had taken you much more seriously than any other military officer would have, and you try to be appreciative of that. Maybe the relatability that got you to open up will work the other way around. It’s clear that they have the capacity for empathy. 

After a long pause and some consideration, Hanji seems to have come to a similar conclusion on their own. 

“We’re open to that possibility. But if she doesn’t, we are going to use whatever force we deem necessary.” 

Tears well up in your eyes. “Just let me talk to her, okay?” you beg. “Let me go with them.” Hanji has reasoned with you this far, so what is one more plea? 

In response, you get another look of pity and derision. You fully expect to be denied, so when Hanji nods and gestures for you to continue, you’re not sure what to say. 

Honestly, you just say whatever bullshit you think will be enough to convince them. By the time you’re released from the interview, you can’t remember half of what came out of your mouth. 

Your stomach doesn’t untwist for days. 

The trap goes as smoothly as anyone could have hoped at first. 

Stohess is your hometown – you know the back alleys and side streets better than the other cadets, and guide them through quiet streets as the focus. You know the way better than any of them. 

You remember how to get to the underground tunnels. The plan is that you’ll lead everyone downstairs. So badly you want this to go away that you find yourself praying, actually down on your knees, that the military is wrong about everything they said, that she’ll prove her innocence. 

Your stomach aches from the moment you wake up. The last thing you want to do is trick her, but it’s the only way you can get face-to-face with her without it being seen as sneaky. 

So when the Scouts pass through on the main road, you and Armin stand in an alleyway waiting and watching. A few of the Military Police cadets run past and as the boy next to you nudges you, you snap to attention. 

Unsurprisingly, Annie hangs towards the back of the group. Your blood runs cold at the sight of the familiar way she ties her hair. It’s been so long since you’ve seen her that more than anything, you miss her. 

For a split second, you forget why you’re there. She’s far enough away from everyone else that you feel comfortable calling out her name from the shadows. 

“Hey, Annie!”

It’s the first and last thing that you can bring yourself to say. You had every intention to help contribute to the ruse but seeing her face makes you freeze up entirely. Helplessly, you look over at Armin. 

“I can’t do it,” you whisper frantically. 

His eyes widen. “What? But she’s coming over here expecting to see you.” 

“Well I’m still here, aren’t I? I just need you to do the talking, okay?!” 

You’re so frazzled that you’re about to start shaking him by the shoulders. Luckily, he nods in agreement just as Annie ducks into the alleyway. 

There’s a moment of awkward silence as she stares at the two of you, shocked. You raise your hand to give a weak little wave and it seems to wake her up. She shakes her head, furrowing her brow. 

“Why are you two dressed like that?” 

Armin manages to handle the situation well considering that you’d shoved it on him at the last second. You nod beside him and actively fight to keep a grimace off of your face. 

The whole time he talks you fight back nausea. Some darker emotion creeps at the edge of your mind. At first, you interpret it as guilt for tricking her. Later on, it feels more like fear. 

Fear of what might happen? Fear of her? You don’t even try to narrow it down in the aftermath. 

In the end, your presence is what convinces her to tag along. At first she’s apprehensive, edgy. She’s still suspicious based on the way her hackles stay up, but it’s almost like she’s trying to prove something. 

She agrees because she wants to be a good person, you reason. Did your incorrect assumption her intentions were good lead to what would happen next?

For the first time ever, you’re grateful for the fact that Annie doesn’t like public displays of affection. Most of the time when the two of you walked side by side, you were itching you slip your hands into hers – but not today. Today, you stand a meter clear of her with both hands shoved in your pockets. 

It’s been a month since you’ve last seen her. Every time you thought about this scenario when you reunite, you were excited to see her. You pictured yourself throwing your arms around her and kissing her face, spinning her around, and sneaking off somewhere private. 

Never did you imagine that you’d be so averse to touching her. So why are you so hurt whenever she keeps the same distance? Why does it make you so upset that she didn’t pull you close as soon as she saw you? 

The conversation is awkward and short-lived. You worry that she can sense that something is wrong by the way she questions the legitimacy of the plan.  

Three becomes five when you meet up with Eren and Mikasa. The dark-haired boy talks quietly as he goes over the decoy plan. 

If you’d been the one to explain it, you’d have given it away. The entire time you’re expecting the plan to go awry, and you’re conflicted. If you’re so convinced that she was innocent, why are you so scared right now? In retrospect, you aren’t sure how you ever thought anything else would happen. 

When you reach the staircase leading underground, your stomach drops as you feel Annie tensing up beside you. 

The rest of you descend the steps as she stays rooted in place. Annie stares down at the four of you with horror in her eyes, and finally, it seems to hit her. The tension is so thick that you struggle to breathe, but you will yourself to keep up a poker face. 

“I’m not going down there…” she says. 

She’s caught on. There’s too much tension, too much desperation in her voice. She’s not acting like herself, and it’s unnerving. The pit in your stomach expands as she and Eren argue back and forth about why she won’t come along. 

She’s not damsel, or anything of the sort. It’s laughable for her to pretend like she is, and it’s everything you can do to keep yourself quiet as Eren starts to get more frantic. His voice has risen to a shout as he continues to plead. 

“Quit being stupid!” he says, “Just get down here! Stop screwing around!” He’s genuinely distressed, balling his fists up as he shakes his head, red-faced. 

He looks like he’s about to freak out, and you empathize with him – though you’re acutely reminded that you’re the only one who does when Mikasa snaps to quiet him. 

“Eren, don’t shout!”

Annie’s gaze burns down into all four of you, but there’s something in her eyes that you know is directed at you specifically. She’s angry, moments away from lashing out. 

You can’t bring yourself to look at her. You can’t bring yourself to look. When you swallow nervously, it burns like sandpaper. 

“I’m sure it’s fine, Mikasa,” she says, surprisingly calmly, “because for some reason, this place has been completely deserted for a while.” 

Beside you, Armin pulls the flare gun from his pocket and hides it behind his back. Mikasa holds Eren back with nothing but a look, and you wish that you could disappear from behind them.

Now that there’s no way out, you don’t want to be here anymore. 

“Man… That really hurts.” Even without looking, you can sense the apathy on Annie’s face, hear it in her voice. “At what point did you start looking at me that way, Armin?” 

“And you, Y/N…” her eyes move to you, where you still stare at the ground. “You won’t even do that. After everything? I thought I could trust you…” 

Your eyes and nose burn as you hold back tears. Even then, you can’t lift your gaze. 

Armin responds, and you’re grateful that it means you don’t have to. “Annie… Why did you have Marco’s ODM gear?” he asks. A heavy silence settles, so he elaborates: “It had all the same scrapes and bumps. I could tell, because I’d helped him do maintenance on it.”

“Yes…” she says quietly. A familiar look of regret crosses her face, and if you’d looked up you might have even felt sympathy for her, “I found it and took it.” 

“Then those two titans we captured alive…” Armin continues. “Was it you who killed them?” 

“Who knows… maybe you should ask her,” she sneers. You’d half-expected her to come after you like that at, but it still hurts to hear it. You can’t take it anymore and let the tears roll down your face. 

When she sees it won’t get a reaction from you, she quickly returns to dispassionately looking off to the side. 

She makes a tsk sound. “If that’s what you suspected a month ago why didn’t you do anything then?”

Armin continues on. “Even now I can hardly believe it. I just… wanted to believe I had it wrong. That’s why I didn’t –” he chokes, and his hand holding the signal gun trembles wildly behind, “– but what about you? The fact that you didn’t kill me back then is why we’re in this situation now.” 

The silence now is heavier than ever. A gust of wind blowing in the street above is the only noise in the area. Annie’s bangs float around her head as they’re swept in the breeze. God damn, her eyes are practically sparkling. Is it bad that even now, you still think that she’s beautiful? 

“Yeah… I agree with all my heart” she admits, resentfully. “I never imagined you’d end up cornering me like this… Why didn’t I do anything then?” 

Finally, you gain the courage to speak up for the first time in the confrontation, even though your voice only comes out as a squeak: “Annie, please… All we want to do is talk. If you–” 

“–Shut the hell up,” she interrupts, “You shouldn’t even be here. I thought we made a plan for you, and then you didn’t listen. Why would you think that I’d want to see you again?” 

Her words cut into you like a knife. You don’t know what to say, so you say nothing. All you do is stand there like a kicked puppy. You can feel Armin and Mikasa staring at you, though the implications about your relationship seem to fly right over Eren’s head. 

Everything simultaneously speeds up and slows down. It was bad enough to hear what she’s saying, but right now when you need to help her? She’s not going to let you. Some part deep inside of you finally realizes that there’s no way out of this. 

It’s going to go badly, so incredibly badly. 

“Just leave,” Annie spits, “run.” 

She looks dark and unfamiliar as her eyes bore into you from the top of the stairs.

When you don’t immediately start running, her nostrils flare. And although she doesn’t raise her voice or even change the tone of her voice, something about the way her ring finger won’t stay still is unnerving you. 

“Run.” she repeats, more emphatically. The sun against her back casts her face in shadow, but you could read her expression in pitch darkness. She looks at you with more hate than you’ve ever known her to have for you. 

Everyone else maybe, but you? 

You burst into tears, backing away slowly at first. Whether it’s out of fear or intuition, you do what she says. It feels too frantic, too emotional for her. Your shoulder bumps into the wall as you stagger backward looking for the way out. 

Eren starts shouting up at her again, but you aren’t paying attention to the exchange anymore. Chaos interrupts as soon as you leave, but blood is rushing in your ears too loudly for you to care. 

All you know is that she wouldn’t tell you to run for no reason. You sprint through the opening of the tunnel, ignoring Armin when he tries to call out for you. 

Adrenaline carries you far and fast as raised voices turn to shouts, then screams. You’ve booked it halfway down the old dimly lit service tunnel before you trip over your own feet. As you lay face-down with your hands scraped up, you have a moment of intense regret. 

The flare gun fires in the stairwell, and you hear people screaming above ground. 

Why the fuck did you run? You need to know what’s happening. More importantly, you left Eren, Mikasa, and Armin on their own when things were going bad. You can’t be responsible for your friends’ death. 

Right as you slow down, an explosion sounds from behind you, and it threatens to collapse the tunnel. Dirt showers down from between the bricks above you, and you’re very aware of being underground, especially when orange and green crackles of lightning brighten the hallway. 

Panic overrides instinct, and you scramble to your feet in an instant so you can help the other three. Luckily, they swing down into the tunnel in the nick of time. 

Mikasa uses her momentum to throw the boys underhanded out of the path of crumbling stone from above as Annie transforms. The three of you cover your heads with your arms as a deafening roar rips through the hallway. 

“Come on, we can’t stay here…” Armin tries to explain, though his voice is shaking. 

You don’t listen. Instead, you stand up in the corridor. Right now, you’re not capable of thinking. All you want is to get back to Annie, but you immediately regret it when you see that your wish has ironically, come true. 

A massive skinless hand reaches down the corridor before anyone can call out to warn you. Mikasa reacts instantly, taking off in the other direction while grabbing the others by the backs of their cloaks. 

The first instinct that you have is to scream, but all noise dies in your throat. You genuinely feel like you’re about to die – all you can do is dive as far as you can away and curl into a ball waiting for it to be over. You aren’t sure how long you lie there with your eyes closed. 

At first, you’re upset that the others left you behind, and resentful that you weren’t on the front lines. Later on, you don’t hold it against them since you had run first. You also realize later on that you never would have been allowed near her, anyway. 

Eventually, the thunderous shaking begins to fade. The hand is gone, and footsteps above signal the departure of Annie’s Titan. 

More rocks fall from the ceiling, and the archways collapses the entryway almost entirely. The position you’re in protects you from the worst of the falling rocks, but you can tell that you’re bruised. 

You crawl through the rubble until you’re in front of the crumbling archway. Rocks settle into place as thunderous movements from above send pebbles showering down from the unstable pile. Dust falls off of you as you stagger to your feet. 

Denial sets in first. This isn’t happening, you think. You have to get back up there even if it’s just to scream helplessly up at her Titan. 

You resort to climbing the pile of rocks. It’s hopeless. You’re clawing at anything you can grab, and pushing on any rock in hopes it might give, but it seems like you genuinely won’t be able to go back the way you came. 

No, fuck that. You’re determined to get out of here, so you hoist yourself up on top of one of the larger boulders. 

It feels futile for a good while, until one of the rocks on top loosens enough for you to roll it out of place. It creates a narrow crack you can climb through. In a haze and without thinking, you take off your ODM gear so that you’re more likely to fit. 

You scrabble at the rocks beneath it, and eventually, they give as well. It’s not a comfortable fit by any means, but you manage to squeeze in feet-first. You emerge on the other side of the rock pile scraped up with rips in your uniform, but you manage to wiggle past the threshold of the broken arch. 

When you successfully slide through, you immediately get knocked around as you’re swept away in a rockslide. Predictable, really. It carries you backward until you fall smack into what’s left of the stairway. 

It doesn’t feel real, though somehow you find the strength to lift yourself up. You climb over both steps and displacing chunks of what was once the ceiling. For a moment you lose your footing to land on all fours. 

You’ve definitely scraped your knees, but you’re surprised to see that your hands are covered in blood. You slip on a whole puddle as you try to stand, and only then do you realize that it’s not your own. 

Rivulets of crimson ooze between fallen rocks. As you’re climbing out of the rubble, you begin to process the full extent of your surroundings. You realize there are bodies – dozens, at least, crushed beneath the rubble you’re trying to get out of. You’re surrounded by them. 

None of this feels real. 

Debris and ash cover an area that had just been clean and familiar. Buildings along the streets have holes in them, or are crumbling altogether. This is a vision or something, right? Some kind of horrible nightmare that you’ll wake up from at any moment. 

Giant, shaking footsteps still quake from nearby. Dazedly, you wander toward the sound, even though you have no clue what you’re trying to accomplish. All you know is that you can’t stand around and do nothing. 

It only takes a few moments after wandering out in the open for someone to grab you by the arm. 

“Here she is!” shouts the man who found you. He’s not a soldier, so you try to yank your arm back and run away. Before you can get far, you’re cornered by a group of soldiers who came running as backup. 

Immediately, you’re swarmed. Someone pulls your arms together in front of you while a different officer secures handcuffs around your wrists. You try to struggle, but the lock clicks before you’re able to get free. 

“Section Leader, this way. We found her!” 

Honestly, you aren’t entirely sure what comes over you. Anger and frustration at the situation as well as the fact that you’re being neutralized so early on takes control of you, and as soon as you’re restrained you start spitting venom at everyone around you. 

“No way! I did what you assholes told me to do – why are you doing this to me?” 

One of the soldiers shushes you while the other fastens a chain to the cuffs. You pull your arms away only for them to be yanked back down roughly. It’s genuinely humiliating – they’re treating you like a dog on a leash. 

Before you see them, you can hear Hanji tsk-ing as they approach from behind. “I don’t know why you’re screaming at me. You ran away down in the tunnels – that wasn’t in the plan. We have a lot of talking to do, young lady.” 

Simmering rage surges up within you, and you struggle to shake the grip of the soldier holding onto your cuffs. “She told me to run…!” you exclaim. 

Hanji just looks at you for a few seconds. “And you listened?”

That same pitying look from back when they interviewed you comes back onto their face. “Yeah… I think you’ll stay in custody until further notice.” 

Anger once again rises at their flippancy in the matter. “You’re fucking kidding me!” you seethe, “Please tell me that you’re joking right now.”

They give you a bit of a condescending look from beneath a heavy pair of goggles. ”You’ll find that I am very much not joking.” 

And you do indeed.

Somebody yanks you forward by the chain, but you throw your head over your shoulder to continue yelling, “This isn’t fair! What did you expect me to do? I never wanted to go along with this shitty plan in the first place.” 

Nobody is paying attention to you anymore, unfortunately. Even the soldier holding your cuffs tunes you out after a certain point, try as you might to kick up a ruckus. You stomp and clink angrily, and rattle the chain in hopes that you can gnash your teeth at someone else. 

Soon after, a new pair of soldiers arrives to escort you back to the Commander. After they chat with Hanji for a bit, you’re transferred into their custody. The section leader and their squad zip away in the opposite direction while you’re pulled down a different street. 

The city is still shaking from the booming footsteps a few blocks over. It makes signs in front of shops rattle and unhinge from their fixtures, while shop displays and potted plants topple to the ground. Even the river heaves, splashing up onto the banks as it’s thrown back and forth. 

The three soldiers pull you through the city despite your resistance. Everybody around you is in chaos, running and clutching their valuables and loved ones to their chest. Even with all the destruction happening right in front of your eyes, you struggle to process it as reality. 

High-pitched Titan shrieking reverberates from across the city, and it’s so jarring that it makes you stop in your tracks. One of the soldiers pushes you, telling you to keep on walking. 

You’re actually glad that you aren’t seeing the destruction. It’s the one thing that gives you any hope. Right now you feel completely empty, gutted. Numb to the world and to everything happening around you. If you saw what was happening, you wouldn’t ever be able to forget it. 

Maybe if you keep your head down, it’ll all be a bad dream. You’ll wake up back in bed the night before training corps graduation. All of this will have been some anxiety-fueled dream, and Annie will tell you the real reason she’s been so shady as of late. 

And if you wake up, you’ll do it right this time and you’ll choose the Wall Brigade. Losing Annie is what isn’t worth the risk. The Survey Corps was a mistake and this time you’ll avoid the whole debacle. 

All of a sudden it becomes too much. Nausea overtakes you and you stagger off to the side, no longer able to hold yourself upright. 

She did this. You crawled out of a pile of rocks and dead bodies that she put there. As you look down at the drying copper stains smeared on your palms, you shake. if you had been less foolish, maybe their blood wouldn’t literally be on your hands. 

You fall to your knees, and it’s all you can do to stagger above a sewer grate before you throw up. The delusion that she’ll make the choice you want her to finally fades away. 

At first, your escorts try to follow you, though they let you be alone when they notice you spewing your guts out. 

It’s the first time you have to genuinely process what’s happening. You’re angry at her, both for being what she is and for not telling you. 

Your head spins. Again you doubt reality and pray that you wake up. The hard slats of the drain against your knees cut into already-scraped skin. The pain is real. The shriveled husk where your heart used to be is real. The emptiness inside of you is real. 

A second explosion colors the city in orange and green light. Electricity hums through the air as lightning flashes brightly from the other side of the plaza – everyone in the vicinity covers their ears as another Titan screams, this one deeper in pitch. 

You knew that if talking had failed, the backup plan was for Eren slug it out Titan-style with her, yet you find yourself panicked at the idea of it actually happening. Worse still, you can’t even pinpoint exactly what it is that upsets you more – the fact that this is actually happening, or the fact that you had genuinely yourself convinced it might not. 

It’s incomprehensible. You can literally see the destruction all around you, but still all you want is to get through to her. If only you could talk to her…

This time when you run, it’s very intentional. Most of the guards are still keeping their distance as you hurl except for the one tied to your handcuffs. You stagger to your feet, but before the soldier can notice what you’re doing you yank the chain from his hands. 

