Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Apparently, a quiet evening alone is too much to ask for. 

Annie is setting her table when a series of thuds reverberates through her apartment from the floor above, and she is less than amused when little chunks of plaster from her ceiling crumble into her dinner plate. 

Thud. 

More plaster. Right into the lasagna she just spent the better part of an hour making. 

Thud. 

And there goes her tea. Awesome. 

“You've gotta be shitting me.” Annie stands from the table and storms through her living area, out the door, and up the stairs to the second level. The new neighbor moved in less than forty-eight hours ago and already Annie can't wait for their lease to expire. 

She pounds on the familiar door of apartment number 204, the one directly above her own, and takes a step back with her arms crossed over her chest. 

A full thirty-two seconds passes - Annie knows, she counted - before the door swings open to reveal a beautiful dark haired woman in nothing but gym shorts and a workout bra. The fact that her six-pack abs are nothing short of chiseled only makes Annie hyper-aware of her own oversized sweatshirt and faded jeans, which, as a result, annoys her in ways she can’t quite put her finger on. 

“What.” Not a question, just a way to say piss off with one less syllable.

Be the bigger person, Annie tells herself. Just smile and use your telemarketer voice. “Hi. I’m Annie, your downstairs neighbor. I was wondering if-”

“No thanks.” The woman is halfway to shutting the door on her face before Annie’s reflexes kick in, one hand pressed just above the doorknob.     

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Annie isn’t easily intimidated. “Excuse me, hi. Yeah, not done yet. So are you throwing bricks in here?” 

The woman cocks a brow and leans against the threshold. “I beg your pardon.” Again, not a question.  

“Bricks? You know the ones - made of clay, used for apartment buildings such as this? Surely you’ve heard of them?”

She narrows her eyes, the rest of her body set in what seems to be a well-trained stillness. “Your point being?” 

Something in Annie’s jaw twitches. “Whatever the hell you’re doing up here is causing my ceiling to fall apart.” 

Just past the raven-haired asshole, there’s a barbell laid out in the middle of an otherwise bare room, with what looks like three forty-pound plates attached to either side. Somehow, this pisses Annie off even more.  

“I’m not at fault if your ceiling is poorly maintained.” 

Annie moves her hand from its spot on the door to point towards the barbell. “So, what? You just pick that shit up and drop it?”  

The corners of the woman’s mouth slip up into a mocking grin. “You’ve figured out how deadlifts work.” And this time, when she slams the door shut, Annie doesn’t catch it. Through the old splintered wood, all she hears is a bitter, “Good for you.” 

~

Annie doesn’t consider herself a petty person, just one with petty tendencies. 

As it is, there’s an air vent in her bedroom that leads up to the identically designed room on the floor above. Annie has grown to hate the damn thing over the years, but really, one can hear anything and everything that happens on the opposite end. So, it has its uses. For better or worse. 

For the next three days, she decides to wake up at four in the morning, which is an adjustment - she doesn’t have to get up until hours later - but luckily for her, she has an obnoxious rooster alarm that blares with the same vigor as a congested baby on an airplane. It’s quite impressive. 

Gee, but wherever should she put her phone to best hear the alarm? Hmm. 

Oh! Right.

On the third morning, Wednesday, at three past four on the dot, a thunderous pounding at her door overwhelms the sound of the rooster. Annie goes to open it with a certain spring in her step that belies her exhaustion. “Yes?”

“Are you shitting me?”

Ah, the sweet smell of well-earned vengeance. 

“Hmm? Whatever do you mean? Is something the matter, neighbor?” Annie forces all the doe-eyed innocence she can muster on her face, which, to be fair, is not a lot. Unsurprisingly, the woman - wearing short pajama shorts, a tight tank top, and no bra - falls for none of it. “It’s a little early for you to be banging on my door, don’t you think? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

If looks could kill, Annie would be dead on the spot. 

“Turn off that damn alarm.” A demand, sure, but it’s more akin to an unspoken threat. “Now.” 

“No thanks,” Annie says in a little sing-song tune, swinging the door closed.

But, of course, the woman catches it before it clicks shut. 

“We’re not done here.” 

“Oh?”

