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Historia copes in measures.
Grief seeps out of her with the sweat and strain of training only to creep back into her mind in the thick of dreams, when she clings to someone who isn’t there anymore.
She loves Ymir and she hates her, and it takes all of a few moments to realize that this is how it’s always been, since the very start. Ymir never bartered for anyone’s respect, and Historia would be hard pressed to believe it if anyone else said they miss her.
Ymir, who fights dirty. Who licks her wounds with an intent to respond.
Who left her.
-
In the midst of war, anniversaries go uncelebrated.
The members of the 104th breathe in training, sleep and dream in work, and birthdays are no different.
They’re no different, except, they are. To Krista, to Eren, to Connie and Sasha and Marco. It’s the reminder they all cling to that once, they were whole.
On her birthday, Eren sneaks an extra helping of tea for Mikasa. Her face flushes in shades of red that make her scarf pale by comparison, and she buries her nose into the worn fabric to hide, but the tips of her ears run hot and her eyes speak volumes more than she’d wish.
For Ymir, Krista thinks to steal a sweet roll.
The instructors live within a hairline of separation in comfort from the trainees. What they gain in provisions they pay for and more in the intensity of work doled out in teaching the trainees. There’s only so much you can give to a handful of people left in charge of twenty-fold their size.
Still, they’re better fed, and any other day, Krista wouldn’t pay any attention to the difference. It’s not that she believes they don’t deserve the extra comfort.
Just that sometimes the trainees need it more.
She doesn’t know how she manages it, but Krista slips in and out of the officer’s pantry without trouble and hides her loot until they’re getting ready for bed. Her heart pounds all the while, and a heat runs up her neck that coils in beads of sweat behind her ears. Ymir wonders out loud, what the hell, when she approaches Krista by her bunk. Her face softens as she asks if anything’s wrong.
Krista shakes her head, hooking her fingers around the crook of Ymir’s elbow. She’s slow and heavy to react, but Krista eventually manages to drag her to the courtyard. She holds the present out with a smile.
“Happy Birthday Ymir.”
Ymir blinks. Confusion registers on her face and her jaw slackens, but she remains silent in examining the token for much longer than is warranted. Krista sighs, placing it in her hand.
Ymir’s mouth twists into a goading smile. “You stole,” she chimes, her voice of wry amusement, seeping out between her words.
She’d never received a gift, let alone given one that was accepted, but Krista imagined a different reaction. She’d never believe that Ymir would ever blush where anyone could catch even a glimpse, but Krista had hoped for something beyond a smirk that wasn’t dripping in conceit.
She huffs quietly, watching her feet. “If all you’re going to give me for the effort is grief, then you might as well…”
Ymir takes her hand. Places half the pastry in her open palm, thumb brushing across the top of her wrist. Her fingers linger around Krista’s until they reach up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She smiles in earnest for the first time since they’ve met, that it catches her off-guard.
“Thank you.”
-
They’ve graduated, but the grunt work falls on the Survey Corp’s newest, surviving recruits. Their wounds far from healed, the graduates trundle out in pairs at dawn to gather wood like clockwork. The ritual keeps Historia’s thoughts too busy to drift. Her mind only travels as far as the next swing of her axe, and no one pushes her for more.
When they change out of their nightclothes one morning, Historia catches a glimpse of the bruises flowering Mikasa’s ribcage—a map splayed across her skin in reminder that she bleeds like the rest of them. Rivaille pairs them for the morning’s gather and they set out without so much as a word.
“How did you do it?” She asks half a mile in, voice hollow and thin from want of use. She thinks of Mikasa's bruises, knows without a sliver of doubt that she's operating on broken ribs. That Mikasa earned valedictorian over Annie's discipline and Eren's sheer will goes to one of few absolute truths, but the quiet determination with which she carries her duties leaves little for Historia to understand, let alone appreciate beyond a veil of apprehension.
It’s not that she and Mikasa can really call themselves friends. They’re both survivors of their own breed, but Historia can hardly let herself forget the threats she delivered when push came to shove. Ymir hadn’t so much as acknowledged any of the corps in her titan form, and Mikasa turned to be no less menacing than the knife held at her throat, pressing coolly at her skin.
She felt closest to her then, at the very brink of the end, and maybe she has Mikasa to thank for that. It's always in the face of death that she feels most human. Most alive.
Or maybe she has Ymir to thank for that.
Mikasa blinks. The corner of her mouth tugs downwards as her fingers adjust their grip along the handle of her axe.
“When you thought Eren was dead. That first time, how did you…”
She looks at Mikasa, turn of mouth equal measures wistful and sad. “Ymir isn’t dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
Mikasa lets a dry huff. “She’s too stubborn to die.”
“And Eren?”
Mikasa doesn’t answer her at first. She draws in a deep breath, chewing over her words, but her expression betrays nothing outside a realm of calm. “I…told myself I wouldn’t know for sure unless I found him.”
Historia nods, figures she won’t be getting much else, and leaves it at that.
They reach the gather area by sun-up, and begin to work at the trees in silence. Historia pretends not to watch Mikasa, who never so much as winces when the axe comes swinging. With methodical precision, Mikasa works twice as quickly as Historia, and just as suddenly she wonders how similar they can really be for loving titans.
“…if it turns out that Ymir is the enemy, you have to make a choice.”
Historia swings. Wipes off sweat with the back of her palm, and glances at Mikasa. “I know.”
“I hesitated, and now…” Thock “I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“But you don’t know she’s the enemy. She saved us. She fought the other titans off.”
Mikasa hums in acknowledgement.
“You saw Eren shift, and you stuck by him.”
“He’s family.”
“Ymir’s my family.”
Mikasa stops. She looks at Historia and there’s something like sympathy there. “Then you stick by her.”
“And if I can’t get to her?”
“You fight.”
“Until?”
“Until you can’t.”
-
Historia wakes with a start when it’s still dark out.
They’re just crawling out of winter, but the cold still seeps under her skin as she makes her way outside, where the stars are still out, blinking, blinking.
Historia shivers, crossing her arms in an effort to cling to warmth as she watches the sun climb up through the mountains. She loves Ymir and she hates her, and she concedes that maybe that’s all she needs until they meet again.
“Happy Birthday,” she says.