You don’t try to get yourself out of the cuffs, so you just hold the chain in your hand and get the hell out of there. You know exactly where you are – you used to come here with your family as a child, and you know exactly where to run. 

The fact that you’ve memorized the alleyways and side streets in Stohess is what allows you to escape the second time. Never in your life have you been proud to come from this place, but you must admit that it comes in handy right now. 

You follow the noises of destruction and the clouds of dust. It’s not easy to miss, and seeing half-crumbled buildings tells you you’re headed in the right direction. More Titan screaming, and the sounds of deafening fighting lead you exactly where you need to go. 

Air rushes down alleyways, a result of the punches landing in the square. The wind whips so intensely that dust storms spin on the ground to weakly scatter dust and rocks throughout the alleyway. You run with your jacket over your head to avoid getting hit. Every gust nearly knocks you to your knees, but you continue to stagger forward. 

The endurance you have is only due to the adrenaline coursing through you. Between fleeing civilians and terrified soldiers who have no idea what to do, you manage to make it onto the main street. You toss aside your Survey Corps jacket so that you won’t be as easily identified. 

Nobody even looks at you as you sprint down the road. A group of soldiers zip above your head on their gear, and you’re relieved whenever they don’t pay attention to you. The road begins to slope uphill into a bridge. 

You freeze in place at the sight of aTitan being thrown into a building. At first you can’t figure out who is who through the thick cloud of smoke and dust – all you can see is movement until it settles. 

Your heart leaps when you see that Annie seems to have the upper hand, but then immediately feel guilty. Deep down, you want her to win. You can’t handle the thought of anything bad happening to her even still, and you feel horrible about it. 

She has Eren slammed into a building. He’s pinned so that the only way he can fight back is by biting her leg, even though it’s obviously not getting anywhere. Blow after blow lands as she lets out an inhuman shriek. You hide behind the stone railing, as if that made a difference. 

When you see her now, you can’t fathom that there was ever a time you didn’t recognize her Titan. It looks exactly like her, from the shape of her jaw to the blue of her eyes. 

The way her hair brushes the tops of her shoulders…She’s hundreds of meters from you still, but the gargantuan proportions give you enough view to see her clearly. The way her cheeks curve, the squareness of her chin, that distinctive nose. 

Standing there, you can’t justify how there was ever a time you didn’t look up at that Titan and recognize her. There had to be some kind of barrier in your brain that wouldn’t let you overlook something that seems so obvious in retrospect. That barrier had apparently blocked you from seeing a lot. 

Even her body is the same. Tiny mannerisms that are intimately familiar. How could you not have immediately recognized how her arms are shaped? How did you not notice that the way that her leg extends, the way that her waist twists, is just the same as Annie? 

Were you just… stupid? 

Before long, she’s pummeled Eren’s head into a bloody pulp. She manages to shake him off of her eventually then backs away. You recognize her body language – she’s scared. Her shoulders are drawn together tightly, and the lack of skin only emphasizes the tension in her muscles. 

The Titan looks around for a minute before she takes off running in the other direction. You’re close enough that the proximity of her footsteps knock you off your feet. You scrape yourself up pretty badly as you struggle to get back up again. 

Eren isn’t moving, but he’s been through worse. You don’t try to justify it beyond that. Later you chalk it up to how rattled you were with betrayal, but a part of you wonders if you secretly wanted him to lose. 

You hate that it got to this point. You hate that this had to end with a fight neither of them wanted to have. 

If you hadn’t been so tongue-tied earlier than maybe none of this would be happening. You might have been able to get her to come peacefully, willingly, if you had talked to her. 

Maybe it wasn’t too late, you wonder. 

If you can get to her maybe she would still listen. You take off down the road in the same direction she did. 

A dead soldier lies slumped against the wall, with the blades of his ODM gear still tightly gripped in his hands. It looks like he was thrown against the building, or perhaps kicked. You try to stop yourself from picturing the details of how. It’s obvious what happened with two Titans rampaging about, but while it’s still happening, you need to be able to press on. 

You push the noise away and focus on angling the fallen soldier’s blade between the chain of your handcuffs. With your foot anchoring the blade in place, you pull your wrists towards you with all of your strength. It successfully snaps one of the links in the handcuffs and allows your hands to separate. 

The force knocks you on your elbows. Breaking the chain didn’t get the cuffs off from around your wrists, but at least you can move your arms again. 

Deeper screams from Eren’s Titan resound through the alleyways. Suddenly, you panic about not being able to see what’s happening. He sounds louder, more crazed. 

To your horror, the sounds of fighting start back up again. Screams that you now recognize as Annie’s fill the air amidst Eren’s roars. You scramble back up to your feet and run in the other direction, desperate to get there before it’s too late. 

Before you get to a bridge overlooking the courtyard where the fight is taking place, you see a group of Military Police running on foot. Instinctual terror kicks in at the sight of cops, and you book it down the nearest alleyway and flatten your back against the wall. 

The unit passes quickly, but those forty-five seconds are enough for something significant to happen. You feel it before you see it – only one set of Titan footsteps rattle the ground. When you finally reach the bridge you’re horrified to see Annie(‘s Titan), beaten and missing a leg. 

She’s climbing the wall. Everyone around you shouts in horror, with some people running in the other direction. You’re too afraid to move from where you stand so you sit there and watch in disbelief. There’s a moment (albeit a brief one) where you genuinely think she might make it over. 

But as soon as you see smoke from a set of ODM gear and the glint of blades, you know it’s not going to work. You consider closing your eyes, but it feels like you’re frozen. The next minute or so – it can’t have been more – will end up replaying in your mind for years afterwards. 

It feels like slow motion when she falls, with her severed fingers still rooted in a stone halfway up the wall.

At the time it feels like an eternity is passing, but later you realize it actually happened so much more quickly than you could comprehend. Events that took place in just an hour and half end up haunting you for the rest of your life. 

Her landing leaves a crater in the rock below. Plumes of steam emanate from both of the Titans as they roar, with Eren jumping on her before she could have the chance to run away. 

It was over as soon as Annie hit the ground. 

Eren lets out a scream so deafening that you have to cover your ears. He makes several quick movements as he lunges at the already-broken form of the Female Titan. One arm flies off in one direction, then a massive leg flies in the other as they’re ripped off. 

The second you see that in his rage, he’s going after her head. Even if it’s not her actual body, you can’t bear to watch. You physically cover your face to block your view. Tears of hysteria streak down your face – you know what’s going to happen, and you don’t want to see it. 

An impossibly bright light suddenly shines from the middle of the square. The roars from Eren’s Titan become less enraged and more confused. 

You peek between your fingers to see that the light is appearing from Annie. Eren’s Titan thrashes on top of her. He tries to pull away to no avail, but fails when his flesh practically melts into Annie’s. 

Like you’d experienced many times over the last few days, you can practically hear her voice in your head as a memory replays. 

“My biggest dream is to give up,” she’d said. 

She had seemed so defeated when she had said that…  Out of everything she’s ever alluded to and implied, this is the one thing that genuinely makes sense to you. This memory sticks out to you more than others do over the next few days.

The clear angle you have of her crying in the top of her destroyed Titan only lasts for a moment before her face is enveloped. An eerie blue aura surrounds her, illuminating her silhouette and spreading outward until all of a sudden, the entire square is lit up. There’s another flash of light, and then silence. 

That silence is so much more painful than the screams. It had been better with all the fighting and destruction, just because she was here. 

Eren’s Titan slumps as both of the behemoths dissolve and steam. Where Annie’s Titan used to be is a massive hunk of crystal. The light returns to normal, and just as quickly as all of this began it comes to a devastatingly anticlimactic ending. 

There’s just shock in the aftermath. A long silence settles over the city that paralyzes you. Everyone else begins to move before you do. 

Annie is motionless inside the rock, with her eyes closed. Somehow you know without confirmation that there’s nothing to be done. You know her well enough to know that she’s not coming out of there. 

Just like that, she’s gone. 

Even if she isn’t dead, she’s not going to come out of there, not after everything that just happened. All you can do is stare, shell-shocked and alone. 

Soldiers on either side of you start murmuring, whispering amongst themselves. For them, the confusion wears off after a minute. As everyone around you begins to move and deal with reality, your world slows down. How is everyone doing their jobs like nothing has happened? How is it that the world continues on when the person you care about most was just taken away? 

But as you sit there and stare through the distorted crystal, you realize that you don’t even know who exactly you’re mourning. Right now you can’t say confidently that you even knew her at all. Is it the real Annie that you’re afraid of being without? 

Or is it the fact that you’re only realizing at this moment that you never came close to knowing her at all?  

The hysteria hits quickly. Your vision blurs as tears well up in your eyes and you grip the concrete railing, so tightly that it hurts your hands. 

At some point, you regain control of your body, and find yourself rushing down the nearest staircase. It might be futile at this point, but you can’t resist the urge to go to her. Nobody stops you, surprisingly, as you hurtle across the destroyed square. 

The air nearby is still thick with steam. As you grow closer to the crystal, the surface fogs ever-so-slightly. You fall to your knees before it, and in the process you scrape every inch of your knees that hadn’t already been scraped. 

You ignore the pain, and press your forehead and the palm of your hand against the clear rock. 

For the longest time you thought you were special. She opened up to you, she came to you for comfort in a way that she didn’t trust anyone else… Was that a lie? Had she been pretending all along, stringing you along for her own cruel amusement? 

Or worse, had she actually cared for you in some sick and twisted way? Is your teenage fling enough to justify even entertaining the idea of forgiving her – but then again you could only do that if you could talk it through with her, and you can’t. Do you even want to forgive her? 

Logically, no. But emotionally… well, you know what? Fuck your emotions – you don’t trust them anymore. If this whole experience has taught you anything, then the lesson has nothing to do with war, or with the Titans.

All you’ve learned is what it feels like to have your heart ripped out and stomped on. And yet, if you could go back in time with the knowledge you have now, you would still make a lot of the same choices. 

It’s Annie who you wish had chosen differently. 

The crystal is still warm. She’s alive, right? You don’t see the movement of her breathing anymore. Can she still hear you? She doesn’t need to be able to respond, you reason. Please, you think, please don’t leave me alone. 

This must be the bargaining stage. It’s pathetic, and you resent the feelings that it brings up. She’s a traitor, isn’t she? A murderer, a monster. She used you. 

You lied for her, and because of that she was able to kill hundreds of people. Indirectly, she’s responsible for thousands more deaths. She’s responsible for killing your grandparents, for destroying your home. 

But no, that’s not the person that you knew. That can’t be the same person who you fell in love with. You go completely numb and wonder when your jailors are going to catch up with you and place you back under arrest. With their track record, it surely couldn’t be long. 

As if on cue, you hear a familiar voice call out from the distance to chastise you. 

“Wow!” it says “You really must be trying to raise my blood pressure! As if everything else happening today wasn’t enough.”

Hanji stands with their hands on their hips, a disapproving look plastered on their face. Soldiers march past them on either side and once again you feel the cold slap of a second pair of handcuffs pressing into your wrists. 

“Augh, come on,” you protest, “I’ve already been cuffed, can’t you just re-connect the last one?”

“Sorry... you don’t get to make requests when you broke out of custody. You know that technically makes you a fugitive, right?” 

You angrily glare up at Hanji as their team members restrain you further. 

One of them wraps a chain around your wrists, looping it several times over and in between your arms, excessively so. You shoot them an angry look too, just for good measure. 

“Stop running away and we’ll stop treating you like a flight risk,” Hanji groans. “You’re starting to become a real thorn in my side. Maybe I should pawn you off to another officer so you wouldn’t be my problem anymore.” 

You pout your lip. “Do you really mean that, Section Leader? Even if I promise to tell you all of my secrets?”  

They aren’t amused. All they do is narrow their eyes at you, and it comes across a bit hostile. “I don’t know how to deal with this attitude you’re developing. Cooperate if you want to. We’re going to find out as much as we can with or without your help.” 

“Whatever,” you say. After a few seconds, you cross your arms and look down. “I was just trying to say that I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” 

Hanji just looks down at you in response with their arms crossed. They really are done indulging your bullshit, aren’t they? 

Embarrassed, you look off to the side to avoid eye contact. “And I’m done being in denial, or whatever. Can I just… have a moment alone with her?” 

“Not a chance,” they reply, immediately. They don’t even take time to consider it, which pisses you off. 

“I will, however, let you watch if you stay in this exact spot. Mobilt, give me a piece of chalk–” they only pause for as long as it takes the man beside her to dig in his jacket pocket. He produces the piece of chalk, which Hanji promptly plucks from his fingers. 

It’s a whole theatrical thing. They bend down and use the chalk to draw a line across the pavement front of you, much more dramatically than is necessary. 

“You’re not allowed to move past this spot, and you’ll have a guard with you until you’re locked in a cell,” they tell you. 

Someone calls out for them from a distance and they groan. Their eyes flutter closed in annoyance as they pinch the bridge of their nose. 

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do: I have to leave, so I want my best people watching you. They are busy at the moment,” they gesture to the group of soldiers lining up two wooden carts side-by-side. Some adjust the wagons themselves while others begin to unroll a massive tarp.  

Hanji continues on. “So you’re going to wait here until they’ve finished, and then you’ll be taken in for processing. I’ll come when I can. Right now, I have to deal with this fucking hole in the Wall…” 

Later, you see them at the top, looking down at the covered section beneath them. You don’t think much of it, consumed as you are with your own shit. Right now, however, you stay staring at the crystal. You want to take as long as you can to look at her while you still can, and you’re grateful you’re allowed to stay. 

You’re stuck with the same guard before, who has since gone from apathetic to actively annoyed with you. You try to ignore the looks you get from passerbys as you sit there behind your stupid little chalk line, twiddling your thumbs. 

A dozen soldiers heave the massive crystal onto the wagon but stagger halfway. The sound of hardening scraping against the stone floor fills the square until finally, after some straining, the crystal makes it off the ground. The wagons immediately groan in protest but everything stays in place. 

Your heart sinks when they stretch the tarp over Annie’s encased body. It horrifies you, to be honest. The whole time you watch you’re filled with an increasing amount of dread. But there’s something deep inside of you that can’t look away, not when you’re so worried it might be the last time you see her. 

The dust and residue floating around makes blinking dry and painful, so instead you subject yourself to the equally uncomfortable experience of just not blinking. Your eyeballs burn and tears spill down your cheeks to try and make up for the lack of moisture. Through the blurry haze you watch them buckle the rock down with straps. 

The only part of her body that isn’t covered at this angle is the tops of her feet where the tarp doesn’t fully cover her. It’s hardly anything, just a splash of dark brown in the kaleidoscope of colors the afternoon sun casts into the crystal. It’s just the tips of her boots, but it's all you can see. 

The carts rumble away once it’s secure. It doesn’t take long for the soldiers to veer down a road out of your view, and suddenly, your time is up. All you can do is stare at the tips of your own boots (the same model), haunted. 

You’re yanked to your feet as the soldiers doing the heavy lifting are finished. They walk down a different street and you’re carted behind them. Somebody steps on the back of your shoe when you slow down to try and take another glance you know you can’t take. 

They lead you through the city the long way, and it feels like a punishment. You feel like you’re being forced to do a walk of shame for the sheer humiliation of it, and it’s working. It’s really getting to you. 

God, you really loved her… Does that make you a traitor, too? You question your own motives once again, whether you subconsciously ignored signs that would have been obvious to anyone else. On some level you knew that the feelings you had for her were dangerously strong. 

Something sinks inside of you as old feelings bubble up. You feel stupid and small, just like you did when you were child. It terrifies you to think of the scale on which people were hurt, or about the trail of dead bodies lying in wake of this destruction. More than anything you feel deep guilt. 

There’s a collapsed building blocking the main road, so the guards lead you down a new street. You’re so distracted by your thoughts that it takes you a few moments to recognize your surroundings, but your blood runs ice cold when you do. 

The Titan battle had decimated the entire area. Most of the pantheon was in ruins, with blood pooling in the cracks of the broken marble floor. Gilded chunks of walls and window panes have been thrown clear across the once-manicured lawn. Shattered glass and chunks of stone litter the clearing. 

All at once, you recognize it. The crumbling remains of the atrium you’re looking at had once belonged to the Church of the Walls. 

If you hadn’t known what it had looked like before it was destroyed, you probably wouldn’t have recognized it. The golden roof looks brown beneath the thick layer of dust that’s settled over the scene. Ornately carved architecture lies split in half. 

It’s all intimately familiar to you in a way that you’re not proud of. After you take a moment to take in the destruction of this place, you’re hit hard with the butt of a rifle while your escorts try to get you back in line. 

At this point, you’ve had an extremely shitty day. They were stupid enough to cuff your hands in front of your body for a second time, and the chains around your wrists serve as a bludgeon to reinforce the blow. 

You swing your hands up hard to punch the soldier in the nose. It definitely breaks his nose, judging by the blood that spills between your fingers. To make sure that he stays down for good measure, you kick the motherfucker in the stomach. 

In the confusion you dash off down an alley, running away out of custody for at least the third time that day. The stunt earns you another earful from Hanji and another day in the clink, but you have to know. 

You have to see for yourself. 

A soldier with a clipboard stands in a field of dead bodies loosely covered with white sheets. In your state, you don’t care for niceties and just snatch the board from his hands. Your eyes scan a list of names of the confirmed dead frantically, only to realize how few identifications they’d been able to make. Shoving the list back into the poor soldier’s hand, you shove right past any worried inquiries he may have had.  

Later, the full effect of the horror hits you. You go through the rows of dead bodies, pulling back the sheets just enough to see faces before you re-cover them, and trying to ignore the pulling in your gut. Some of the bodies are missing entire limbs, staining the white cloth a heavy crimson.  Was the dread because you were afraid you would see a familiar face, or that you wouldn’t?  

Two rows, three rows, and nothing. Nobody is stopping you from looking, but you are getting weird looks from the nearby MPs. You’re starting to get frantic. 

By the time you’ve moved to the fourth row of bodies, your hands are shaking. Perhaps appropriately so. When you lift the sheet on the third body in the row, shock makes you drop the sheet before you even get the chance to see the face underneath. You don’t need to, not when you can see that the woman’s hair is identical to that on your own head. 

You hadn’t seen your mother for years, but you remember her hair. It’s shorter than yours now with intermittent greys, but it looks exactly like you remembered it. She has the same hairstyle even, all these years later. Again you lift the sheet. 

This time, you actually look. It’s almost surreal. You hadn’t quite realized how much you’ve grown to look like her these days until you’re staring at your own face beneath that sheet, differentiated only by age, death, and a trickle of blood dripping from her mouth. 

Her ribs are concave, flattened so completely that it takes you a moment to realize that there’s an extra limb in the mix. 

You throw back the sheet to see better. Wrapped around your mothers’ elbow is the disembodied right arm of a man. That was the wrist your father wore his watch, yes? You pull down the sleeve of the dark suit jacket to find what you’d been looking for. 

The glass is shattered and the clasp has broken, but the sleeve contained enough of the watch together in one piece that you can tell what it once was. What remains of the clock face is still intact. Sure enough, when you turn it over, you see that two initials (his own and your mother’s) as well as a family crest are engraved on the polished metal backing. 