The asshole steps forward once, a mere inch away from the threshold. “Tell me. Must you make this much noise every day at four in the morning?” She brings both hands to her sides in tight, shaking fists. Looks like someone has an anger problem. 

Perhaps a little extra cheer will help lighten the mood. 

“Ah! You figured out how alarms work!” With a wide smile and bright eyes, Annie slams the door righteously in the woman’s face before calling out a satisfied, “Good for you!” 

~

The next two weeks are a tornado comprised of the same bullshit. 

On Thursday morning, the woman decides to set her own alarm - heavy metal nonsense that sounds more like two trash cans having sex than actual music - at the coincidental time of three-thirty. So. Annie, of course, schedules her rooster to howl off at three. 

Eventually, neither of them are getting any sleep due to the never-ending sound of her rooster screaming along to abismal heavy metal all through the night. 

After the second night without sleep, Annie resigns herself to sleeping on the couch with a pair of earplugs. It doesn’t help one bit.

In the mornings, on Annie’s way to work, the two women never cross paths in the hallway or outside. A small slice of peace. But, in the evenings, when six-thirty rolls around, it appears as if they make a daily habit of running into one another on the building’s front steps. 

The woman’s red scarf, black leggings, and blue sweater-dress - which hugs her prominent curves as though it’s a second layer of skin - piss. Annie. Off. 

Infuriating people should not look good in nice clothes and gym clothes and pajamas. Pick one. Those are the rules. 

In comparison, Annie’s white button-up shirt, gray fitted vest, and gray work pants make her seem rather… bland. Gray. A rain cloud casting shadows over the ocean. 

Annie reaches the front steps two seconds too late. The woman locks eyes with her, steady and piercing despite the dark circles underneath, and opens the door behind her. She slips through and slams it shut before Annie can even reach for the knob. 

And then there’s the unmistakable click of the upper lock, to which Annie never carries the key for. Because no one ever locks the top bolt.  

Annie can feel her nails digging into her palms, the stretch of skin across her knuckles. 

Fine. Fine. Be that way. She’s climbed through her kitchen window before, and she’s not above doing it again. 

This will not be the thing that breaks her. 

The window is off to the side of the building and unlocked, which, upon mild consideration, is highly concerning in and of itself, but that’s not important at the moment. What is important is how, despite being on ground level, Annie is still too short and out of shape to push herself up on the windowsill without dislocating something vital. 

So, of course, as one does, she gets a running start from the next yard over, leaps herself up onto the ledge like an amateur pole vaulter, and very nearly somersaults off her kitchen counter.

So this evening’s going great.   

Ten minutes later, after she successfully broke back into her apartment (all while running on an empty tank of dignity, for what it’s worth) and changed into a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, large chunks of plaster began hailing down around her joint kitchen and dining area. In the time it takes for her to get a safe distance away from the damage zone, a seventy-pound kettlebell bursts through her dining table from a new hole in the ceiling.

That right there? THAT breaks her. 

“What the f-” 

“Shit.” A hushed voice travels down the hole, bits of plaster like a meteor shower overhead. Annie rushes over, only to look up into the startled eyes of the worst neighbor in the world. 

Needless to say, Annie’s at a loss for words. Or, more accurately, she knows exactly what she wants to say, however, if she were to open her mouth right now, she’s sure to spew out profanities and threats that will certainly land her downtown having a long chat with the Cambridge police.   

“Shit,” the woman says again, as if it’s her apartment that took the brunt of the damage. “I swear that one wasn’t on purpose.” 

Breathe in, breathe out. In and out. Annie says nothing, does nothing, opting to stow away in her room and go to bed early. Not that she gets any sleep. 

That night, neither of them set their alarms. And the quiet is almost haunting.  

~ 

The woman’s name is Mikasa Ackerman. Annie knows because she bombarded their landlord with phone calls every two minutes, starting from six the next morning to six thirty-four. “You sure are fired up today.” 

“Hange.” After relaying the entire story, this is not the desired reaction. “It’s raining plaster in my apartment. There’s a hole above my very much broken dining table and an irritating draft. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t be ‘fired up.’ ” Hange can’t see the exaggerated air quotes, but they most certainly exist.  