At the bottom, there used to be three more sets of initials for each of their children. You realize with disgust that all three have been covered. Crudely scratched out, really, but the intention of the action hits you directly in the soul. 

His feelings had been clear to you for a long time, but this was another level of awful.

You stand there frozen in place, stunned, for long enough that the group of soldiers arresting you finds you again. At that point, they’re beyond done with your antics. You don’t resist when you’re tackled into the grass. 

Someone undoes your handcuffs (both sets, luckily) only to redo them behind your back this time, so tightly that it cuts into your wrists. It seems they’ve learned a lesson now. A rope goes around your torso, and you nearly snarl at the overkill. 

“I’m not an animal.”

“Shut the hell up and stay where you are,” says a very tall soldier, with much broader shoulders than the last guy. The one that you punched stands a few feet back, glowering at you with an ice pack pressed against your nose. 

What you want to do is give them a piece of your mind, remind them that you’d gone willingly every time. But it doesn’t come out. Instead, as soon as your mouth opens you laugh. You look back down at what’s left of the only living relatives you had and laugh. 

You laugh hysterically, your voice shaking. Honestly, you don’t know how to feel. In a way you feel free now that your parents are gone, but every aspect of how it came about was horrifying. Even as you hated them their death left your gut twisting. 

“Wait a minute, hold on,” you manage to get out through bursts of giggle-crying, “I can identify them… I need to tell someone who they are.” 

The soldier guarding you rolls his eyes. 

“Make it quick,” he tells you gruffly, but he does shove you back over to the disgruntled man with the clipboard. 

He’s still a bit annoyed with you from earlier, but he looks at you like you have two heads now that you come up laughing like a crazy person. 

“Georg and Claudia Last/Name,” you announce, although much to your displeasure your voice cracks before you can follow up with: “Add them to your list.” 

The soldier jots down the names, then flips the page on the clipboard to cross something out. “Alright, thanks for the information. If you know them, can you direct me towards their next of kin?” 

You snort on your laughter, and if your hands could be near your face you might have buried it in them with shame. 

“There’s no one. There’s nobody left,” to your great surprise, you begin to choke on tears. “I think their money would be better off with someone who actually needs it.” 

He checks a box, but the soldier with the clipboard just continues to look down at you judgmentally. “Yeah, it doesn’t really work like that. I just need to know who needs to get the news if there are kids or other surviving family members.” 

“Whatever,” you mumble, “All of their kids died a long time ago.” Anything you stood to inherit, you didn’t want anyway. 

As you’re led away, you stare at the spot in the grass where the broken wristwatch lay shattered. The crossed-out engravings on the back are visible amongst the shattered glass and bent metal. 

Somebody from behind you yanks on your handcuffs. You cynically wish that you could run away again. In your current situation, you’ve only gotten into more trouble running. Where would you even go now? What exactly could you look forward to? 

Well, for the first time in your life you’re not afraid of your parents anymore. That certainly counts for something. 

Later, you smugly chuckle to yourself when you realize that even if your father crossed out your initials on that stupid wristwatch, you’re still the last one standing. 

To this day, you don’t know why it was you who lived. You didn’t earn it, or make any ‘better’ choices. 

You spend the next week in a dingy jail cell. Most of the time you’re completely alone, save a guard who brings you meals, and when you’re being further interrogated. You quickly recognize that you have no other option than to endure it all, and the depression sets in quickly. 

It feels good to let yourself wallow, at first. Everything hurts so badly that you feel like you might cease to exist. You wish that you could be absorbed into the stone floor beneath you, to be forgotten but finally free from the strife that plagued you at every turn. 

The punches never stop coming. At the moment you realize that this is just yet another shitty thing that’s happened to you, you reach the stage of acceptance. 

Annie was gone. You were still here, and you and everybody else she left behind were left to deal with the aftermath. 

Cooperating completely and totally was the only option you had if you wanted to seem at all trustworthy. You decide to tell Hanji everything you know, and in interviews you confess to everything you can recall. 

It’s humiliating and degrading and even invasive at times, but you comply so you’ll regain their trust. You’re truthful in the hopes that you’ll be allowed to see her again, someday. Even if she is under guard, frozen in place, and unable to communicate. 

If you can prove to the military that you’re worthy of trust, then you can help discover where she came from, or why she did the things she did. Maybe that way, one day if you ever do find a way to get her out then you’ll be the one who receives her. 

Someday you want to understand how Annie could have looked you in the eye and lied to you so convincingly. You need to know how she could let you get so close to her when she was planning to kill you the whole time. Hopefully, she would be able to explain herself someday. 

If only you could understand. 

massive trigger warning for CSA in the following scene.

reader's backstory involves descriptions of child abuse in several forms - most of what's discussed is psychological or neglectful, but it is also HEAVILY implied that one of the younger brothers was sexually abused.

please skip a few paragraphs if you need to, or at the very least, be warned.

A week after what happened at Stohess, you’re still under careful supervision. And although you’re no longer handcuffed or in jail, there’s constantly somebody nearby watching you. You can’t even take a shower without somebody standing right outside the door. 

Nearly everyone else treats you either like a scarlet-letter pariah or an airhead who was too dim-witted to realize Annie’s ‘master plan.’ You haven’t seen any of the people in your graduating class since the day of the fight, and you aren’t particularly looking forward to seeing them again if they’re judging you the way you’re judging yourself. 

The whole time you’re being questioned, you comply. You tell them everything you knew, which was albeit not very much. Hanji was the only person in charge of your captivity who even bothers to speak to you, and therefore they are the only person you give vital information to. 

During your interviews, you don’t include the details that are special to you – instead, you treasure them privately. All you say is “Yes, she did seem guilty when the topic came up.” You don’t correct them when they assume she was plotting every moment of every day. You leave out the parts where she cried inconsolably at the thought of all the death, all the destruction, and you leave out her apologies. They wouldn’t care anyway. 

There’s no point in mentioning that she wasn’t all bad. No point in saying that she was gentle with you, and shy when it came to her feelings. It would just make you look like you were taking her side if you talked about her  – and maybe you were to a certain extent. 

“My biggest dream is to give up,” you remember her saying once. “I don’t care about any of this anymore. I’m so tired… I want to go home.” She clearly had regrets about what she’d done if she said that. You know her well enough to know when she’s bullshitting, and those emotions were genuine. 

After what she did, the assumption that she’s a heartless monster is pretty easy to come by, but defending her to the military will only get you in trouble. Every night you cry yourself to sleep as you try to relive the happy memories on a loop. 

It was bad enough that Annie and her crystal are doomed to stay in Stohess. You had to keep coming back to this horrible place when it’s all you want to leave behind. It’s so inconvenient – how are you supposed to visit her when you’re constantly bouncing around from one place to another with your Scout assignments? 

The reality of the situation is that you won’t be able to. Keeping her where she is forces you to be under supervision at all times, forces you to stay under the watchful eye of the military. It solved the problem of imprisonment and containment in one fell swoop. 

The first time you see her, about a week and a half has passed since what happened in the city. Every time you want to go down to visit her, you have to ask. There was a whole process including forms, wait time, and a bureaucratic review pending approval before you’re allowed to even think about going.

Even then, you’re not allowed to be alone with her at first. Much to your chagrin, a soldier stands at the entrance to the cavern staring you down the entire time you’re there. Genuinely, it’s humiliating. It highlights how little control you have over everything. 

You walk up to the crystal awkwardly and acutely aware of being watched. At first, you’re too nervous and self-aware to do anything but pick at already-shredded cuticles. This is all you wanted for days, but now that you’re actually here you’re not quite sure what to do. 

At first, you can’t bring yourself to even look at her. You have to take a moment to muster your courage before you’re able to actually do it. So much buildup and tension just for the same face you already know so well. It breaks your heart. 

She looks exactly the same. Of course she does, she always will, for as long as she’s in there. 

There’s so much you want to say to her. You have so much hurt inside of you that it overflows – where do you start? Even if you do ask all of your questions, will you be able to convey everything you feel? Will talking to her even make you feel better now that she can’t answer the hundreds of questions that you’re inevitably going to ask?

Blinking back tears, you swallow nervously to clear your throat. You don’t know where your stream of consciousness will take you, but starting somewhere is better than nowhere. 

You keep your voice low so that the soldier accompanying you won’t be able to make out what you’re saying. Your lips are just inches away from the surface, as close as her prison will allow you to get. 

“I want to be mad at you. Mostly, for lying to me. How could you do that to me, when I cared about you so much?”

You glare at the crystal, and at Annie’s unchanged expression deep within it. 

“I wish that I could just be angry… I have so many emotions, really. I’m sad, and I miss you, and I feel betrayed. I’m not sure I have that right, since there are things I wasn’t honest about either. Like my parents. I was ashamed of them, and I didn’t even tell you they existed until you asked. And even then I still lied about them.” 

“The real reason that I wanted to get away from them, and that I never went back… It didn’t have anything to do with what they did to me. Don’t get me wrong, they treated me horribly too, but… that wasn’t the final straw. On the surface they seem like perfectly nice people. Maybe that’s why I’m so resentful, because they really aren’t even assholes.” 

It’s no surprise that her expression remains unchanged. So why do you keep looking at her, talking like you expect a response?

“I used to think they were evil, but now I think it’s more complicated than that. It’s not evil to be misguided. You were misguided, right? You had to be, or maybe I need you to be. That’s why you never wanted me to comfort you, why you didn’t think you deserved it, isn’t it? I can’t wrap my head around any of this. You did so many horrible things but you’re still not half as bad of a person as my parents were, and they were fucking celebrated in their community.” 

“Shit, I’m still doing it. Being vague and skirting around the point. I’m sorry.” You look down at your shoes. “It’s only fair that now I know your secrets, that you should get to learn mine. I wish that you had gotten the chance to tell me in your own time. I really want to believe that you would have. Or would you have just kept pushing me away? Did you expect to just go back to wherever your home is and leave me here? Did you think I would be okay with that?”

You get so worked up that you find yourself hyperventilating, voice rising and your face getting hot. It’s too much, you have to physically turn away from the crystal while you take a moment for yourself, to cool down. Fighting tears and breathing hard, you try to shake away the anger. 

You have the rest of your fucking life to be angry at her. The military gave you twenty minutes with Annie and the crystal, and you came here with a goal in mind. 

Taking a deep breath to prepare yourself, you turn back around and continue on. You’re just going to say it. Get it over with so that you never have to talk about it again. 

“My parents were members of the Church of the Walls. High-ranking ones, with generations of family members in the ranks. They used to take me with them to services and gatherings, for years. That’s why I hate crowds, and jewelry, and wearing dresses. It’s why I left Stohess behind so easily. It’s why my grandparents took us away. It’s why I ran away again after my brothers died. It defined every aspect of my life.” 

“My parents only cared about being good Wallists. That, and making sure we were, too. The Church was the reason why my parents had three children – I was both the favorite for being the only daughter and the screwup for not being the third son. Every time anything went wrong, it was my fault.” 

“We were expected to wear certain clothes, act a certain way. Go to services two or three times a week and memorize all the prayers. My brothers were too young to remember anything, I think. That’s my hope at least.”  

“Apparently my grandparents didn’t even know about the Church. They didn’t know my parents were religious and they sure as hell didn’t know about the way they treated us. I don’t know why I never said anything before. Now that I’m older I can see all the red flags everywhere else. But you understand, don’t you? Isn’t that why you got caught up in… everything you did?” you gesture vaguely to the crystal. “You can’t see the red flags if it’s all you’ve ever known.”

Subconsciously, your brain conjures the image of your mother’s body beneath the sheet, her arm still linked with that of your dismembered father. It’s so visceral that it turns your stomach, but once again you find yourself laughing uncontrollably. 

“I declined their inheritance so I don’t really know what’s happening with that. Kind of fucked up, but I’m a little relieved that I don’t have to keep living in a world where they’re still there. Even more fucked up? I’m a lot more upset that you’re still in this stupid chunk of rock than I am that you’re the one who killed them.”

You lower your voice so that the guard won’t hear, but you hold your face right next to the crystal. “I’ve thought about what I was going to say to you about this more than anything else. I don’t think you’re in the right for anything you did that day in Stohess, with one exception. When it comes to crushing the Church and the Wallists, more than anything all I have to say… is thank you.” 

“Isn’t that so fucked up? You killed my parents and I’m on your side. If that doesn’t prove to you that I’m just as messed up in the head as you are then I don’t know what will. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t believe you did all of this… but every time I think of everyone in that Church dying so horribly I just–”

Your voice cracks, and you laugh deliriously. “I’m so glad they died screaming. The terror they felt in those final moments when they realized the Walls couldn’t protect them is worth more to me than I know how to put into words. I might not understand your motives, but for this one act of destruction… somebody forgives you. Thank you, and I forgive you.” 

“I’m not as passive and naive as you always seemed to think. You were never delicate or waifish. I just didn’t realize you had so much power. I wish that you chose to use it for a better purpose… I wish that you felt like you could’ve come to me. What’s so important to you that you kept choosing to be a killer?” 

“Shit,” you cut yourself off when you realize that even still, you’re still veering off topic. You were going to tell her the whole truth. That’s what you came here to do, not chastise her further. Surely she knows she’s in the wrong. 

Just say it. 

The laughter bubbles up again, inappropriately. This time it’s because you’re uncomfortable, and enraged. “I never told you why my grandparents took us away. I actually didn’t really get it until after the Wall fell once my parents started talking about destiny and the Will of Walls and all this bullshit.” 

You swallow hard as you continue on. “Right after my youngest brother Joseph was born, my father got some kind of promotion within the ranks. After that, we started having to go to services at night, too. Honestly, they were really scary… I didn’t like to go inside the chapel. We could usually stay outside, me and my brothers. But one day, they made me hold the baby while they took Samuel back with them.” 

“Things got bad after that. Samuel stopped eating, and he didn’t want to play with us anymore. My parents tried to pretend like nothing was happening. They would keep us apart, even during the day. My grandparents came to visit for the holidays that year and my parents kept Samuel from them, too. They knew something was wrong, I could tell… So I ended up telling them everything. We left that night, without anything. No clothes or toys. Just us kids.” 

“So whenever Joseph and I came back to Stohess three years later after Sam died… the two of us were heartbroken. Without our brother we didn’t feel complete anymore, so it was weird when my parents didn’t feel the same way. They weren’t even upset he was gone. I thought I was going crazy at first but they almost seemed happy, relieved.” 

“And then one day, I overheard a conversation after one of the nighttime services. It was the bishops who were interested in Samuel all those years ago. They said that the Walls had taken care of the problem for them, and it all just kind of clicked after that. Why everybody acted so weirdly about everything, and why nobody cared that he was dead. How the fuck are you supposed to live with something like that? In the same house as the people who allowed it to happen, who enabled it? How are you ever supposed to be in the same room as them again?”

Tears burn in your eyes, and your fingernails dig deep into the palms of your hands hard enough to draw blood. 

“I didn’t even see the religion for what it really was until after my grandparents died. I was back living with my parents and suddenly I didn’t have a choice anymore. Maybe it was just because I was older but it was like my eyes were opened. It’s a fucking cult. The Church, and everybody who was blindly loyal to them, pushes you to find grace in suffering. Like that excuses the fact that they’re the ones making you miserable in the first place.”

“Joseph got sick not too long after that. I did tell you the truth about that. It was just a fever that burned too hot. His death didn’t even feel real until after the funeral. Everything became too much after that, when I realized I was alone. I threatened to my father that I’d run away and join the military once, and he told me that he wouldn’t follow me if I did. That I was a disappointment and he never wanted to see me again.” 

“Hah, so that was it! A shining beacon of opportunity to get away and probably the only one I’d ever get. My father was true to his word and didn’t follow me, but my mom wanted me to come home. I never responded to any of her letters because I didn’t give a fuck about so-and-so from who-cares district’s son who could be a good fit for me.”

“Did you know that the Church encourages girls to be married off when they’re only fifteen? If I hadn’t joined the military, I’d be sold off by now. My parents made that much clear… Giving them grandchildren for the congregation was the only thing they saw me as good for. I don’t regret leaving. If I could go back in time the only thing I would do differently is to run away before my brother died. Maybe he would still be here if I’d taken him away from those people, and that place. ” 

“I wish that I could have heard what you would say in response to all of this. Maybe if I had told you my secrets you would have trusted me. I keep thinking about what I would have done if you told me about all of yours… no matter how horrible they were. I don’t know. Fucking shit, I would have helped you run away if it meant you could go home. You could have taken me with you.” 

Suddenly, it all becomes too much. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Church or your dead family – it has to do with the fact that despite all that loss, you never felt alone until now. All of a sudden, you have absolutely no one. 

The military doesn’t trust you, and nobody else in your graduating class can do anything to help you while you’re in prison. The only person who cared about you enough to help you or who would have tried to visit you is frozen in stasis before you. 

If her plan was to kill the people inside of the walls, then why the hell did she care about you so much? The way she acted around you, the way she opened up to you and cared about your safety, directly contradicts motivations of genocide. 

Bitter tears roll down your cheeks as you focus on breathing. It takes you a minute to compose yourself once again. More than anything, you wish that you could see her reaction to everything you’re saying. It’s not fair that she gets to seal herself away and leave the aftermath for everyone else to deal with. 

You need her to be alive. 

Please, you beg silently, please be alive. 

“I wish you’d say something. I feel like I’m talking to myself…” your voice cracks, and you take another minute to gather yourself before you continue. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. This is why I never talk about my family or my life before. It’s why I didn’t understand how you missed your dad.” 

Honestly, you still don’t. She deserved better than someone who let her undertake such a horrible task, much less someone who pushed her toward it. 

You lower your voice again, just in case the guard is listening in. “Our fathers aren’t the same. Mine never wrote to me because he didn’t want to, but I understand now why you miss yours. I’m sorry that you’ve been away from him for so long… even if I don’t know what it’s like to have a dad, you do. I wish I could have been there for you instead of consumed with my own issues. I wish that you would’ve let me be there for you...” 

Monologuing to a crystal was humiliating enough. All at once you’re hit with the fear that she can’t actually hear you in there. You’re wasting your breath, and she got the last laugh weeks ago. 

You can’t reconcile the idea of talking to gravestone so hard, that you put the idea out of your mind entirely. That couldn’t be an option, not when you needed her to hear what you’re saying. 

“They said there’s a chance that you can’t even hear me now,” you whisper, and the idea is so overwhelmingly awful that you rest your forehead against the crystal. The cool surface helps, and you catch your breath. “But I think you can.” 

“And that’s the real horror about all of this, right? That you’re going to stay in there instead of dealing with everything that’s happened. I would say ‘typical’ except this time it just isn’t funny. You’re seriously in there, just fucking sitting there. Is it really easier for you to stop existing like this, rather than face up to what you’ve done?” 

“Part of me won’t ever forgive you. I wish that I was convinced everything you did was in my best interest, but I’m not. How could you be doing what you were doing and then start a relationship with me? Why didn’t you just push me away like you did everyone else?” 

“I keep wondering if I’m part of the reason you chose to lock yourself away… that you want to avoid me just as much as the military interrogation. For someone who once begged me to stay alive no matter what, you’re being really fucking hypocritical. I always thought it was strange that you chose the words you did when you asked me to ‘be a coward’ if it meant I lived, but I think I understand that now, too.”