A drawn out sigh fills the proceeding silence. “I’ll send Reiner over on Saturday to fix it.” 

“And what of the hole?” Annie isn’t a fan of the way her own voice sounds as though it’s tapping an impatient foot.

“I'll call someone and hopefully it’ll get fixed today. At the very least, it should be good to go by the time Reiner gets there. From the sound of it, all those weights created a lot of weak spots, so we’re going to have to redo large chunks of the ceiling. Luckily, your apartment isn’t that big!”

“You’re not letting her keep the weights, are you?”

There’s a tentative inhale on the other end of the line. “Umm. Well. I was meaning to talk to you about that and this, well, kind of seems like the perfect opportunity. Silver linings!”

“You’re not letting her keep them, right? Please tell me you’re not.” 

“Okay, so, here’s the thing. You're not the only one to complain about the noise. So. Allow me to introduce you to a thought I've been playing around with: what if you two maybe, possibly, potentially swapped apartments?” 

Yeah, no. “Not happening.” 

“Can you at least think about it?”

“No.”

“Not even for a second?”

“No.”

“But you’d get a better view on the second floor! You could see the city from your window!” 

Not true. The only thing visible from that window is a bus stop, a convenience store, and a construction site. Still. “Why would I want a shitty view of a city I don’t even like?”  

Hange lets out one last sigh of defeat, which is usually how their conversations end. “Okay, okay. I’ll call her and work something out. Happy now?” 

No, but she says yes and hangs up anyway.   

By the time Saturday morning rolls around, the floor in Annie’s living area looks as though it’s been dusted with a generous amount of cocaine. Hange’s phone call clearly had no effect, as Mikasa has now taken to jumping jacks, jump rope, and box jumps, all for the sole purpose of being a raging asshole. 

The hole in the ceiling was patched up a couple days ago - Mikasa had to pay for that out of pocket, which was hopefully very expensive - so now all that’s left is to repair the weak spots in order to prevent more damage. 

Reiner lets out a low whistle when he steps foot inside, his utility bag sliding off his shoulder and onto the floor. “Damn.” 

“I know.” 

He gives the room a curious once-over, noting the odd rearrangement in furniture. The broken dining table is now pushed up against the far left wall near the window, while the couch and television set are crammed in the far right corner near the bathroom. It’s as though the floor in the middle of the apartment is expected to tumble into the depths of the Earth. 

“Okay, I have the rest of the stuff in the truck and Bertholdt is on his way. We’ll fix this up for you in no time.” Reiner gives her a smile and a pat on the back before dipping from the apartment, through the lobby, and out the front door of the building. Luckily for him, he found a parking spot right out front. 

Bertholdt shows up, and he and Reiner get all their supplies in tow and cover the floor in layers of old newspapers. “It looks like there are weak patches. In all honesty, you probably should have gotten this fixed years ago, crazy neighbor or no.” Reiner runs a hand through his short, blond hair and slides it down to the back of his neck. “The building’s old, and you’re on the ground level. It’s a miracle your ceiling lasted as long as it did.”    

“Hmm.” Annie stands in the doorway of her bedroom as they work, sipping at a now lukewarm mug of coffee that she made earlier in the morning. “I’ll make a new pot of coffee, if you guys want some.” 

The two look at each other, as if they have no other choice but to have the same answer, and Bertholdt nods. “Sure, that’d be great.” 

Rolling her eyes, Annie retreats back into her room where she temporarily relocated her coffee maker, grounds, filters, and a gallon of water from the kitchen counter to her desk. Mikasa can ruin her carpet, and she can even ruin her food, but some things are sacred. 

When she brings out two mugs of coffee, Reiner and Bertholdt are smoothing out patches of the ceiling with a trowel, with Reiner on top of a ladder and Bertholdt keeping it steady. “So,” she ventures. “How long do you think this will take?” 

Reiner shrugs. “Ehh, maybe six to eight hours. The ceiling isn't that big.” He steps down from the ladder, wiping his hands on a towel around his waist, and they both accept the offered coffee. Bertholdt gives Reiner a look, nervous and seeking permission, and Reiner waves him off. “So, Annie.” 

“Yes?” 

“Well,” he rubs the back of his neck again. “You remember Hitch, right?” 

Oh. “Obviously… Guys, what is this about?”  

Bertholdt picks up where Reiner falters. “Well, you see. Hitch, she… is engaged. To Marlo? He used to live on the third floor?”

She remembers, and the entire weight of Mikasa’s kettlebell settles on Annie’s chest, a raw hollowness swirling at the base of her stomach. “Oh. Him. Right.” 

Reiner coughs, covering his mouth with a loose fist. “Yeah, I guess they’re looking into buying a house out west. California, I think. They want to move somewhere warm after the wedding. You know Hitch. She’s always been weak to the cold.”

Annie knows that better than anyone. “I see. That’s… that’s nice,” she said, not looking either of them in the eye. “I’m happy for her.”              

“So, the thing is,” Bertholdt starts, because of course there’s more. “She wasn’t sure whether or not to send you an invitation. I told her I’d ask?” He delivers the statement as a question, probably to avoid tackling the elephant in the room. Do you want to go? Are you okay with seeing her again? It has been two years, after all. 

“I mean. I wouldn’t mind.” Her fingers start wearing at the hem of her sleeve. “When is it?” 

Reiner taps the carpet with the toe of his boot. “Ahh… it’s, well. In three weeks.” 

“Oh.” 

“And Bert and I… we each get a plus one, so… you know. We wanted to ask you first.”  

A hard lump forms in her throat. “I- No, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

No. “Yeah. It’s fine.” 

Bertholdt loops his hands in loose circles, a nervous trait he picked up from his Italian mother. “Sorry about this. We didn’t want to just spring this on you, but we also didn’t want to not-”

“No, no. I understand.”

Neither Reiner or Bertholdt look convinced, but then again, Annie doesn’t expect them to believe her. “You’re really sure?”

A twitch under one eye, a hard set to her jaw. “Yeah.” 

“Annie-”

“It’s fine.” A lie. “I’m fine.” And another.  

They look to each other once more, a cocked brow here and a shrug over there, tell-tale signs of defeat, or surrender, or we've done our job and don't want to deal with this anymore. Or maybe something like pity, which is by far the worst. “Okay,” Reiner says. “But you can always change your mind. If you want.” 

Annie nods, afraid of what might come up if she opens her mouth again, and turns back into her bedroom where she stays until long after the sun sets.

~

Stars don’t shine as bright in the city as they do in the countryside where Annie was raised. She thinks about that sometimes - how city lights erase the very thing they imitate. How she gave up something real for something artificial when she moved. 

Reiner and Bertholdt left a few hours ago, waving a muted goodbye on their way out. They mean well, she knows that. But a part of her wishes they never said anything to begin with, that they left her ignorance in tact. She hasn’t thought of Hitch in months, but now it all comes flooding back.  

“I never meant for it to be like this. You know that, right? You understand?” She had never seen Hitch look so nervous before. So unsure of herself. “I’m really, really sorry, you have no idea. I hurt you, I know that. But we can move past this, right? We can go back to being friends again somewhere down the line? Right? …Annie?” 

Pulling on a hoodie, Annie pockets her wallet and keys and makes her way out of the apartment and into the cool night air. Down the street is a twenty-four hour convenience store, the buzz from its open sign flickering unevenly with that of the lights. Inside, the middle-aged man at the counter leans back in a fold-out chair with the day’s newspaper in hand, an open beer bottle next to the register. He doesn’t acknowledge her when she walks in, never does. 

Annie wanders through the aisles, inspecting snacks and boxes of teas, weighing the decision of whether she wants them, or if she simply wants to buy something for the sake of feeling productive. Either is fine. 

Down in the way back of the store, dead center in the dairy aisle, is an annoying head of dark hair, with infuriatingly toned arms to boot. Mikasa seems to be caught up in the nutritional difference between whole milk and two percent, a gallon of each in her hands.

Before Annie can slip back into the aisle without being seen, Mikasa turns her head. For an awkwardly dragged out moment, she says nothing. Just lowers the milk gallons to her sides. “You complained to Hange.” And got her precious barbell temporarily banned. 