“It’s you who’s a coward. You aren’t even ashamed of it. Everything you did to me was so selfish, and you took me for an idiot. I thought you were a good person despite everything you said. I was so good to you and in return you lied to me and treated me like garbage.”

Now you’re genuinely starting to get upset. You choke back a sob and force yourself to breathe. 

“When I think about the things you’ve done, part of me hates you. I don’t want anything to do with you… but then I remember the good things, too. I dream about you every single time I sleep. Every time I wake up there’s a minute where I forget everything that’s happened, and it’s like you could be just across the hall again, back when we first met.”

You stare at her unchanged face, passive and nearly sparkling with refracted light in the crystal. She looks peaceful for the most part, but there’s a distant sadness knitted into her eyebrows and in the downturn of the corners of her lips. 

“Did you really love me?” you ask, empty of emotion. 

It feels like you’re talking to yourself.

“The worst part is that in the end, I don’t hate you. Not all the way. I think… I think you might have really loved me. That’s the only reason I can come up with that you could do this to me, and leave me like this. In your own fucked up way, that’s your way of protecting me. But I resent that you pushed me away. I wish that I could have talked to you one last time.”

“If you can hear me, then listen: I don’t blame you for everything that’s happened. I mean, I do – it’s despicable. But I don’t blame you the way the military does. The person that I got to know wasn’t a monster. I don’t think you wanted to kill people... I saw the way it hurt you after Trost… I –” you stumble on your words. 

You can’t talk about that. It hurts too much. You want to kick yourself for comforting her after she murdered your friends, and a part of you even wants to yell at her. Though you also remember the way she cried and shook, pushed you away. How she begged for forgiveness… 

“No, don’t comfort me, I don’t deserve it. Or your kindness, or your love,” she had said. “It’s me that’s the issue. It always has been, You’re the one who deserves better.”

The memories come flooding through your mind again, like you’d gotten so used to over the past few days. Now that you’re sitting in front of her you find that you feel more hurt than anything. You’re angry and brokenhearted and confused, but mostly just betrayed. 

“I saw your face when you were a Titan. You were scared. You cared that people died… I never understood why you pretended like you didn’t care. I thought you had anxiety, or you never properly learned how to talk to another person. Maybe you were embarrassed – that could still be true.” 

Out of nervousness, you look over your shoulder to see if the soldier supervising you was actively paying attention. He was not, but you keep your voice low anyway. 

“But in the end, I think you were ashamed. I knew that, on some level. I thought it had to do with your sexuality, maybe? Or maybe you just had trouble figuring out where you fit in. You acted like you hated everyone else. But now, I think that you hated yourself most of all. And I feel bad for you. I’ve always wanted better for you.”

You touch the crystal, flattening the palm of your hand against the surface. It’s cold, lifeless, just like the blonde girl inside. 

“Ever since all of this has gone down, I’ve thought about everything that’s ever happened between us in a different way, trying to see when you were lying to me. And now that I know what you were doing, it all makes sense. Whenever the memories replay it’s like I watch all of the dots connecting, only it’s too late for me to actually do anything about it.” 

“Do you think we’ll ever get to talk again, like we used to?” you ask her. This one-sided conversation wasn’t doing much for you besides making you feel lonely. “Have I hugged you for the last time without even knowing?”

It leaves you emotionally exhausted to think of either outcome. How are you ever supposed to move on if you never speak to her again? You can’t imagine gaining closure in her absence. 

And if she does come out, you’re not sure how you’d feel anyway. Will you still be angry, would you be able to put everything aside? Are the feelings you once had for her strong enough, or genuine enough, that it won’t fade over time? 

You’re not sure if you’ll ever look at her the same way you did once, with tenderness and love in your eyes. The heaviness of that sentiment breaks your heart – right now you care about her so much that it makes your chest ache. You don’t want the affection you have for her to fade, or to lose the feeling of warmth that she brought into your hear. If you lose it now, you’re worried that you’ll never be able to feel like that again. 

The overwhelming feeling you’re left with is a stomach-churning mix of apprehension and fear, but not on your own behalf. It deeply upsets you to think that she chooses a dreamless limbo as her fate. Even if she is in there, how might this affect her in the long run? 

“I know why you lied to me now. I get it, and sometimes, I forgive you. You were terrified, that much was clear from the beginning. I always knew that you were hiding something, but I just thought you were unhappy where you were. Only now I realize that your world is so much bigger than what’s inside of these walls.” 

“It was never the military, or even Paradis, really, that you wanted to escape. It was your whole life. You never wanted any of this. I’m sorry that you were put into such a shitty position. I wish you had let me understand… maybe I will someday.”

That’s all you want, really. In the darkest times, you retreat to your favorite daydream. There are no sharp details, just fuzzy glimpses of intimacy and happiness that you’ve learned is all too fleeting. You’re together, happy. Safe. Does anything else matter? 

From across the room, the solider assigned to watch you finally speaks up. 

“Your twenty minutes are up.”

Panic stirs up in your gut. There’s still so much you wanted to tell her, and to ask her about. Is this really all you get for now? You try to reassure yourself that she isn’t going anywhere, that you’ll have plenty of time to think about what else you need to say. It only adds to your fear concerning the situation. 

You wipe away your tears. “Okay. I’m coming.” 

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that this is what interaction will be like from now on, if you could even call it that. All you’re doing is staring up at her sadly. 

She never had been much of a talker. It breaks your heart that she’s having to pay such a steep price – you wanted to know more. More about why she would hide away when you know she has answers that would save her. More about where she came from and why she did such horrible things. 

There’s still something more that she’s running away from. Something that haunts her, a nameless evil. Even still, she’s protecting you. 

What was the point of theorizing? You know no theory you can come up with will be close to the truth. 

Tiredness overwhelms you as you reach the entryway of the cavern, next to your escort. The guard is already holding the door open waiting for you to go on through. You shake your head, and for the millionth time hold back your tears. 

“I need a second,” you cry, turning around so that he won’t see your display of emotions. You try and ignore the sigh of annoyance you get in response. 

Before you leave her, you look at Annie one last time. You take no comfort in seeing her here or in imagining what it must be like for her. It brings you no peace to know that she lies sleeping beneath the city you hate more than anywhere else, trapped in the cold and the dark. 

Finally, you force yourself to dry your tears. These brief visits are all you’re allowed to have whether you like it or not, and you know deep down that you’ll have to learn to accept the situation as it is. 

It feels like you’re leaving everything behind, on a certain level. You can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, when you stopped caring so much. Maybe it was sometime in the endless overlapping hours you spent thinking all too much while stuck in jail. Maybe it was before that, when you were covered in dust and blood in the wreckage of the city above. 

You feel empty. The hurt is still there, and it will demand to be acknowledged. Yet for now, you push it aside. Right now you embrace the numbness of feeling nothing. If that’s the only way you can get through the hardest parts, then so be it. 

After all, you have a promise to keep. You can’t let her down when there’s still a sliver of possibility that she’s alive inside that crystal. 

Now, with the numbness inside of you easing the ache, you do something that you never thought you’d be able to do without Annie. 

You walk away. 

im just as traumatized as y'all... STILL PLEASE YELL AT ME THOUGH. MAKE THE PAYOFF WORTH IT. IM SCREAMNIG TOO.

it's not that she loves Christmas specifically, she just loves how many opportunities the holidays give her to spend time with the people she loves. her phone backgrounds are always group photos or goofy selfies from holiday dinners / gift exchanges.

Mikasa loves Secret Santa. she's usually the one to arrange everything, and to engineer the name-draws in a way where everybody gets someone they'll be able to shop for. she always buys really good presents.

but she's never too wrapped up *buh dum tss* to make sure that you feel appreciated during the holidays. she gets you one present to open on Christmas Eve and another one in the morning. as for the gifts themselves, she says: go big or go home. nintendo switch baby!

ᴘɪᴇᴄᴋ

absolutely THE most thoughtful gift-giver of all time. you try to get her something she'll really like, and she still one-ups you by giving you more gifts than any sane person would.

Christmas is a 48-hour affair for Pieck. she'll wake you on the 24th with kisses on your cheek and your first present. for the rest of the day she'll randomly slide a gift across the table, or drop one in your lap with a huge smile on her face.

every single one of them is visually perfect, with lots of ribbons and bows adorning the wrapping paper. bags are stylish with glittery wrapping paper, to the point where you feel bad opening the gifts and disrupting how nice it looks.

the presents range from everything such as face masks and socks to crystals for healing and channeling positive energy to jewelry to little fandom keychains and buttons. you can't help but worry she spent to much money on you, but when she reassures you that your grateful reactions are the best presents she could have received, you blush as bright red as Rudolph's nose.

ʜᴀɴᴊɪ

definitely the most festive of the bunch. they take Christmas very seriously, to the point where they have a whole Excel spreadsheet with who they need to buy presents for, what they'll buy for them, and how much the presents cost.

decorations in their house go up the day after Thanksgiving: big blow up snowmen and reindeer, with blinking lights synced to their favorite Christmas songs. Hanji has been shopping for gifts by the time Black Friday rolls around. by mid-December they have their presents bought, as they very much value having time to enjoy the holidays without stressing over shopping.

they're committed to the Santa bit harder than any adult you know. where did they get the massive burlap bag from, and more importantly, where did they get that red and white suit, or the fake beard? it wasn't... NOT working for them though...? hmmm.

it's pretty funny when they give you their gifts while still in the Santa suit, but you do make them take off the fake beard when you notice how they linger under the mistletoe whenever you walk by.

ᴀɴɴɪᴇ

honestly, she thinks the holiday season is overrated. she despises Christmas music with everything in her soul, and she'd scowl at the idea of making cookies or singing around a tree. she's the one downing a bottle of alcoholic eggnog in the corner of the party.

she does, however, enjoy the decorating that comes in early december. one day when you get home, you see her dangling over the edge of the roof stringing lights up with no ladder in sight. there's a tangible spark of joy in her when she plugs in that last string up and the whole roof lights up.

she thinks it's a waste of money to get a real tree, so she pulls out the same 5-foot-tall plastic one every year and puts the same basic baubles and ornaments on it. simple and tradtional. she only puts two presents underneath (one for you and one for her dad), and wraps them very poorly with newspaper and duct tape.

despite its worse-for-wear appearance, the gift is incredibly thoughtful and personalized. something like a scrapbook full of memories, where she's saved everything that she's done with you (festival wristbands, movie tickets, and even the now-dried-up flower you'd picked for her on your first date).

ʏᴇʟᴇɴᴀ

she's jewish, non-practicing. she doesn't really celebrate any holidays in the winter, however, she definitely accepts gifts from other people (although she doesn't buy them for anybody but you 😉).

Word Count: 8.6k

Author’s Note: here's some more blatant miscommunication re: annie not actually being able to talk about what's bothering her! i've also had some inquiry about the backstory for Annie's reader in my little fic world -- i intend to explore that in a different aspect each chapter as well

The battle of Trost was many of the cadets’ first encounters with Titans face to face, but it was not yours. You’d seen them before, five years ago when the Wall fell. You remembered the way their footsteps shook the very ground you stood on. The hot, coppery scent of blood mixed with something inhuman and terrifying clogs all of your senses.

Whenever Wall Maria fell, you were just a child. But you will never forget what you saw on that day. And as much as it changed you, this was worse. The amount of death, and gore. It was unthinkable.

Fear takes over quickly, and you’re torn between freezing in horror and running as fast as your legs will take you. If you hadn’t been on the back of a horse, you’d be dead. Sometimes you wish that you had died, too, with everything that was lost. Everything you had seen.

Seeing the carnage from Titans never grew any less horrifying, no matter what the scenario was or how

But fighting them? That was so much worse. It was worse because this time you saw everything. Limbs being torn from people you knew and were friends with. Your comrades in arms, the people you used to sleep next to and eat with, crushed and bitten and ripped and stepped on, all right in front of your eyes.

Twenty minutes after the gates have broken, you watched your first squad get picked off one by one. You and one other survivor barely made it out, by luck alone. Until you’re able to meet up with somebody you know, you run along rooftops to try and save gas.

After the tides turn, you try hard not to get separated from your friends. You’re careful to swing high around even the small Titans as you zip down an alleyway to clear the path for Eren and the massive boulder that rests on his shoulder.

You make your first kill right then, as you zoom up behind a small Titan, maybe 5 or 6 meters in height. You’re so caught up in the adrenaline and pride in yourself that you don’t realize what’s happened until you hear the screaming from behind you.

It all happens so fast. You hook your maneuvering gear to the lightning rod of a nearby building, just to get away. In the time it takes for you to get to your vantage point and turn around, it’s too late for you to help.

A titan crawling on its hands and knees catches one of your squadmates by the wires of their gear and yanks him to the floor. The only other survivor from your first group runs to help, but the Titan is faster. It grabs him around the chest and squeezes, and then you lose him too.

The rest of you freeze, overcome with shock. Some people cry, you included. It seems like ages have passed with everyone staring in horror as the Titan goes back and forth. When it turns its attention away from its prey, it lunges for a rooftop. The cadet who is perched on top screams and frantically looks for another place to run.

It’s a miracle that the Survey Corps arrive when they do. They zip through the alleyway at the speed of sound, quietly and full of determination. Barely does it take their effort to slay what had been an untouchable monster seconds before.

The casualties are insurmountable. You end the day alone, again. Blood that’s grown cold soaks your clothes and chills you down to the bone, so much more visceral than anything you’ve ever known.

Humanity won, but was it really a victory?

207 dead or missing, and 897 injured. It was nothing compared to when Wall Maria fell but you hadn’t been on the front lines back then. It was so different to drag piles of dead bodies (or pieces of them) into town squares to be burned. It was so different to have every turn you take be filled with more horror and death.

The first time you saw the blood, you witnessed the horror. But you were saved that night, and the sacrifice on your behalf gave you meaning. This time? It was just death around every corner.

The first time that night falls after the battle ends, you go back to the military barracks you were assigned to when you first arrived in Trost. There are only a couple of others in the showers, so you take your time getting clean. You stand under the water for quite a long time trying to wash the blood off. You even stay once the water runs clear.

You take your time in the showers, intending to get as much time to yourself as you can. So whenever you return to an empty room it surprises you – there were four beds in a dorm room, with a bunk against each wall.

It shouldn’t be empty. Between how late you got back and how long you took showering, everyone else should be back. At least somebody.

It hits you along with a wave of nausea. One of them was on your first squad. You can’t recall seeing the other two all day. You realize that you’re the only one out of them who is still alive.

That morning four girls had woken up in that room. You didn’t know them well, but you’re sick over the fact that you didn’t know it would be the last time you’d seen them.

You vomit in the trash can.

Once everything is out and you’re gagging on an empty stomach, you sob to yourself as you stare at the empty beds around you. There were still belongings strewn about the room, discarded pajamas, and half-unpacked travel bags. Are you supposed to get rid of this stuff? Will someone else eventually clear it out?

Whether it’s because you’re lost to your crying or due to well-oiled hinges, you don’t notice when the door creaks open. Only when you hear a gentle knock do you realize that you’re no longer alone.

After quickly wiping away your tears, you turn to look at the entryway to see Annie, looking smaller than usual. The hood of her jacket is pulled up to cover her face, and her face is shadowed. Her eyes are hollow and red, obviously swollen.

“You’re here,” she sniffles, “I mean, alive.”

You nod. “You too, huh?”

She looks down at her feet. “It’ll take more than that to get rid of me.”

“You’re crying,” she points out, like she doesn’t know what to do with that information. Like she hasn’t obviously been crying, too.

It’s a struggle to shove your feelings down. You try to wipe your eyes with the backs of your hands.

“I’m okay,” you try to insist, although you’re painfully aware of how shaky your voice sounds, “I just feel sick. I threw up.”

“Oh…” she replies, hesitating in the doorway. “I can leave you alone then. Sorry.”

Annie reaches for the doorknob again, and you can’t help but protest. You hadn’t meant for her to leave, just to make her think you were holding yourself together better than you are. The last thing you needed now was to look weak in front of one of the only people who you want to have a high opinion of you.

“Wait no! Come back,” you plead. You worry that it’ll come off as desperate, but the emptiness of the room “You could stay…”

“Fine, okay,” she says, but pulls a face as she distastefully eyes the trash can you had barfed in moments ago, “Just brush your teeth first, yeah?”

Embarrassment floods through you, and your cheeks darken. “Oh my god. Yeah, my toothbrush is in here.”

As you dig through the bag with shaking hands, you soon find the small pouch where you keep the brush and some toothpaste, which you squeeze directly in your mouth while Annie has her back turned. She glances down the hallway to make sure no one sees her sneaking in before she closes the door.

You quickly brush your teeth over the trash can, then spit the rest of it out and tie the bag closed. Then you kick it far, far away on the other side of the room where you can’t see it.

When you come back to sit on the bed, you find that Annie is already there. She sits folded up on her knees with her hands shoved deep into her pockets.

“I’m not crying,” she sniffles, “this is just because I got smoke in my eyes.”

It’s one of the more obvious lies she’s told, but you don’t argue with her.

“Oh,” you nod, “yeah, me too. It’s the smoke.”

Now that she’s closer, you can see more details of her face. Her eyes aren’t just red and swollen; her entire face is puffy. She’s viscerally upset in a way that you can’t ever remember seeing her before. Lip trembling, hands shaking, and tears pouring from her eyes. She’s barely holding back tears.

You place your hand on her shoulder, and Annie flinches.

She avoids looking at you but begins to cry harder. You aren’t sure whether you’re upsetting her more or if she’s just having a hard time processing. You rub your thumb along her hoodie for a minute.

“I’m sorry,” is all that she says, “I’m sorry.”

Annie suddenly begins to sob, and she’s crying so intensely that she isn’t breathing. Her face goes from red to purple to nearly blue. It’s then that you take her by the shoulders and start to get genuinely concerned.

“Oh my god, you need to breathe,” you urge, wrapping one arm around her shoulder from behind and putting the other on top of her chest.

You force her to sit up straight, and finally, she gasps. Your hand rises as her lungs refill. She breathes raggedly and for once, lets you hold her for a minute. She buries her head into your shoulder and soaks the fabric of your shirt. All you do is hold her for as long as she lets you.

Finally, she pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, again.

She’s nearly rocking back and forth with an expression unreadable aside from the panic in her eyes. She covers her head with her hands.

“Annie, I’m worried about you. You’re not afraid of anything.”

“I’m not afraid, I’m just disgusted,” she spits, eyes wild. “People that… People we knew died today and I — I’m such a hypocrite!” (she scoffs) “So many people died and I’m here letting you comfort me.”

Your heart sinks, and you hope to think that you know what she’s feeling – there was no reason that any of you survived beyond luck, and who knows what she witnessed when you weren’t around. All you know is that you’d seen more than your fill of horror for a lifetime.

“Hey, no. Don’t do that. You were so good out there today. One of the best of us all!” you frantically try to recount everything, though your memory eludes you at the moment. “You killed like, a bunch of Titans out there. I only killed one and I almost messed it up. But you were on fire. You saved people’s lives – we all saw you save Connie.”