Who wouldn’t? Is what she wants to say. Instead, Annie shrugs, shoving her hands in the front pocket of her hoodie. “Could’ve been anyone.” 

“No. It was you.” The way Mikasa holds her stare without blinking doesn’t yield the desired effect. Annie isn’t about to look away. 

Instead, she twists the fabric inside her pocket until her knuckles are sore. “So what if it was? You tore a hole through my ceiling. Can you blame me?”

She arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t look all that angry, which is odd. Since the get-go, Annie has been anticipating a war, but now all she’s getting is indifference. “Calling the landlord on me after only a few weeks. You’re cold.” 

That final word is salt on a freshly reopened wound. “Yeah. You’re not the first person to call me that. Sorry to disappoint.” 

“I never said it was a bad thing.” Mikasa shrugs, milk sloshing around inside the two plastic gallons. 

The bell at the front door rings, a man with a booming voice buying scratch tickets. Neither women shift their gaze. Annie can feel the flatness in her tone before she speaks. “I see.” 

Mikasa opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. Like she wants to say something she shouldn’t. Instead, her expression hardens into something stubborn and unyielding. “Sorry about the other night, by the way,” she says through grit teeth. “Putting a hole through your ceiling, I mean. It was a bad day, I kinda just tossed it and didn’t think.” Despite the unmistakable reluctance, there’s a kernel of genuine remorse there, which throws Annie through a loop, her expression like that of a deer in headlights. “I’ll buy you a new table.” 

Exhaling, Annie taps at the tiled floor with the toe of her boot. “You will. And please try to refrain from potentially dropping nearly a hundred pounds through my skull on ‘bad days.’ …You’d have to clean out all the blood from the carpet and hide the body before someone starts snooping around.” Apparently, Mikasa doesn’t think Annie is all that funny. To be fair, no one does. 

Nonetheless, the tension doesn’t feel as thick anymore, and Annie briefly wonders if she wants to ruin the partially patched bridge between them. But then again, it’s not like she really has anything to lose, and Mikasa is an asshole, so it’s not like there’s any reason to be civil. “So. What do you plan to do in regards to jumping around like a crackhead rabbit?”     

Mikasa runs her tongue over her top teeth, contemplative. “Nothing. Yet.” 

How lovely. “I see. Well, good luck with that. I’m sure you’ll receive another call from Hange soon.” Annie turns, deciding that she doesn’t want to buy anything after all, but then pauses. “Whole milk lasts longer, by the way.” 

“I know that.” 

“Well, you were glaring pretty hard at those labels, so.” 

“Protein.” 

“Ah.” So she’s one of those. Figures. “Gotcha.” 

“You know,” Mikasa says as she turns back to inspect her milk with the utmost care. “You could probably use some more protein in your diet. From the looks of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the wind swept you away.”

Surprisingly, Annie chuckles at that before she really has the chance to stop herself. “You sound like my dad.” 

“He must be a smart guy, then. You should listen to him.” She decides on the whole milk and shoves the two percent back into the refrigerator. “Maybe then you’ll be able to tough out a little noise and some plaster.”  

A little noise. That’s one way to put it. “I don’t think having the muscle mass of a professional wrestler will solve those problems.” 

Mikasa moves to the aisle Annie is standing at the mouth of, stopping mere inches away. She’s about a head taller and clearly enjoys the simple pleasure of looking down her nose. Annie chooses not to notice the glaring intensity in her eyes, or the way her hair flows down her broad shoulders like running water, or how she smells like she uses coconut scented everything. She especially ignores the gentle curve of her lip, how it slips up into a playful smile Annie won’t soon forget. 

“We’ll see,” Mikasa says, a hunter accepting a challenge.        

And all at once, Annie has the strong urge to flee. Partially because she wants to get back to the building before Mikasa does to avoid awkwardly walking home together, but also because of the microscopic part of her that’s pestering her to stay. 

She gives a curt nod and veers out of the aisle, tuning out the parts of her she doesn’t understand, and walks back out into the night towards her newly plastered apartment. 

~

Apparently, “we’ll see” actually translates to “heavy metal music cranked up to eleven,” which complements the “high-intensity jumping-squat regimen.” The fixed ceiling lives up to Reiner and Bertholdt’s upstanding reputation, but somehow the noise is even more annoying.

Just before she leaves for work the following Tuesday, Annie finds a handwritten note taped to her door.  

Bet you wish you ate more protein now. 

Cute, but Annie’s fancy is in no way tickled. At least, that’s what she tells herself. The dumb grin on her face says otherwise, which is problematic on so many levels. Luckily, she’s a self-proclaimed problem-solver.   

Hange answers on the third try this time. “Sup?”

“How do the other tenants not complain?” 

“Good afternoon to you, too, Annie! As much as I adore chatting, shouldn’t you be at work right now, instead of on your phone?” 

Annie tightens her grip on her pencil. “For the hundredth time, I’m a telemarketer. And, for the record, I’m on break.” 

A chuckle that’s a little too enthusiastic rings on the other end. “I know. I just like making you say it.” Sometimes, much like right now, Hange makes Annie want to lay her head down flat underneath Mikasa’s kettlebell. When she doesn’t answer, Hange continues. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Other tenants complain. You can imagine the calls I get on a daily basis from Moblit. Though, he’s two floors above, so you’re definitely getting the brunt of the noise.” 

“Can’t you come by and talk to her? Was she even allowed to have powerlifting equipment in the building to begin with?” 

“Well… I never said she could have them, but I also never said she couldn't, so…”

“Seriously? Are you aware that you’re the landlord here?” 

“More than you might think.” Exhaustion creeps into Hange’s tone via a short sigh and Annie almost feels bad. 

Almost.

“Just tell her to get a gym membership. Everyone wins.” Except Mikasa, which is fine by Annie and, apparently, Moblit.  

“I can’t just do that, she’s my friend’s cousin! She’d rat me out to him and he’d stomp on over here to tear me a new asshole!” 

Serves you right, is what Annie wants to say, but ends up with a disinterested, “I see,” instead. “And who’s this friend of yours?” 

“Ah, you’ve met him! Remember Levi? From the Christmas party last year? The little guy with all the frown lines?” 

Ugh, of course. “You mean the lawyer?”   

She can practically hear Hange nodding from the other end of the line. “The very one! You have a good memory! Yeah, so, he’s, um, how do I put this? Aggressive when it comes to the law. And the Massachusetts courts favor tenants over landlords as it is, so. You know.”

“Hange,” she says with all the exhaustion of a telemarketer on a Tuesday afternoon. “Don’t make shit up. Just say you don’t want to piss off your grumpy secret boyfriend.” 

“Well, that too.” 

One day, Annie is going to kick all of them in the teeth. Maybe she should stock up on protein after all. “Yeah, I get it. Fine.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales, checking the clock. Ten past two. “Listen, I gotta get back to work. I’ll call you later.” 

“You got it!” Relief settles in Hange’s voice. “Have fun selling… what is it again? Car insurance? Key chains? Fanny packs?”  

“Telescopes.” 

“Right, right. Stars and stuff, very cool. Good luck!” 

Annie hangs up the phone and rubs her temples, an irritated pulse acting up somewhere along the edge of her hairline. 

In all honesty, Annie isn’t entirely sure why Mikasa bothers her this much. In the three years of her living in that apartment, plenty of obnoxious neighbors have come and gone, and none of them got under her skin the way this one does. Sure, the plaster thing was a major pain in the ass, but - and she HATES admitting to this - Mikasa wasn’t entirely wrong when she said it was poorly maintained. When was the last time anyone replastered the ceiling? 

Never, that’s when. 

And it’s not like Annie is usually bothered by noise. There have certainly been worse over the years. College kids, dog owners, couples with unreasonable sex lives - Annie has heard it all. 

Truth be told, it’s the silence that makes her skin crawl. So Annie shouldn’t even be giving Mikasa a second thought. 

But she consistently finds herself sparing the woman many thoughts, because Mikasa is, for one reason or another, unquestionably annoying. A terrible neighbor, through and through. Sarcastic, rude, ridiculously toned, prettier than anyone has any right being - she might actually be the devil.   

Obviously.  