Annie’s fingers clench in her hair, and she yanks it hard. “Yeah… but you don’t understand,” she groans, gritting her teeth and crying bitterly. “Maybe I am getting too attached…”

She swats your hand away when you try to touch her shoulder this time.

You can’t think of anything to say, so you just frown. “Annie…”

She sighs as if the weight of the world rests on her shoulders.

For a moment, you remain quiet. After a beat, you push past her protests and plant your hand on her shoulder, squeezing.

“Isn’t it better to try and fight than to just give up?”

Tears well up in her eyes. “No,” Annie shakes her head, “My biggest dream is to give up.”

She chokes on a sob and takes a moment to catch her breath before she continues shakily.

“I don’t care about any of this anymore. I’m so tired…” and with that, something inside of her cracks. A barrier falls and tears flood down her cheeks. “I want to go home.”

There’s a faraway look on her face that looks completely defeated. As soon as she lets herself slump into your arms, she all but gives up. The next thing you know you’re the only thing standing between her and full-on breakdown.

A panic stirs in your gut, that goes beyond just simply unsettling. Seeing her cry was jarring enough, but Annie was quickly devolving to a place you’re not familiar with. Her breathing quickens and she looks absolutely terrified, shaking like a leaf in the wind.

You think back to the only other time she’d cried in front of you, and try to remember why she had been so upset or what you’d done to comfort her. There’s a vague memory of not knowing back then, either. One minute she’d been telling you about her childhood and her training, and the next she was crying.

You certainly remember being pushed away when you tried to embrace her. Was that the first night you’d held her hand? And now, even as she loses it in front of you, you find yourself blushing like a schoolgirl. You place your hand over hers and gently interlock your fingers from above.

You’re about to pull her into a hug when Annie gives you a strange look.

“You never told me how your parents died,” she says, out of nowhere.

You’re taken aback. It takes you a minute to process.

And then another minute to realize that she’s expecting an answer from you.

“Oh, um. They didn’t–” you stutter, awkwardly, “they’re, uh, not dead.”

She sits up straight, and you lose your hold on her. “You told me that your family died when Wall Maria fell.”

“They did. My parents didn’t raise me. Come back, please,” you frown.

Surprisingly, Annie looks a little miffed. She throws your arm back to you. “You’ve never once talked about them, or gone to visit them.”

You shrug, though you feel self-conscious.

“So?” A blush stains your cheeks and ears. “I don’t talk to them.”

Annie stares at you.

“I’ve known you for three years, and this whole time you’ve had parents and a home?” she questions, in a way that feels very judgemental.

“No, I haven’t!” you’re a little taken aback, so you sit up as well. “Why do you care so much about this anyway? Stop interrogating me.”

Annie scoffs. “Trust me, this is not an interrogation. I just can’t believe that I didn’t know that about you,” she scrunches up her nose in thought, “or maybe I never asked... I can’t believe you don’t talk to your parents. What did they do – are they assholes or something?”

“I mean, yeah,” you reply, getting defensive, “Do you think I’m just a horrible daughter?”

She shrugs. “People can be complicated.”

If that’s supposed to be comforting, it’s not. You sigh.

“There’s a reason I joined the military in the first place, and why I still don’t talk to them now. I’m not a bad person.”

Tears shine in Annie’s eyes, and your concern mounts.

She shakes her head. “You’re not… I’m sorry.”

You’re still upset but she was obviously at a moment of emotional overwhelm. It wouldn’t help to push her, but this was a matter of pride.

“I wasn’t lying, you know,” you explain, “everybody who mattered to me died when the Wall fell five years ago. My parents just happen to be the only ones not there. There was a reason for that, too.”

When you look over, you see that Annie has shifted to face you. A moment of silence passes, and then she tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s not quite shy, more on the guilty side.

“Can you tell me what happened that night?” she asks. Her voice is surprisingly soft, and there’s something sensitive, maybe even vulnerable behind the mask she wears.

You freeze up. Annie notices your discomfort and takes your hands in hers. She scoots closer to you and wipes her tears away.

“I never asked. I knew you lost people but I couldn’t hear it,” she admits, and you’re shocked to see how close she is to falling apart as she stumbles over her words; “I’m–m so fucked up beyond belief for only asking now, after today.” Her shoulders sag, and it “but for some reason, you’re the only p-person here that’s keeping it together.”

The only person keeping it together? That’s a fat crock of shit. You eye the corner where the trash can you’d yakked in was hidden away. You were resoundingly NOT holding anything together.

Your chin wobbles, and your voice cracks. “Holy shit, that does not feel true. I’m freaking out. I watched people have their limbs ripped off, get bitten in half. I almost died about ten times. Why am I here while so many others are dead?”

You let yourself slump down on the bed, defeated. By the time you look over again at Annie, it’s like she’s long gone.

It was too much. She let down her barriers for just a moment only to short-circuit. Any vulnerability she’d let come forth is withdrawn in an instant. Her face falls, and twists in anguish before wiping completely clear. Emotionless. She screws her eyes shut.

Tears stream down her cheeks but she doesn’t say a word. She begins to shake, and she looks like she’s seen a ghost. Eventually, when she opens her eyes, there’s a faraway look on her face.

Annie’s lower lip trembles. Her hands are shaking and she looks like she’s about to snap. “I don’t know,” she sobs, “Why… do I have to–?”

Her face drains of blood and for a moment, you’re actually afraid for her. She doesn’t look present, just overtaken by hysteria. Biting down on your lip, hard, it’s all you can do to stop yourself from bursting into tears.

Yet Annie beats you to it. She slaps a hand over her mouth and completely loses her composure once again.

“You’re shitting me… you asshole!” she cries, “N-no– I don’t want to. I won’t…”

Before, you could get through to her, but now she's unreachable. The emotions come on so suddenly that you don’t even have time to react. You try to sit up and hug her, but she flattens her hand on your chest to keep you down.

“Oh, Annie,” you soothe from afar, placing your hand on top of hers. She just swats you away, then crumples in on herself with her face buried in her hands.

“No… Oh, no. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to…”

At this point, you gain recognition that she’s not talking directly to you, just channeling her pain in a very weird, confusing way. It’s a little scary, but you want her to feel like she can come to you. You just keep your distance until she cries herself out.

“It’s not fair,” she sniffles, “This is so much more than I ever signed up for. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Then your heart breaks for her, just as it aches for everyone who fought or died today. You feel as if she voiced the same emotions you’re feeling. You wish you could run away, live together somewhere undisturbed by life and all these troubles.

What a far-fetched dream that seemed like… You’d be lucky to make it until the end of the year before you were eaten in the line of duty.

“You’ll be in the interior soon enough,” you remind her, “you won’t have to fight Titans again.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not even what I mean. It’s so complicated, Y/N.”

It’s obvious that there’s a lot on her mind, and the way she always bottles it up is clearly taking a toll on her. She’s heavy, burdened.

In an attempt to give her space to talk, you ask: “What do you m–”

“–I don’t want to talk about it.”

Well, so much for that.

Annie is visibly agitated. She’s bone-tired enough to never move from that spot on your bed, but her eyes flit back and forth, round and round and her brain spins. Tears well up in her eyes.

You want to touch her again.

“Hey…” you whisper, as you lean over to her, and then slowly position yourself next to her so you can pull her into your arms again.

Maybe you’re young, but you love her. Even if you don’t really know how to tell her, or even if you thought she wanted you to hear it. Something so strong as an “I love you” would be sure to send her running for the hills.

Instead, you play with her hair. You give her a place to come whenever she’s scared or vulnerable and you don’t judge her. It’s the least you can do when she trusts you like this.

“I’ll do whatever I have to to stay alive,” she says, “I’m not a good person.”

“I think that’s okay, Annie,” you soothe, pulling her back into you. “A lot of us would. It’s human to want to live and it doesn’t make you bad.”

She doesn’t fight your embrace, but she doesn’t exactly return it. Instead of relying on her permission to let you in, you wind your arms around her tightly, tucking her head on your shoulder.

“You’re not any worse than the rest of us survivors,” you tell her, “after the battle, we’re all lucky to be here right now.”

You half expect her to cry again, but she seems hollow. She doesn’t argue. The air is heavy with tension, but Annie responds with some sniffles and a sigh.

It looks like she wants to say something that just won’t come out or something that she can’t find words for. Her voice dies at the back of her throat as she tries and fails to get out words.

Annie lets out a broken sob. “I miss my dad,” she cries, “I want to go home.”

For a moment she seems like a lost little kid. You rub her back soothingly, and finally, after a deep shuddering exhale, something inside of her melts away and she lets you really comfort her. She nuzzles into your neck needily.

After that, there really isn’t that much to say. It’s worse to think about everything that has happened in the past 24 hours, so you try to think of something to say, anything to say.

But you’re so overcome with dread that words fail you.

Annie shudders. Her cheek nuzzles into you and the fabric of your shirt grows tight, like she’s pulling onto it. For a little while, you just let her get the emotional release out of her system.

But after a certain point, she seems lost to it. The sobbing borders on inconsolable so you wrap your arms around her tightly. It traps her in place, and when she struggles against you you fear that you’ve made a horrible mistake. But just as quickly and violently, she stops moving altogether.

You’re about to straight-up check for a pulse when you feel her let out a deep exhale. Her limbs tighten around you, and though it’s more of a desperate struggle to cling to you than a true embrace you still feel your heartbeat quickening.

One of her hands stays rooted in your shirt, and the other presses against the skin of the back of your neck. Her fingers gently trace on the back and sides of your neck while her palm remains firmly against your skin. Her breathing slows to normalcy again.

Closeness between you and Annie wasn’t something new by this point, but the days where you’d be able to be with her were quickly coming to an end. And while no breakup was ever discussed, the imminent graduation and the knowledge Annie would leave for the Military Police kept hanging over your heads.

No matter where you chose, you wouldn’t see her anymore. No more dorm room rendezvous or sneaking out past curfew into the woods. For now, all you could really think about was how grateful you were that if nothing else, Annie would be safe in the interior.

You push away thoughts of what it would be like when you’re scattered across the walls. It makes you sick to think that with all the death and loss, you still have to say goodbye to the one person who matters most of all. Knowing she was alive would have to be enough.

For now you cling to her, and think about how soft her hair is. Will you be able to remember in a few months the way she rests her head on your shoulder? The way her breath puffs onto the skin of your collarbone, or with the way you’re holding her you can feel her ribs expanding as she breathes.

And then for just a brief snippet of time, everything is perfect. The horrors of the world aren’t gone, but you’re not facing them alone. You have Annie.

But as always, after a certain point, she decides that she’s done. Whether it’s affection or compassion that she grows weary of, you don’t know. But you can’t say you’re surprised when she worms her way out of your embrace, and the moment ends.

She doesn’t go far, just to lean against the wall about a foot away. She doesn’t even shake your embrace, keeping your arm wrapped around her shoulder.

“I know your parents are assholes,” she says, “so tell me about the rest of your family.”

“Uh, okay, so,” you stutter out nervously, “I lived with my grandparents on my mom’s side. They were farmers. They were my mom’s parents. Um, I’m the oldest. I have two younger brothers, Samuel and Joseph.”

You stop talking. For a second, you can’t breathe.

“I had two younger brothers,” you correct.

Annie shakes her head, pressing her eyes shut.

A long moment passes.

“How long did you live with them?” she asks.

“About four years? I used to spend time there before that, though. My grandparent’s house was way out in the country, and I loved the animals. They taught me how to take care of all of them, and how to cook.”

There’s a look on her face, but Annie doesn’t say anything.

“They had a dog, too. A big cattle-herding one that loved to run around and play. Most of the dogs in the cities were strays, the kind you couldn't really pet.”

“I’m more of a cat person,” she admits, though you manage to draw a wistful smile out of her as briefly, she thinks of fuzzy tails and squishy paws.

A few moments of silence pass, then Annie asks: “Your parents lived in the interior?”

You nod. “Yeah, Wall Sina. It was one of the gate cities – the one on the right, Stohess. My father was a legacy banker. Like his father before him and probably my brothers down the line, if they were here.

She nods as she listens, but doesn’t react with any recognition.

So you continue on. “It’s full of rich snobs, organized crime, and those crazy Wallists. There’s a whole sect of them growing in the city, they even built themselves a little pantheon a few years ago. There are services like, every day of the week.”

Annie’s nose wrinkles.

You move on quickly and pray she doesn’t ask more about your parents or the Church specifically, lest you have to go into detail that you’re not ready to give. You’re quick to change the subject.

“I’m not a city girl anyway, and I loved the countryside in Wall Maria. I wish I could take you there. I bet my grandparents would have really liked you.”

Annie blushes and shakes her head, looking down. “That’s not true. I’m not… the kind of person you can take home. They wouldn’t like me.”

“That’s not true…” you counter, quick to comfort her. “Don’t get upset, okay? There’s no one alive that I’d want to know about you.”

“So I guess that means meeting your parents is out, then?”

You laugh out loud. “My parents don’t even like ME …” and though your chest tightens, you try to keep on laughing, “but my father would be happy to never see me again.”

“Why would you say that?” Annie asks. For the first time in the conversation, she looks upset. And not in an emotional way, but one tinted with anger.

Scoffing in disbelief, you pull your knees up to your chest. “He was happier when I told him I was joining the military than he was to see me alive after the Wall fell. I think he blamed me for my brothers’ deaths.”

Although she’s still pulling an odd grimace, she nods and lifts her eyes to meet yours.

“I’m sorry you don’t have anyone,” she mutters, “It’s hard when you can’t go home for the holidays, or when you’re the only person not getting letters from family.”

There’s a pause, which grows even more awkward the longer you don’t talk. Annie continues to glare, and you don’t understand why she’s so

You rub the back of your neck, embarrassed. “I’ve gotten a few letters from my mom…”

“I’ve never seen you write back,” she narrows her eyes.

“I don’t reply to her,” you confess, “There’s nothing to say and she only talks about herself.”

“Oh…” Annie says. She avoids eye contact, looking off to the side and down at the floor.

You can tell something is still bothering her.

You know that you’re leaving her in the dark, but after the day you’ve had, all you want is to think of better things. There are reasons you haven’t told her every detail of your past and you certainly weren’t ready to spill them when you were in the middle of a completely different crisis.

“Annie,” you begin, “You have to understand–”

She shakes her head. “You’re just lucky that someone writes to you. That’s all,” she says, “I would write letters to my dad if I could.”

You look away, embarrassed. From the very little you knew about him, you didn’t realize Annie was particularly close to her dad. In fact, one of the things that initially brought you together was reveling in what little freedom you had in the dorms compared to what your home lives had been like.

There must be something about their relationship you don’t understand for her to react like this. Maybe he was the only living relative she had left, though in your case, the dislike for your parents goes so deep that it’s tainted your ability to be objective on the matter.

You made your choice on the matter. It’s okay if she didn’t agree with it, but the idea that she didn’t respect the idea gets to you.

“What’s stopping you?” you ask, begrudgingly.

Annie huffs, and for a moment, you deeply regret having said anything.

“It’s not important. I mean, it’s complicated,” she snaps, “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

A nasty look is all it takes for you to look away and drop the subject. “Just because my father doesn’t send me a letter asking me about my feelings every month doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want me to come back home.”

You pipe back up, to defend your very honor. “That is not what I said at all.”

“Well, what else could you mean? Just because your father doesn’t write to you doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want you to come home. He still loves you.”

It’s hard to suppress the laugh that bubbles up with that retort. You weren’t trying to imply anything about her dad either way, even if you did think he was a little bit of a jerk. Okay, maybe a big jerk.

But your dad, on the other hand, is a grade-A, narcissistic piece of shit who never thought about anybody but himself. He’s a complete asshole and it’s a damn pleasure not to know him anymore. Even if you did get the impression that he cared (he didn’t), you still wouldn’t want anything to do with him. The military was less than ideal, but it was an escape before you came of age.

It’s obvious that the subject brings up an insecurity that Annie wasn’t ready to talk about, so you try to move on. You lean back with your head against the wall, exhaling.

“Can we just talk about something else entirely please?” you beg. “I’ll even tell you about the night Wall Maria fell if we can just stop talking about our fucking parents.”

Annie laughs through her nose, so subtly you could’ve missed it. She doesn’t even smile, but it’s enough to dissipate the tension surrounding the two of you. The atmosphere grows heavy again as silence settles.

When it’s quiet, you’re aware of how empty the room is. You remember all the horror from today, the sound of screaming and the slick weight of blood soaking your clothing.

Annie puts her head on your shoulder again and wraps herself around your upper arm.

“Tell me,” she instructs, so that the silence doesn’t linger.

You nod. “They lived on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, in Maria territory. We didn’t stand a chance when the wall fell.”

Her head hangs. “I’m sorry,” is all she says, and then she retreats back within herself. You lose the ability to make sense of her expression.

She swallows her feelings. They’re gone as quickly as they appeared. A sniffle, then she’s back to looking at you.

“It was the middle of the night. I could hear the footsteps and I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on what but I went and got my littlest brother, Joseph, because he was just four. My grandpa carried us downstairs and tried to put us on a horse.

“I ran away at first, I wanted to find my other brother… Samuel. He was really good at hide-and-seek and sometimes, he’d hide when he was scared. I knew all of his favorite spots – I could have found him if I had looked. But my grandpa wouldn’t let me.”

Annie hangs on to your every word, looking horribly forlorn with a faraway look in her eye

“I was so mad. He picked me up and threw me onto the horse. He just slapped it and told me to hold onto my brother. I thought he was going to follow us. We had two horses.

“The Titan came right after he sent the horse away. It was fat, with tiny legs and these wide crazy eyes. And with teeth like a nightmare. Huge teeth that were too big for its face. I’ll never forget it. And it’s still out there… I was so afraid I was going to see it during the siege earlier. If I ever see it… I’ll – I’ll kill it, or I’ll die trying.”

Annie still doesn’t say anything. Her gaze moves between your face and the floor and at one point, you catch her wiping away a tear. Whenever you pause, she tightens her hug on your arm.

“I never saw exactly what went down before I saw it,” you admit, “But I don’t think my Grandpa would’ve left anyone behind. The only thing that makes sense, is that the Titan killed my grandma and my brother, and then my Grandpa sacrificed himself for the two of us he could save.

“That’s all. We reached Wall Rose by morning. It was so chaotic that it took a few days for us to be identified, but within a few days we were back in Stohess with my parents. I was back in private school, and dance lessons, like nothing had ever happened.”

Back to the Church, like nothing happened.

“I’m so sorry. ” Annie mutters. Her face is void of emotion, but not because she isn’t feeling anything. She pushes it all down like you’ve seen her do a million times over. “Your life was ruined when your family died.”

You don’t outright agree, but you certainly mourn the life that was stolen from you. “I never thought I’d end up here, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and gets that same hollow look in her eye from earlier. “I really am so, so sorry.”

It scares you, how it seems like she’s begging. You’ve never seen sorrow like this from her before, or sincerity. She apologizes like she should have been there to protect you, and to protect your family.

“It’s okay,” you say, nervous. It feels bizarre that you're still comforting her when it’s your tragic backstory.