“Annie?” A deep voice cuts across her cubicle, startling her out of her thoughts. “Everything okay in here? You look a little pale.” Erwin, her boss, looms over her desk, casting almost everything on it in his shadow. His eyebrows raise in concern when he sees her.

“Yeah, thanks. Sorry about that, I’m fine,” she assures him, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip from her half empty water bottle. It takes everything in her to not openly stare at his dog-patterned tie. A dozen little golden retrievers with their tongues sticking out. “Probably just a little dehydrated.” 

He hums, giving her an obvious once-over, but seems to let it go. “All right. Let me know if you need anything.” He moves onto the next cubicle, checking in on Rico, who, in every regard, is too overqualified to work here. 

Annie scans her eyes down to the next name and number on her list, the distinct sense of impending doom pouring down on her.    

Ackerman, Mikasa. 

Somewhere in the universe, God is laughing at her.

The thought occurs to her to pass this particular contact off to Rico, but then Annie remembers that she is twenty-five years old, not fifteen.    

With any luck, Mikasa won’t answer. With all the noise she makes, how can she possibly hear her phone anyway? 

The dial rings once, twice, three times. And then Annie’s heart both rises and sinks in the span of a second. “Hello?”     

Shit. 

Here goes nothing. “Um, good afternoon. I’m a representative of Astraea Scope. I was wondering if you would be interested in-”

“Wait a minute… Annie?” The upturn in Mikasa’s voice - like she just caught her in the midst of a scandal - does nothing for Annie’s nerves. “From upstairs? That’s your name, right?” 

She sighs, switching off her higher-pitched customer service persona. “And here I thought I could sell you an overpriced telescope unnoticed.”

Mikasa snorts. “You would need to be charming to get through to my wallet. Anyone’s wallet, actually. I imagine you don’t make many sales.” 

“You’d be surprised,” she says, pressing the phone closer in her ear. “I used to be employee of the month, you know. Every month.” Until Rico showed up, which is irrelevant. Why she’s bringing this up at all, she has no idea. 

Mikasa gives a short tsk. “Used to be. So what happened? A piece of ceiling fall on your head?”

“Something like that.” 

An awkward silence drags its feet between them, the buzz of people in the background acting as the only indicator that neither has hung up yet. From the sound of it, Mikasa is on a bus or a train. 

“So,” Mikasa starts, and the break in silence is jarring. “What are you selling again?”

“Telescopes. For stargazing.” They’re overpriced, but she’d be lying if she claims the view isn’t worth it. 

“Huh.” The click of her tongue is audible over the line, like a light switch. “You know, for some reason, that doesn’t surprise me all that much,” she says, her tone even. 

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because.” A pause. Annie holds tight to her breath, keeps it at bay. She can practically hear the wheels turning in Mikasa’s head. “Because maybe you can’t get over what’s going on above you… Given our brief history, I would know.”

Annie exhales something like relief, light and airy in her chest. Something that has no right being there. “Heh, you got me.”     

“Good.” There’s that upwards shift in her voice again, a sound akin to satisfaction. “So. What’s your pitch?” In the background, Annie can hear the train’s intercom - Next Stop: Kendall MIT.  

“My what?”

“Your pitch. For the telescope. Don’t tell me you don’t have a pitch.”

She really hopes Rico can’t hear the smile in her tone from the next cubicle over. “Of course I have a pitch.” 

“Then let’s hear it. Set my heart on that telescope, Miss. Former-Employee-of-the-Month. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll consider buying it.”

Annie does work on commission, which is the exact reason she gives herself to further indulge in this conversation. “All right, then. Mikasa, let me tell you exactly why you need this telescope. By any chance, are you aware that the lifespan of a star is about ten billion years?”

“I did not know that, no.” 

“Well, it’s true. That means, definitively, that the stars you look up to night after night are the same ones that have lived throughout all of human history. They’ve seen everything we’ve done - every victory and defeat, every trial and tribulation, every joy and sorrow - and they remember all of it. Your parents and your parents’ parents and so on and so forth all sat under the same sky. And your children and your children’s children will likely do the same. But it’s not just family, you know? It’s everyone. Those are the same stars the ancient Greeks and Romans wrote about, it’s where they found heroes and gods through the constellations. They’re the same stars the Vikings used to navigate through the sea for hundreds of years, and why? Because the stars are faithful. You can trust them. Humans have always looked to them for guidance - past, present, and future. But you and I? Well. We live in a city. When we look out our bedroom windows, we can only see a handful of stars and a whole lot of street lights. I don’t know about you, but I feel robbed of the very thing that’s been passed down to us since the dawn of our existence. After everything that’s happened, don’t you want to see what all the fuss is about with your own two eyes? Before time passes you by?” 