“Is this about what I said about my dad?” you ask, “Because you were right – our fathers aren’t the same. I know he wants you to come home just as much as you want to go back.”

“No, it’s not that,” she says, and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I just, I thought you said both of your brothers died. You said your grandfather saved two of you.”

Huge blue eyes look up at you with anticipation. “What about your littlest brother?” she asks.

Your heart stops. “He died, too,” the words catch in your throat, but you push through it the same way you have for years. “He got sick. It was just a fever, and then he was dead. It was just me after that.”

A heavy silence fills the air, and the emptiness surrounds you.

Annie stares away for a long time. The wheels in her brain are still turning, but she doesn’t find any words. There’s nothing to say.

Her eyes are red, and more tears fall from her eyelashes. After a moment, she

“Do you want to get under the blankets?” she asks, numbly.

It takes a moment to gather your bearings, but then you nod.

The bed creaks as Annie climbs off. While you pull the blankets up and crawl beneath them, Annie blows out the flame in the lantern. Darkness falls in the room, and for a moment you see nothing.

Once your eyes adjust, you can see the dim outlines of furniture from the small amount of light that comes in the crack underneath the door. You’re aware that Annie climbs into bed with you from the creak of the mattress and the slight jostling of the springs adjusting to the weight of a second person.

This time, Annie initiates the comfort. She nuzzles her chin into your shoulder and puts her hand gently on top of your thigh. Yet you notice that despite her efforts, she’s still sniveling.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispers.

Although you don’t verbally respond, you lean in to kiss her on the cheek. You’d been aiming for her forehead but the sentiment is still there. Gently you sweep her hair back from her face as you caress along her neck and jawline.

The silence is interrupted by Annie taking a deep breath in, then releasing it. Her wavering breath gives more insight into her state of mind than her words.

Your heart aches.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Y/N,” she tells you, and there’s a sweet lilt to her voice that she rarely shows. Maybe it’s because you can’t see her and that gives her more courage, or maybe she’s more shaken up than you first realized. You certainly can’t imagine her saying those words and yet here you are hearing them.

It was unlike her. So unlike her, and it concerns you. It may have been a hard day, but it’s still a sharp contrast to the straight-faced girl you’re used to, that insecurity floods your mind.

You laugh so that you don’t start crying again. “I’m not sure that I am.”

All the blood drains from your face. You don’t know where it comes from. And as soon as you say it, you realize how inappropriate of a response that it is.

Annie is not amused.

“Don’t say that…” she warns. All of the warmth and docility that had just steeped in her voice suddenly leaves just as quickly as it came.

But again the events of today (that will soon become your everyday reality) flash before your eyes. You see yourself in your mind’s eye stomped on, bitten in half, swallowed whole. It IS just a matter of time, right?

“Even if I survive the next battle and the one after that, there’s always going to be something else. While you’re safe in the interior, I’ll probably be Titan vomit by this time next year.”

Cold hands wrap around your wrists tightly. “Seriously, don’t say that…” Annie protests softly, and her fingernails dig into your forearms, “I don’t want you to die. Not you.”

There’s a tender moment between the two of you where she draws your hands to rest on top of her chest. She breathes in shakily, and the last thing you want to do is make her cry again.

Your fingers trace the jutting bone in the center of her breastbone, etching care with your touch. “I didn’t mean it.”

A sniffle. There’s a shuffle of movement, and one of her hands leaves yours presumably to wipe her nose on her sleeve. You still can’t see anything.

“I’m sorry,” she says for the hundred millionth time that night.

The panic washes over you again – damn it. This wasn’t the reaction you had been going for at all. What had started as self-pity on your end had clearly upset her in a very real way.

“No, I am,” and when she doesn’t reply, you commit: “I’ll never say it again. I’m sorry, Annie.”

Her hand comes back to touch you, this time lacing her fingers in yours, and you notice that she’s trembling with fear.

“ I’m sorry–” she re-emphasizes.

“–no, stop! You didn’t do anything,” you interrupt. You squeeze her hand, and shift your position so that your other hand is on her shoulder. “So stop apologizing, okay?”

Annie swallows hard. She breathes in through her nose, and when she inhales her breath wavers still from her tears.

“Okay,” she finally says. A few seconds later she squeezes your fingers in return.

“It’s because of what I said?” you ask with your heart in your throat.

Another deep breath. “Yes,” she says, as she groans and throws her head off to the side indecisively, “No.”

“Oh, Annie…” you mutter sadly, and lift a hand to her.

She literally knocks your hand away when you try to stroke her face, denying the gesture and telling you to fuck off at the same time. You can still only make out the vague outline of her form and you have no clue how she saw you coming in the dark.

“No, don’t comfort me,” she pleads, “I don’t deserve it.” She sounds so broken compared to how angry her words and actions felt.

When she had been the one to come to you, that stings a little bit. It feels personal, like you’d done something. Had you blown it for no good reason, by doing something you didn’t even understand?

“You don’t deserve my comfort?” you ask, frowning.

The movement of her shaking her head jostles the pillow. “Or your kindness,” she chokes out, “or your love.”

When you don’t have a response, Annie sighs. Her fingers twitch against yours, and her other hand cups your cheek.

“It’s me that’s the issue. It always has been,” she assures you, with a heartbreaking resigned huff of laughter, “You’re the one who deserves better.”

The dynamic flips again with Annie putting herself back down. What you want to do is burst into tears. You want to shake her shoulders until she sees sense, how could she not see that she was everything you wanted? How was it not obvious that you would turn the world for her if you could?

But it wouldn’t help. If you tried to explain your feelings to her, or even to interrupt her destructive train of thought it would just make her go quiet. She’d shut off completely to retreat into herself. Worst case scenario, she keeps on spiraling and walks out, leaving you alone.

You aren’t sure if you can handle being alone right now. You aren’t sure if she can handle being alone right now when something is so clearly wrong.

She won’t listen, and you don’t know what you would say anyway. You bury your head into the crook of her neck and throw your arms around her shoulders. You don’t cry, but you want to.

It takes her a few long and admittedly awkward moments for Annie to get her arms around you, too. The trembling in her hands is still there, making it slow going for her to find a grip.

The embrace does seem to bring her a modicum of comfort, whether she thinks she deserves it or not. Her breathing slows and evens, and she starts to actually hug you in return instead of just holding her arms on top of you.

She pulls you so close to you that you have to shift again. Your arm slides beneath the pillow and around her from beneath, and she scoots so that you can put your head on her shoulder. It leaves you wrapped up in more of an intimate position than you’d anticipated, but it’s nice.

Neither of you moves, and you get the impression that Annie feels just as safe and warm as you do in the moment. Nothing is okay, but right now you can ignore that. That’s more than you’ve ever had before.

You stay in that position for a while, though neither of you are tired. Annie twists your hair in her fingers, and the two of you are both so grateful to be with another person that the silence is comfortable. All you do is lie there and absorb the quiet and fleeting moment of peace. You grow used to the feeling of the rising and falling of Annie’s breath, only interrupted by the occasional wavering inhales left over from the earlier crying.

“Can you promise me something?” she asks after a considerable amount of time has passed.

You look up at the shadowy outline of her face and nod.

And although you can’t see her eyes, you feel them on you. “No matter what happens… don’t die on me.”

“Oh,” you stumble, a little taken aback. You aren’t sure what you’d expected her to say, but it hadn’t been that. “I’ll try…”

She breathes out hard, but not angrily. More like she’s sad. Far away and isolated.

“I’m serious. You deserve to have a life and to be happy,” she tells you, deadpan, as she touches your face. “Please… I need you to live.”

The tenderness of her actions and the intensity of her words is such a sharp contrast that it gives you chills. It would have been just as effective for her to have flipped you around and pinned you down – you feel a little cornered despite that her attention is affectionate.

“O-okay,” you swear, talking with her thumb atop on your bottom lip, “I promise. I’ll survive.”

Annie shakes her head, hand moving to cup your cheek. “That’s not what I’m asking. I want you to live , not just to survive.”

Again, despite the gentle touches you feel cornered. For a moment, you stare in her direction blankly.

You’re about to respond, but she doesn’t give you time before she turns on her side. She does not pull out of your embrace, though she does lean back a bit.

“Can you promise me that when you have the choice of being dead or being a coward,” she asks, her voice so serious that you’re nearly “you’ll always choose to be a coward? For me?”

More than anything, you’re concerned. You’ve never seen her acting like this before, and it leaves a strange pit in your stomach. What was prompting this?

You stroke from the curve of her neck down over her shoulders. “Okay, I will. I’ll do it, I’ll be a coward.”

Annie stares at you like she’s trying to cut through the dark. And with that determination, you fully expect her to be able to see every detail of your face, even if your own eyes have only gotten used to the darkness enough to see outlines.

“Promise?” she confirms, with bated breath.

You pull her back into your arms, squeezing her against you. It surprises you when she immediately grasps you back, with the same intensity and desperation that you have.

“Yes. I’ll stay alive,” you whisper into her hair, “I promise.”

It feels weird, making a promise that you don’t particularly want. More than likely your military postings would keep you apart, and you wouldn’t feel like you had anything to live for anyway. Yet when you have someone that you love so wildly clinging to you like you’re everything, it’s hard to want to leave that behind.

Maybe you lived in a cruel world. You didn’t have a choice in your own destiny and you might be scared shitless, but you were loved. Someone cared about you, someone wanted the best for you. That feeling swells in your heart and threatens to burst inside of your chest.

Someday, maybe, you could be with her again. Who knows what will happen? Maybe you’ll be injured, or run away like you always do. Leave the military and find Annie wherever she’s posted. While she’s a high ranking MP, you’ll stay in all day as her housewife. You’ll get cats, maybe a dog that Annie goes soft on.

If staying alive is the only way for you to have a shot at being with her then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It didn’t matter how long it could take, you decide. As long as she’s alive, you don’t want to put her through the pain of mourning you.

You will be a coward, if it’s for her sake.

Neither of you says anything for a good while after that. Eventually, you fall back into more comfortable positions, and you continue to daydream while she goes back to stroking your hair. The motion lulls you into a state of calm that makes you nuzzle right up into her feeling right at home.

“Thank you,” she whispers. You’re not sure what she’s thanking you for and doesn’t seem to have any intention of elaborating, but you’re not surprised. It’s one of the things you’ve come to expect from Annie.

She never had been much of a talker. It breaks your heart that her vulnerability came at such a steep price – you wanted to know more. More about why she was so withdrawn when connection is all that she craves. Why she was so angry all the time and why she was so cagey about her dad. You wanted to know everything that she was bottling up inside of her.

Slowly but surely, she’s telling you more, letting you in further, but there’s still something she can’t say. Something that haunts her so heavily that she can’t even confront it herself, perhaps. A nameless evil that would swallow you whole, and she was protecting you from.

What was the point of theorizing? You trusted Annie enough to come to you in her own time.

As tiredness begins to overwhelm you, you adjust ever so slightly in her arms. She kisses your forehead, and your arm snakes around her torso. It’s intimate, calm, and everything that you needed after the worst day of your lives.

Word Count: 10.5k

Author’s Note: thank you all for being so patient! i truly adore the little community of fans this fic has attracted. it took me a little longer than usual to write this chapter because it was genuinely making me depressed irl - nothing too serious, but it was hard to depict the unhealthy headspace that reader is currently in. so happy this chapter is over! if you haven't read it yet, i started a companion piece that goes along with this fic. linking below.

off the beaten path

Annie looks at you with an amused smirk. 

“I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks now,” you insist, “You just don’t believe me, still.”

She shakes her head. “Okay, so who is she, then?” 

You falter. “Well, I’m not sure, actually…” you admit. Annoyingly, it only adds to the argument against you. 

“...because she’s not real,” Annie finishes. 

“No!” you protest yet again, “She was real, and she brought him a bunch of crap. You know how sometimes he comes home from town with a basketful of random shit?” 

She nods. 

You’ve been thinking about that encounter ever since it happened, and you’ve had time to formulate your own theories. 

“She’s got to have some kind of a connection to the place where he gets that crap. Maybe they met there, or she works there,” you say, even though Annie looks disbelieving. “I think it would be a lot weirder if she didn’t have any connection to the stuff. Then I’d really be suspicious.”

At first, all she does is stare. After a few moments when you don’t back down, she laughs again – guffaws, really. It’s the most amusement she’s gotten out of something since she’s been back. 

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she chuckles, and goes as far to wipe a tear of laughter from her eyes. 

And again you groan. “I’m not making it up!” 

She doesn’t even entertain the idea. Every time you try to bring it up she has the same reaction, barely giving you the time of day. 

Eventually, you just drop the topic entirely. You do however stay on top of watching Papa a little more closely than usual. Unfortunately nothing of interest happens in those first few weeks. 

However, it doesn’t take long for you to realize that the only person acting odd is Annie herself. One night during dinner, there’s a particularly worrying interaction. 

“Could you pass the potatoes?” she asks. It’s the first thing anyone has said in a while, so it almost makes you jump. 

Somehow in the time that she had been gone, you forgot that Leonhardt family dinner was a silent affair. On your own with either one of them, you could get them to open up. When it was you and Papa, you’d talked more during meals than you did anywhere else (maybe the barn, too, towards the end there). 

That wasn’t ever your life. As a child, the dinner table was the center of the house. Dinner was a conversational affair, always. You would be asked about your day or about school. In the best years of your life, you would often sit at the table for hours, talking with your grandparents long after you had finished your plate. 

But when all three of you are sitting at a table, it’s dead silent. They outnumber you and the silence wins. Before Annie left, you had gotten used to it. You’ll get used to it again in time. It went without saying that this was just the norm between the two of them, that Anine’s childhood had been spent in silent dinners. 

It was really lonely. Especially considering that you had gotten used to otherwise. So whenever Annie stops eating and starts talking, it catches both of you off guard before you even hear what it is that she says. 

“Do either of you ever think about where we’d be buried if we die?”

Papa’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. And shockingly, that happens to be one of the few things she could’ve said that leaves you too stunned to reply. 

She looks back and forth between the two of you before she shrugs and looks back down. “I hadn’t ever thought about it before recently,” she mutters, “Warriors didn’t get graves.”

Her dad’s face is completely drained of blood. You realize that his hands are shaking when the fork in his hand trembles, then clatters against his plate. This reaction is what sets you in motion again to redirect the conversation. 

“That’s not something that any of us need to think about right now,” you say decisively. “You and I are young and all three of us are healthy.” 

Annie nods with her brow furrowed, like she hadn’t considered that before. “I know that. I was just wondering, really.” 

Finally, Papa breaks his silence. “Okay, well, don’t,” he snaps, “Got it?” Despite the intensity that he says it with, it’s crystal clear that his emotion is coming from fear rather than anger. 

She nods again to show her understanding, though she deflates a little bit as she goes back to pushing her food around her plate. 

Nobody says anything for the rest of the meal, though the mood of the silence changes considerably after that. You’re on edge the whole time, mostly worried that one of them might lash out in pure emotion and the other misinterprets it for anger. 

Is it lucky or unlucky that they both shove their feelings down? You swear that you watch the process of each of them controlling their facial expressions carefully before they revert back to apathy. 

Neither of them cleans up their spot at the table. Papa stabs his remaining brussel sprouts and shoves them in his mouth, angrily stomping off out of the back door with his mouth full of food. At least he eats them – Annie stays at the table with you for another ten minutes, but she just continues to push her food into a different spot. 

You want to ask her if she’s alright, but you also don’t want to make her feel like she’s made anything weird. For once, you’re not sure what you should say. All you can think of is the laundry list of things of things you want to avoid saying. 

It takes so long and you come up so short that Annie is the one to finally break the silence once it becomes unbearable. 

“Maybe he should get a girlfriend…” she mutters, “If that would make him chill the fuck out for once.”

You nod so that she feels like you’re on her side. What you really want to do is point out that maye he had a point to be concerned. It wasn’t like her to bring up the topic of death so suddenly, not since you’d left Paradis and the curse ended. 

It didn’t feel like a good sign that she was talking about death from the start, but when you think about it compared to some of the stuff she’d said as a teenager you can’t find it in you to call her out. It doesn’t raise enough red flags with you that you’re particularly concerned about her state of mind, given the fact that she acts normal with you for the rest of the night. 

She’s a little quiet maybe, but she’s as affectionate as always. After you both get ready for bed she lies down with a book, and you curl up on her shoulder reading along from the side. A few chapters in you feel yourself getting tired and falling asleep on top of her, and she’s attentive enough to wake you up just enough to reposition you comfortably. 

There’s a smile on your face. The last thing you expect is for things to go off the rails, but of course life has a special way of kicking you in the ass when you’re least expecting it. 

You sleep hard that night. It feels so safe when Annie’s arms are around you and the cats snuggle in, that you let your guard down. You’re so comfortable that you fall into a much deeper sleep than you intend to. 

At some point, you’re roused from sleep, but the heaviness in your eyelids is too strong to resist. You’re vaguely aware of Annie moving beside you, but you shake off the disturbance and flip over to scoop Donut into your embrace. It’s actually only due to his claws sinking into your arm that you wake up all the way. 

“Ah fuck, nice paws – no claws,” you chide him, removing each of the tiny daggers from your skin. “Damn it, please chill out, Donut…” 

You open your eyes and sit up, losing your grip on the squirmy cat. He darts away, slinking into the shadows of the room. Only when you turn do you realize that you’re alone in bed – actually, you’re alone in the room, you realize when you glance around. Annie is nowhere to be found. 

Ah, shit. Her weird comments about death and burial from earlier that night flash in the forefront of your mind and immediately, you fear the worst. You nearly leap out of bed to check the balcony and the bathroom, and any corner of the room where she could conceivably be tucked away in. 

She’s not upstairs. There’s nothing out of place. 

The only clue to her whereabouts comes from a sound down the stairwell. The door to downstairs is wide open, and something clatters like it was knocked off of a shelf or table to thunk on the hardwood floor. 

Oh, no. Please, no. 

Your heart is in your throat as you throw on some clothes. Please, please let her just be getting a snack downstairs. The Siamese yowls at you from the bottom of the steps, probably hungry herself. You shoo her away. There are clearly more pressing things than feeding the cats right now. Fucking cats…

The kitchen is empty with the inner door open and the screen door swinging in the wind. There’s a noise in the garden, a rhythmic thumping with an odd echo that reverberates between the three buildings surrounding the area. The bad feeling that’s pulling your guts down gets so much worse when you realize that ‘echo’ you’re hearing isn’t a reflection of another noise at al, but rather quiet sobbing. 

More or less, you know what you’re walking into. Some kind of horrible nightmare manifesting in a weird way. Had she ever run out of the house before? You wrack your brains and the answer comes up no. She’s made it onto the balcony and even down the stairs, but never even onto the bottom floor, really. 

Nothing that you couldn’t fix by just pulling her back into the room afterwards. Nothing that had overwhelmed you so much you don’t know how to handle it. All of that changes tonight. 

She’s standing on the edge of the garden, kicking the shit out of the part of the fence next to the picnic table, the part that cuts out to divide the garden. She’s really pummeling the crap out of it, to the point where the wood begins to splinter. You notice that not only is she still in a sports bra and pajama shorts, but she’s also not wearing any shoes. 

Her bare foot comes down on the fence and it breaks altogether. She rips the fence post out of the ground and throws it off to the side, then graduates to pulling at individual boards. Grunting with effort amidst her crying, she dismantles it piece by piece. 

After the nose incident and talking about it was Papa, you know better than to intervene. Especially not when there are shards of wood and god knows what else flying around. So instead you remain at the bottom of the ramp crouched in shadow.

This was everything you were afraid of since she came back. You start to get a little overwhelmed by emotion, but you’re still not sure what she’s triggered about. Before you take action you need to know what you’re dealing with, to see what she’s having a nightmare about in the first place. 

You try to get closer without making any sound. Annie isn’t talking, just crying, shouting every so often, but it’s not words. After she’s ripped apart the fence as much as it will budge, she kicks aside one of the chairs. 

When she tries to get a new angle on beating the fence, she ends up backing up right into the tree, and from the sound of it, she smacks into it quite hard – you audibly wince at the thwacking noise her skull makes against the bark. Her crying grows more frantic, and you can finally hear what she’s saying clearly as she cries out to defend herself. 

“No… I’m sorry. I wasn’t slacking off,” she whimpers, “I’m not taking a break… No sir! … okay, yes… I will.” Her voice shakes, and she falls to the ground as she scrambles away from the tree. 

There’s no metaphorical expression that can describe the way it feels when it hits you. You might as well have been punched in the gut with the way it twists. You’re nauseous and dizzy and in shambles. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobs, “I won’t do it again…”

Hearing those words coming out of her mouth fogs your brain up so badly that you just stand there stunned for a few moments. This is the one thing that you can’t handle, the one thing that breaks you more than anything else. No matter how hard you try, you can’t address this with a clear head. 

Annie pulls herself to her feet, and all of a sudden to your horror, she kicks up one of the tomato plants. It goes flying through the air. In quick succession, she kicks down the entire row of plants. Bell peppers, then squash, then eggplants go flying in every direction. Some are entirely uprooted while others are kicked like a soccer ball. 

She smacks into the tree again, and it triggers another episode of hysterics. The crying starts up anew, with another sputtering of apologies and half-coherent begging. “[more horrible dialogue]”

Half of it isn’t ready to harvest yet, not as if that matters to the nightmare. Cabbage, lettuce, kale, and cauliflower all go flying around and break apart on impact. Seeing her physically rip the garden to shreds is what tips you over the edge. 

You swallow the sickness you’re feeling and slink along the fence as you creep toward the en suite. You can’t do this alone. Desperately, you wrap your knuckles against the glass of Papa’s window. It’s a lot louder than you anticipated so you duck into the shadows in fear that Annie heard you.

If she did, she doesn’t react to it. She continues screaming and kicking, spinning quickly on her feet amongst the destroyed plants. You start banging on the door now, rather insistently, until you hear rustling on the other end. 

You keep knocking even when you hear him, though a little bit more softly. Only do you stop when you hear the lock disengaging. 

The door creaks open and Papa peeks out groggily. He looks confused at first, but the second he registers that it’s you, the bleary look on his face disappears. 

“What happened?” he asks, his gaze sharpening. 

You can’t even get any words out. As soon as your mouth opens you just start sobbing. Papa is expectedly taken aback by it. His eyes widen, though by his standards you know he’s trying to control his face. He reaches out for you but then freezes in place, unsure of what to do, and flounders for a moment. 

His expression grows unreadable as you watch the worst-case scenarios flash in his mind. He looks genuinely worried as he swallows hard. You can literally the recollection of her weird comments at dinnertime dawn on him, and worry floods his expression, “...she’s not?” 

“No, not like that,” you blubber, “but I didn’t know what to do.” 

Eventually, you manage to point out in the garden as you choke on another sob. Finally, it seems to sink in for him what’s happening when Annie once again bumps into the tree and shrieks, sobbing and promising that she’ll do better. 

When you turn, you see that she’s back in the middle of the garden ripping plants straight out of the ground and hurling them against the side of the barn. Dirt splatters against the red painted wood, noisily thunking with each collision. 

You look back to Papa to see his reaction. Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised by the blank look on his face, but you are a little disappointed. Right now, you need him to be there for you. Well, what are you expecting from him exactly? After all, it is Papa. You feel bitter tears forming in your eyes as you start to realize it might be a futile effort. 

A shower of dirt rains down from a few feet away. You jump in surprise, whirling around to see that Annie’s aim has now reached the en suite. Some onions thud against the bricks again, and this time the dirt that flies off hits the both of you. 

Only the third time do you realize that Papa is somewhat frozen. A hard handful sails across the garden directly toward you, and all of a sudden the instincts you learned during that annoying month and a half where deflecting random shit became a regular thing for you. Soil rains down all over your body but you manage to successfully block whatever vegetables – radishes, maybe? – that she’d hurled over. 

Finally, it seems like Papa fully realizes that you need help. You cry out in shock and disgust, and the squealing as you try to shake off the dirt must bring him back into reality. He grabs you by the upper arm and yanks you inside his room before the next vegetable comes flying by a few seconds later. 

He shuts the door and all at once, every emotion hits you at once. It’s like as soon as you’re physically separated from the event, you start to process it. The full effect of seeing Annie in this worst-case scenario, your inability to deal with it, the fact that you had to admit that, and the fact that you’re hiding when you feel like she needs you. 

You completely lose your shit. Tears flow down your face as you blubber hopelessly. “I should’ve brought her back to bed before she was able to make it out here. I usually wake up – I don’t know how I slept through it. Is this my fault?”

“Stop that right now,” he demands, placing a hand on your shoulder, “No way this is your fault. This isn’t your mess to clean up. You were right to come to me, okay?” 

You start out sniveling, balling your hands up into fists so hard that your fingernails dig into your palms. Words don’t come out. 

“Did she hurt herself?” he asks seriously. His grip on your shoulder unintentionally tightens. 

Immediately, you shake your head. “Not beyond whatever she did to the fence. Maybe some bruises… I don’t know. Nothing intentional, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

And though Papa looks a little bit relieved, he’s still very tense. Right now he looks older than you’ve ever seen him. 

Your lip trembles as you try to say more, but what ends up coming out is so shaky that it’s nearly inaudible. “I just… god, I feel so fucking useless. I can’t help her.” 

“You’ve done a lot for her already, more than anybody else ever has,” her dad tells you, and he begins to shepherd you towards the nearby armchair. “More than I ever have, too. You never should have felt responsible for this burden. This is all on me. I need to know that you understand that.” 

More tears overwhelm you. Papa stops trying to guide you when you start to stagger. Instead, he just pulls you into a hug. 

Something broken inside of you cracks further as emotions you didn’t realize you still had come back to haunt you. You feel terrified and inadequate and like you should have done something different, or better. Is he sure that this isn’t your doing? 

The choked-back emotion suddenly becomes too much, and once again you’re sobbing. “No,” is all you’re able to get out this time, “no, no.” You say over and over again. Your vision tunnels and your limbs go weak as you start to hyperventilate. 

“Yes,” he tells you, firmly, “You’ve done a good job for a long time. Do you hear me?” 

You nod, out of instinct more than anything. It doesn’t feel like you’ve been doing anything at all. Maybe you just don’t know how to accept praise anymore. 

He pats your head affectionately, albeit a bit awkwardly. “I want you to try and let this go after tonight…It’s time I took responsibility for my actions. It’s my fault after all. There’s nothing you can do to help her.” 

Whatever endorphins that the hug releases in your brain are enough to physically calm you down enough that you can breathe a little easier. “So what am I supposed to do then?” 

“All you need to do is stay here in this chair. I’ll come to get you when it’s over.” 

Before he releases you, Papa sighs. He waits until your sobs have calmed before he lets you go with a comforting pat on your back, and then he guides you down into the large cushy armchair next to his dresser. 

He takes a moment to grab a blanket from the trunk at the end of the bed. He unfolds it halfway before draping it around your shoulders. It’s a little bit haphazard, but the gesture is received all the same. 

Now that you’re a little calmer, you let yourself relax. He adjusts the blanket around you to tuck you in, then pushes your hair out of your face. 

“Stay here,” he repeats. He looks at you with more concern in his eyes than you’ve ever seen before as he tries to read your expression. 

You sigh, and the remnants of your sobs rattle your breath. Eventually, you nod your head. 

“Okay…” you agree, and then nervously add: “Don’t take too long.” You’re not sure where it comes from. 

Papa nods, and his eyebrows knit together with emotion. “Of course not.” 

You hadn’t realized you’d had so much tension in your body still until it releases. You slump down in the chair and release a sigh – also one you didn’t realize you’d held in. 

Whenever he rises back up to his feet, he lets out an old-man grunt of effort. He hasn’t even gone outside yet and it’s obvious that he’s exhausted. Not that you can blame him, of course. And though you’d stopped counting after a while, just a few months had run you ragged. What must it be like to have your existence whittled down to the worst things you’ve done, no matter how hard you try and fix the mistakes of the past? 

It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. He certainly reaps what he sows, but regardless you don’t envy the twenty-something-odd years of baggage that he’s carried with him all this time. He’s dug himself a hole so treacherous that he’s the only one capable of navigating out of it unharmed at this point. It must be daunting.  

Before he leaves, he takes a moment to pull himself together. You don’t think he knows that you can see around the blankets based on the way he lets his facade crack. His face visibility breaks as emotions overcome him. He takes a moment to compose himself, wiping at his eyes viciously and pushes down all his feelings.  

You recognize it all too well – of course that’s where Annie got it from. 

It makes you so genuinely sad to see Papa struggling that it sends you into another bout of hysterics. You hold it in just as long as it takes for him to leave, but as soon as the door closes you make no effort to quell your sobs anymore. 

The moment that you let the flood loose, you’re swept away in it. It’s overwhelming in the worst possible way. 

You’re plagued by the uncertainty you feel, and for a moment your brain runs wild. 

Is this really what this life has turned into? Is this actually happening to you right now? It started out so idealistic and felt so right… How could something so genuine have devolved into something that feels like a nightmare of your own? Sometimes you wonder if that’s all this is – maybe Annie was never the one with the issue. You’re the one stuck and you can’t escape. If you squeezed your eyes shut tightly enough, then maybe you can force yourself to wake up. 

Wherever, whenever you end up has got to be better than this. The things you’ve experienced in the past were objectively worse than having your girlfriend freak out on you… But it really wasn’t just that anymore, was it? 

It started before she even left, you realize. The first time you felt this way was when she found out she had to go back to Paradis. You’d been so afraid that you were going to lose her that you couldn’t recognize that she was already gone. 

She was gone the minute she knew she’d have to go back. You put your best effort forward and still, you watched as she slipped through your fingers. 

How the fuck could that NOT be your fault? How could you not blame yourself? 

It feels like the life you’ve spent so much time and effort building out here might fall apart, and you’re sickened that it makes you nostalgic for the time she spent in the crystal. At least back then, you didn’t know what it was like. Now that you’ve experienced a taste of the domestic happiness you wanted so badly with her for all those years, you can’t imagine living without it. 

You’re not entirely sure what exactly scares you so much. It’s not like you’re going to be kicked out onto the street. Annie is more than your significant other, she’s your everything. When something happens to you, she’s the first person you want to tell. You tell her everything. She’s the only person in the world who knows everything about you, and you’re the only one who knows everything about her. 

For so long you turned to one another for comfort and validation. Even just for attention – basic social needs. All three of you have a lot of time on your hands out here. A few months ago she would happily chatter on about this or that project she wanted to take on, or explain whatever she’s been working on to you. 

It feels like she never talks to you anymore. Not only that, but you hardly even see her doing the things she enjoys. She stops painting, stops carving. It was noticeably concerning, but every time you try to point out that she’s clearly not okay she just brushes you off. Asking her any questions about how she feels gets the same reaction as if you’d tried to pull teeth.  

So badly do you miss the days where she’d come to find you from across the cottage just to tell you about the plot twist in her book, or to show you something she found in the grass or from the garden. She hardly ever even looks at you anymore save for when you specifically get her attention. 

Even when she does listen, her eyes are vacant like she’s hardly paying attention. For the first time in years you feel like she doesn’t want to be around you. These days you get more from Papa than from her. It really fucking sucks. 

You miss her. You miss the life that you’d had out here, and you don’t understand why she’s gotten so depressed or what you could possibly do to help. 

After the worst of the panic passes, despair ebbs into curiosity. 

You could try and pretend like it’s for some greater purpose, that you’re listening so you can know how to better help them – after all, even if Annie was talking to you she won’t remember anything, and Papa has never been forthcoming. But honestly, that’s not why you end up choosing to snoop. 

It’s really not any more complicated than you being nosy, in the end. The context of Annie’s nightmare alone tells you what to expect from the interaction, but you want to listen in for yourself. You feel like you need to hear this. 

You’re not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s just the fear you might regret not finding out, in the end, that pushes you to get up. You keep the blanket around you snugly as you stumble to your feet and over to the door. 

Quickly you realize that the only way you’ll be able to hear anything outside from there is if you crack the door. The wood is just too thick. You’re worried that if you do that, Papa will notice. It doesn’t seem like a risk you’re willing to take. 

Instead, you waddle across the en suite into the bathroom. There, you feel a little safer away from the glaring yellow lamplight. Just the moon lights up the bathroom, dimly, and even though the glass still distorts the sound from outside, you can already tell that it’s a better option than listening from the door. You have a clear view of what’s going on in the garden. 

The first thing you noticed is that Annie has escalated to projectiles. The wooden stakes holding up beans and fruit bushes have been thrown like javelins, buried in the soil with severed vines still wrapped around some of them. Luckily, she seems to have exhausted her supply at this point. In fact, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything left for her to use at all. 

You undo the latch on the window slowly so it stays quiet, and silently push the window open so that you can finally discern the mumbles. You hear grunts of effort from Annie and the sound of blows landing, then the splintering of wood. You can’t see either her or her dad, but you’re not sure you want to. 

Maybe this was the world telling you that this is your chance to stop before your feelings get hurt. Maybe Papa had been right and you should have just stayed in the chair where he’d left you. 

No, it’s too late for that now. You’ve already seen the damage. Your heart is in your stomach. 

Quite literally, there’s nothing left. Nearly all the plants are ripped up or somehow broken. You can’t even see her at first glance, but you’re so overwhelmed that you can’t bring yourself to look. 

All of a sudden, you change your mind. You abandon the idea of snooping and run to lean against the sink. 

Tears flow down your cheeks despite trying to hold them in. It’s all too much, this night, everything about it. It destroys you that it’s happening at all, and the fact that such old wounds were still literally destroying aspects of her life. The poor garden… 

It was the heart of the home, both literally and figuratively. It connected the three buildings physically, and from the flowers and shrubs lining the fences to the garden that you eat from, it was by far the most closely-tended bit of land. It was beautiful and important to all three of you, and now it was completely and totally wrecked. There was nothing usable. No harvest to be salvaged, nothing to sustain you anymore. 

It wasn’t like you would starve or anything. You go to the market on a regular basis and you could just buy more food. It was the emotional aspect of losing everything that you worked so hard to build here with her. Right now you couldn’t even try to find a bright side. The depression overtakes you and you let yourself collapse in front of the sink in tears. 

What you want to do is embrace the emptiness. You wish you could lie down on this cold tile floor and dissolve. The wind will sweep away your body bit by bit as it erodes mountains and boulders. Tiny little pieces of you will scatter one atom at a time until you’re everywhere and everything. You’ll be strewn throughout the world in a million places at once, and most importantly, you won’t be in pain anymore. 

Even then, when you’re nothing, would you feel as lost as you do right now? This isn’t good or evil. There’s no moral decision to come to terms with, and maybe that’s why you struggle so much. You can still make a choice that will push Annie away even if you have the best intentions. 

You have nothing to win. In every scenario, you lose. Right now it feels so suffocating like there's no possible way out. 

Are you supposed to fix this, when it's so behind hope? What you wouldn't give for anything else to be happening to you right now. 

A high-pitched shriek from outside snaps you out of your thoughts. It’s clearly Annie –  you don’t even have to hear her speak to recognize her voice. You go back to peer out the window, and somehow you will yourself to look past the wreckage. Desperately, you search for movement or a familiar silhouette. 

Annie cries out again, and the noise aims you in the right direction. She’s on her hands and knees close to the barn, scrambling backward in the dirt, flinging debris left and right as she tries to avoid her dad. 

“Get away from me!” she screams. 

Papa stands with his hands up in defense about fifteen feet away. “I haven’t moved any closer,” he points out.  

It doesn’t seem to matter. She tosses a handful of ripped-up leaves and broken stems in his direction. “I said to get away from me!” 

He sighs, but he doesn’t flinch when plants shower on top of his nightclothes. He doesn’t even bother to brush them away. He just stares ahead with no expression. 

“If I stay where I am, will you stop throwing things?” 

She looks in both directions like she’s considering her options, and shrugs after a few moments. 

“Probably not,” she admits. 

Papa laughs, a little dryly. 

“Thanks for your honesty. If it makes you feel better, keep at it,” he says apathetically. He goes as far as to roll something toward her with his foot – maybe lettuce, or a head of broccoli? – from this distance, you can’t tell. 

Annie accepts the ammunition, holding it aimed, locked, and loaded. “I will not hesitate to throw this at your face,” she threatens.  

All he does is stand there. “That’s fine. You can throw it.” 

She winds herself up, cocking the vegetable above her shoulder, ready to hurl it. Now it sounds like she’s about to cry. 

“I’ll really do it!” she shrieks, her voice getting more desperate. 

Once again, her dad puts up no fight. “Okay.” 

The vegetable sails through the air, revealing itself to be broccoli as it shatters against his shoulder and flies in every direction. He barely flinches as he absorbs the entire impact of the blow, just takes it. All he does is stagger backward a few steps. 

Even from here, you can tell how hard of a collision it was, but Papa makes no sounds of complaint or pain. He holds his shoulder, though he still stands. 

There’s a long silence so oppressive and thick that you struggle to breathe. 

“So, is it helping?” he asks eventually. His voice isn’t angry or resentful, just weary. He’s sad, worn by so many years of regret, just now accepting the reality that this is where she’s ended up. 

There’s more crying and grunting from Annie on the other side of the garden, who now drops to her knees as she scrambles to find something else to throw. 

“Get it all out, there’s another pile on your left.” 

Quickly she finds the aforementioned ammo sitting a few feet over. A chunk of potatoes, roots, and dirt smacks into his stomach a few moments later. You hear an audible grunt on impact afterward. It’s not as hard of a blow, but even from across the yard it’s clear that he’s struggling to keep himself upright. Yet Papa doesn’t let himself wobble and remains as tall as he can manage. 

Just seconds later, an eggplant hurtles end-over-end to smack him right in the head. You gasp, expecting him to be hurt. Maybe it’s in the shock but he doesn’t seem to react to this blow at all. He stays there hunched over for a few moments as the garden goes quiet. 

Luckily, after this third throw, Annie gives up on attacking. She can’t seem to find anything in the general vicinity and it visibly overwhelms her. She buries her face in her hands, and defeated, she collapses to the ground. 

You watch with bated breath, not sure what to expect. The silence and stillness put you at unease. This is a loud and tumultuous affair and it doesn’t make sense. There’s a long moment where Papa just stands there, seemingly stunned. You’re right at the moment when you’re asking yourself why he isn’t doing anything when he finally does. 

Slowly and deliberately, he starts to make his way over to her. He keeps his distance at first and when he gets close enough for her to be aware of him, he calls out. “I’m coming closer now. I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“I’m not taking a break! I’ve been training this whole time,” Annie pleads, terrified. 

He sighs heavily. “I don’t care about that anymore.”

“Wh– what?” Annie asks, her voice cracking. 

There’s a long silence, and when he speaks again there’s a tremble in his voice that makes you feel even less sure than you already did. 

“You don’t have to fight anymore,” he tells her, more firmly this time, “In fact, I think you’re long overdue to take a break.”

You can barely hear her with the way she’s crying, but at some point, you hear a word squeak out amidst the heaving. “Really?” 

Papa nods as he walks a little closer. As he does, he blocks her from the view you have of her from where you sit. 

“You can rest. You’ve done perfectly,” he says. 

“...I have?” 

Although you can’t see her anymore, you can still hear everything. You want to move again so that you can see them, but you’re also frozen in place. 

“Yes. I’m proud of you, Annie. Rest, okay?” 

You can hear in the way her breathing quickens that she’s getting frantic. “I – I don’t know how…” she admits. 

Papa sinks down, presumably to his knees. “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out together.” A few long seconds pass before he asks: “Is it okay if I hug you?” 

She doesn’t respond, but the fact that she doesn’t shove him away is enough. It’s so dark that you can hardly see what’s happening aside from the vague dark shadows of movement. You hear Papa wheeze as he sits down on the grass, then Annie starts crying more intensely a few seconds later. 

“I’m sorry,” she says loudly after a few seconds. 

Her dad says something in response, but it’s too quiet for you to hear. What’s left of the fence now obscures most of your view. 

It’s not good enough. You’ve heard too much to back down now. Ever nosy, you back away from the window and walk back through the en suite. The blanket falls from your shoulders and onto the floor behind you. 

The door handle clicks and disengages quietly, but then the door creaks as you push it open. Even though you were told to stay in the chair, you’re not really afraid of being seen. Most of the reason that you stay quiet is that you don’t want to interrupt. 

You crouch behind the overturned table a few feet away to hide, willing yourself to be silent. You still can’t hear anything, so you hold your hand over your mouth to cover the sound of your breathing. Now that you’re closer the hushed whispers between them start to become audible.

It’s not just Papa talking, you realize. Annie is speaking in surprisingly full, coherent sentences. She doesn’t sound present, though. Her words are slightly slurred and empty of emotion, sleepily mumbled out.  

“No, I’m not upset at all. You’re not in trouble right now.” 

You glance around the edge of the table and catch a glimpse of Annie’s hair. Her face is buried in her dad’s shoulder, her voice so muffled that it’s barely audible. “I’m sorry. All I ever do is hurt people…”

Papa shakes his head.“That isn’t true. You have so much to offer the world and your family. You’re smart, and you’re strong. Not just your body, either. I’m so proud of the way that you take care of Y/N, and of me.” 

As she curls in further, her eyes disappear out of sight. “But I’ve hurt you.” 

“Well, I hurt you too,” he reminds her. His fingers scrunch up in her hair to comfort her as he holds her close. “It’s never something I’ve resented you for.”

She sniffles. “Really?” 

“Of course not. I was always proud, even if it wasn't for the right reasons,” he says, “At first it was just because of how much progress you made, but after a few years I realized: you proved that day you won’t let yourself be treated poorly by someone who claims to love you. That wasn’t something I taught you, for sure. But it’s come to be one of the things I admire about you most.” 

When he stops speaking for a moment, a silence so heavy and filled with uncertainty fills the air, that you’re grateful when you hear his voice again. 

“I wish that you could have had a father in me before I sent you out into the world. I was too stubborn and proud. Because of it, we both missed out on so much. I’m the one who should be apologizing.” 

Annie remains quiet. From behind the table, you're hit with another wave of emotions. The hand on your mouth tightens as your sobs threaten to burst out. 

Papa continues on. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good father. I’m sorry that I thought it was enough to give you food and a home, and that I made you fight instead of letting you be a kid,” Papa’s voice starts to waver, but he continues on as his daughter sobs in his arms. “I’m sorry that I did things so wrong back then that you’re still hurting now. I wish I knew how to fix it… but sometimes it feels like it can’t be fixed. You have every reason in the world to hate me–” 

“– no!” Annie interrupts, all of a sudden. It stops him dead in his tracks. 

“That’s not true,” she cries, “I don’t hate you at all.” 

Now it’s Papa’s turn to sniffle, left wordless. “Really?” 

“Never. You’re my dad…” 

You’re so upset that you throw up in your mouth a little bit. The first instinct you have is to choke it back down, but you’re so viscerally upset that you realize you’re genuinely about to hurl. It’s all you can do to aim away from the place where you’re sitting.

There’s a long silence after that, much longer than you’re comfortable with  After you manage to pull yourself together enough to move, you once again peek your head around the table.

He’s not talking because he’s crying, you realize all at once. You had barely even heard Papa’s voice break before this – you’ve never seen him lose his composure, never seen him give in to vulnerability like this. His stoicism didn’t allow for such weakness, or so he thought. Now, it seems like he’s evolving. 

“I love you, Annie,” he chokes, “I really am sorry. For everything.” 

She mutters sleepily, hardly intelligibly: “Love you too.” 

As she readjusts to a more comfortable position, you can see that the look on her face is finally peaceful. Tears still shine on her cheeks but she’s not crying anymore – it seems like she’s fallen back asleep all the way. 

It seems like it’s over. You put your hand back over your mouth again to quiet yourself, terrified to move. At this point what you’re afraid of is interrupting such an insanely personal moment for Papa. The telltale sounds of crying still echo in the garden. 

All you can think of is how you feel after Annie has a nightmare. You usually want to be left alone to wallow in your misery, so you want to respect his privacy if that’s what he wants, too. 

Unfortunately, it seems like that’s not what he needs tonight. 

“Y/N? Can you hear me?” he calls out after a few seconds, his voice still shaking, “I know you don’t listen. You’re out there somewhere, right?” 

You freeze. Maybe it’s not too late for you to creep back inside and pretend that you stayed in the chair the whole time and that you hadn’t heard a thing. Though, any potential plan is quickly foiled when you step on something that cracks loudly – either a twig or some poor uprooted plant thrown across the yard. 

Ah, shit, you think. 

“I don’t care if you heard what I said,” he says. Immediately it relieves some of the uneasiness. He sighs, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to carry Annie inside by myself... I need your help to get up.” 

Something in your gut twists at the admission. You don’t make the conscious decision to start moving, but before you know it you’re climbing to your feet. You stumble your way across the broken garden. 

When you get to where Papa can see you, you freeze. You’re overwhelmed by your emotions again at the sight of him

“Come here, please,” he asks. You can see why he won’t be able to get up on his own; Annie is basically half-draped across him, leaning. 

Her head is still on his shoulder, lolling now that she’s fully unconscious again. They’re both sitting on the ground, but all of the weight of her upper body is being supported by the fact that her arms are around his shoulders. He looks at you sadly and continues to stroke her hair. 

Again you’re completely overwhelmed by emotion, and you can’t help but fling your arms around him. It throws him a little bit off-kilter, but you have enough balance to keep all three of you upright. 

“I’m sorry…” you whisper. You don’t know what else to say, really. It occurs to you later that you could’ve thanked him, but when he’s crying the way he is you feel paralyzed. 

To your surprise, he turns around and says: “I’m sorry to you, too.” 

It catches you off guard. “Why?” you ask, and pull back so that you can see his face. 

Papa shakes his head. “This is affecting you now, too. I wish I could take away this pain, for you both. It never should have existed in the first place.” 

Your lower lip trembles as once again you feel doubt creeping into the back of your mind. This isn't your family, not really. You’re still the outsider. “You really don’t owe me anything.” 

He rolls his eyes. Not maliciously, but because his arms are still in use. “It’s not about that. It’s my job to take care of you whether you think you need me or not. That’s what fathers do for their children, and the world has decided to bring me another daughter.”

A beat of silence passes. Tears start to form in your eyes as you realize the full weight of those words. Should you hug him again? Should you tell him what he means to you, too? It takes a moment for your brain to catch up. 

“I love you too, you know,” he adds. It’s tacked on the end as if it’s a side thought. Like it’s not one of the most impactful things that an adult has ever said to you.  

A million emotions hit you at once. Despite the fact that you’re physically holding everyone up, you yourself collapse. You can’t help it. Between what you’d witnessed and what he’d just said, you’re overwhelmed.  

Papa’s hand on your back draws you back into the moment. He doesn’t let go of Annie, but he shifts most of her weight into one of his arms so that he can put the other around your shoulders. You’re conscious of his limitations as you lean into the group huddle, holding all of your own weight on your knees. 

You take the opportunity to try and center yourself again, to calm some of your less rational emotions. 

The three of you just sit there for a minute – well, it’s really just the two of you, since Annie is dead asleep. You sit there with one arm resting gently on her waist and your other around Papa’s shoulder.

Honestly, the only measure of how much time passes you notice is that it’s long enough that your knees go numb. It doesn’t feel real, any of it. For the dozenth time that night, everything hits you all over again. 

Is this going to be the new normal? You look around at the destroyed garden from the destroyed rows to the splintered fences and realize that you can’t keep doing this to yourself. No matter how high the highs are, if this is what the lows are like… it scares you.  

You need to believe that this was a freak occurrence, something that would never happen again. Yet the night she broke your nose you’d secretly hoped the same thing. As horrible as that had been, maybe you should have anticipated that it would get worse. It always does, after all. 

It’s all just too much. This is so overwhelming, to be sitting in the aftermath of… whatever this is. This horrible, horrible nightmare come to life. There’s a part of you that wants to clean it up before the sun comes up so that you don’t have to face the hard truth in the light of day. Maybe if you avoid looking at it you can ignore that it’s happening. 

You haven’t felt like this since the night your nose was broken. This time, however, you don’t have any physical pain to distract you from the gaping hole inside of you. Even after watching it, not even for the first time, there’s still a part of you that can’t comprehend that Annie was capable of hurting you. The broken nose was easy to rationalize as an accident, but this? 

This is a really, seriously tangible difference. You can’t hide the trashed garden behind a layer of concealer and an upbeat attitude. You can’t make excuses to keep people away until you’ve got your shit together. 

It’s bad this time, and the both of you know it. After he lets himself go for a moment, Papa sobers up, then sighs deeply. 

“Can’t sit here forever. You can take her into my room if you don’t want to go up the stairs,” he offers, looking up at you guiltily. His expression says what he doesn’t - that he’d be the one carrying her if he could. That he wishes he didn’t have to ask for your help, either. 

Gently, he transfers Annie into your arms. Together you both lower her onto the grass with as little turbulence as you can manage. You stand first, then extend both hands to Papa. He slowly rises to his feet with no lack of trouble, groaning and cursing all the while until you finally heave him up. 

As he limps back across the yard into his room, you keep an eye on  but you try not to stare. Instead, you consider the best way to carry her and try to judge how far you’ll have to go. She looks shockingly unbothered. 

It’s a short enough distance that you feel confident in carrying her bridal style. You scoop her up underneath her shoulders and knees and lift. You stagger forward as you struggle to gather your balance, but once you stabilize, you’re able to power on. 

Papa is holding the door to his bedroom open. By the time you stumble through the door, your strength is failing you. You drop Annie onto the bed a little harder than you intend to but she doesn’t seem affected by it. She stays in the exact same position she lands in, so you try to straighten out her body a little so she doesn’t wake up with a cramp. 

For a while, you stay on the end of the bed to watch over her. You don’t pay much attention to anything besides watching the slow rise and fall of her chest until you feel a familiar weight around your shoulders. Again a blanket is clumsily wrapped around your shoulders. 

You look up to see Papa standing above you with his arms out. He looks more broken than you’ve ever seen him. 

As he did with Annie earlier, he approaches you cautiously: “Can I hug you?” 

You’re not the same way they are. Maybe you never have been, but especially not after these past few months. He doesn’t need to ask. You don’t want to be asked. There’s this deep aching loneliness inside of you that gnaws at you – and maybe it just means that you’re soft like he always points out, but you want to be doted on unconditionally. 

You can’t manage to verbalize a response. Luckily Papa picks up on what isn’t said by the way you weakly reach out to him with tears in your eyes. He sits down on the end of the bed to hug you. 

This time, there are no tears left in you. You cry silently as you let yourself relax into the hug, gasping and shaking. It feels totally hopeless and like no amount of reassurance would help, though he does try anyway.

“It’s okay,” he says as he pats your back, “it’s over now.” 

Instead of being a comfort, his words make the dread inside of you grow exponentially. Your breathing quickens, your vision blurs, and something in your chest grows tight and painful. Even though you know you’re panicking you can’t stop yourself from spinning out and letting your emotions get the best of you. 

Papa sees your reaction and pulls you back by your shoulders. He extends one arm at a time to look you up and down – you’re a bit confused at first but also too overwhelmed to protest. 

“Are you hurt?” he asks. It’s then you realize that he’s checking you for injuries. 

You shake your head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just–” you break his gaze as you pull away. Your arms go limp at your sides. “It’s not over. Maybe it’s done for tonight, but what about the next time this happens? It’s only getting worse.” 

Papa’s lips press together tightly. He considers your words for a moment before tilting his head in acknowledgment. The fact that he doesn’t verbally respond is enough to bring tears back to your eyes. It feels like his reaction is a confirmation that it’ll be horrible forever. 

It leads you to spiral a bit. “It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair,” you spit, bitterly, “I don’t recognize this. She would never do this… Why is this happening?” 

“I wish that I had answers for you,” he tells you, “you know that I would take away her pain if I could.” 

You nod, and as you start to cry again, Papa finally catches on that you need wordless instinctive comfort. He puts his hand on your shoulder. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he repeats. 

“–is it, though?” you ask. It’s hard not to let yourself spiral, but you do your best to hold it together. 

“I hope so,” he says, though he sounds uncertain. He sighs. “Sometimes I worry that my being here is hurting her.” 

You look up at him. “What do you mean?” 

“Do I even need to explain after what we both just saw?”

“No…” you admit, but you recall the many conversations you’ve had about the subject. “She needs you, too. She’s wanted you here from the start.” 

Papa shrugs. “Hmm. Annie doesn’t always know what’s good for her.”

He’s right, but you still feel the need to defend her. “That’s not fair. She doesn’t know how.” Your lower lip trembles. “For so long she couldn’t accept that she has feelings like everyone else. She’s only just figured out how to be honest with herself.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. If she can be honest, then maybe it’s time for her to reevaluate what she wants.”

All you can do is stare at him. “What the hell are you saying? It would be so much worse if you weren’t here. What am I supposed to do without you?”

“You saw what happened tonight,” he says sadly, “I’ve never seen her like this before. I’m worried that she needs more help than the two of us can give her by ourselves. We can’t keep doing this – not like this.” 

What you want to do is argue. He was the only person who could have possibly talked her down tonight. You couldn’t have done a thing for her and more than that, you couldn’t even bring yourself to go near her. 

You get why Annie wants him here. Nowadays, you need a parent just as much as she does. 

“I can’t take too many more beatings like that at this age,” he cracks a smile to try and break the tension, but it doesn’t work. Quickly, his face falls again. “More than that, look at you. When is the last time you slept through the night? You keep denying the toll this is taking on you but I can see how much it weighs on you. Neither of us can keep going like this.” 

He’s right, and you know it. The stakes are too high, and all the events from the night had done was put that into perspective. You knew that it was only a matter of time before things escalated. Is it really worse than you imagined it to be, or was it always going to be hard to watch no matter how it happened? 

It was bad, but you already knew that. Until now you were able to rationalize a million different reasons as to why you bottled up your own feelings. It only made things worse for everyone. 

You let out a defeated sigh as more tears roll down your cheeks. “All I’ve ever wanted is to make Annie happy.” 

He puts his arms around your shoulders. 

“I know you do, but we clearly haven’t been doing any favors for her lately,” he says, surprisingly gently. “Something needs to change.” 

“So what are we supposed to do, then?” 

“I have no idea,” he admits, “but right now I think we should sleep. It’ll be hours until the sun comes up.” 

“You’re tired?” 

“Down to my bones,” he nods wearily, “and so are you.” 

He’s right. Your eyes feel like sandpaper, but you groan in reluctance. 

Papa nods sympathetically, and re-wraps the blanket around you more snugly. “Lie down, Y/N, you need the rest.” 

He sits down in the chair a few feet away with his arms crossed. Immediately he closes his eyes and goes dead silent, and it genuinely seems like he’s already fallen asleep. 

You feel too guilty letting him sleep without saying something more. Surely he knew how much you appreciated him, and especially so after tonight… the part of you that was raised right can’t bear to not show some kind of gratitude beyond what goes unspoken. 

“Thank you for your help tonight… and I’m sorry.” Even though you try really hard to keep your voice even, it breaks anyway. 

Papa sniffs. “Of course,” he says, “I’m sorry, too.” 

You know that if you look up and see him crying that it’ll push you over the edge again. So badly you don’t want to break down again, that when more tears inevitably come, you just let them drip down into your hair as you stare blankly at the ceiling. Something deep inside of you aches. 

“I don’t want to lose the two of you,” you mumble in the midst of your existential dread. 

Papa doesn’t say anything, and for a moment you think he’s fallen asleep. Then you hear a heavy sigh float across the room followed by the comforting rumble of his voice. 

“Get some sleep, kid. We’ll both still be here when the sun is up.”  

You nod. After a few minutes of silence, you roll onto your side to look at Annie and push her hair out of her face. For a long while, you sit there staring at her and thinking. 

It makes you feel better to know that Papa is just as clueless as you are. You don’t want to be alone in this struggle. And even though you still feel absolutely horrible, you also feel slightly less alone. It was too much to handle on your own. 

All you wish is that she didn’t have to fall so low. 

In the end, if you sleep again that night at all, it’s so fitful you don’t even realize it. For a while, you close your eyes just so they won’t get so dehydrated. 

You wish you’d slept. Maybe it would have made you make better choices. 

At some point, birds start to sing and the sun begins to rise, dusking the windows and casting a pale light in through the bathroom. It’s around then that you start pulling yourself together and shoving everything down. 

It’s too much, too out of your control. Maybe there’s nothing you can do for her anymore, but you’ll be damned if you let yourself break down in front of her. It’s the worst possible choice you could’ve made, but you unhealthily rationalize that it’s better to put up a front. 

It doesn’t even occur to you at the moment how hypocritical it is, and when it hits you later you just bottle it up even harder. It makes you feel like shit – you know how it feels to be lied to and it’s not something you’d ever bring upon her. And even though you recognize it’s an issue, it feels like the right move. 

But this is different, right? You’re doing it to protect her, and it never occurs to you that maybe Annie had thought the same thing