Next Stop: Charles MGH.  

Mikasa is silent for a moment, which is good because Annie needs to catch her breath. That speech usually works on elderly people with a strong sense of nostalgia, but millennials are a hit or miss. 

“I see,” she finally says. “That’s a pretty speech, I like it.”

Annie shakes her head as though Mikasa is there to see it. “Do you have goosebumps at least?”

“Not telling.”       

“Damn. Tough crowd.” 

“I’ve been called worse.” A short pause, but it feels stretched. “So how much?”

“Hm?” 

“For the telescope. What price tag does one place on - what did you call it? - that which has been passed down to humanity since the dawn of time?” 

“Ah, that. Well, that’s ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents. Plus tax.” 

“You can’t just say a hundred?” 

“Consider it a discount. My treat.”

A genuine laugh fills the silence, the sound of a flute in an empty theatre. “How generous of you. Do you give all your customers the royal treatment?” 

“Only the ones who stay on the phone, which, to be fair, is not a lot. You should feel special.”  

“Believe me, I do.” Which doesn’t sound entirely disingenuous. “So, if I only workout in the mornings after you’ve left for work, what kind of discount will that get me?” 

Hesitation be damned, Annie doesn’t even need a fraction of a second to consider the offer. “I will personally set your telescope up for you on the roof, and, as an added bonus, I’ll find whichever star you want.” 

“Whenever I want?”

“But of course,” she answers, all while ignoring the giddy bounce in her leg. “What are neighbors for?”  

“Well then, in that case, I believe we have ourselves a deal.” Next Stop: Park Street. 

The monotone readings of the train stops in the background finally breaks Annie’s curiosity. “Where are you going, by the way? Who takes the red line at two-thirty in the afternoon?” 

“I’m an after school teacher in Quincy,” she responds as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Gotta pay for that telescope somehow. How else am I supposed to drag you to the roof at ungodly hours just to find whatever stars happen to pique my interest?”

For whatever reason, the idea doesn’t sound terrible. Not that Annie is ever going to admit to it. “You got me again.”

“So. How am I supposed to pay for this thing?”  

And just like that, somewhere during the remainder of their transaction, Annie begrudgingly admits that Mikasa Ackerman might not be so bad.

Chapter Text

Every year after Thanksgiving, Hange invites the building residents to a rooftop party. On paper, the gathering is a “building relationships with all the neighbors” type of event. In reality, it’s just a way to help people who partake in Black Friday to stay awake. 

This year, Annie has her eye on a fancy new slow cooker. 

The night is crisp, a certain hush that only comes after a full day of eating. Wind sweeps gently in every which direction, uncertain where to go. Above their heads, blanketing the inky black sky, clouds are flushed pink and ready to burst with the first snowfall of the season. Large metal dispensers of coffee and hot chocolate line the foldout table near the door to the staircase, which is exactly where Annie situates herself. Steam from her hot chocolate wafts up from her paper cup and warms her cheeks against the midnight chill.

Hange is overlooking the city lights with their not-so-secret boyfriend, Levi. Since as long as Annie has known them, they’ve always stood too close to each other, hands just barely touching in a way that’s almost unnatural. 

Moblit, who lives on the fourth and top floor, is curled up in a bean bag chair with a paperback mystery novel in hand. He seems calm, but that’s probably because Hange is otherwise occupied and Mikasa is nowhere in sight. 

On the opposite side of the roof, seated cross-legged on a picnic blanket with five empty coffee cups strewn about, is Armin, his face mere inches away from the glowing screen of his laptop. He lives in the apartment across the hall from Annie’s and she’s never once seen him when he’s not working on school assignments. Being a PhD student at MIT must be stressful, but Armin goes the extra mile to make it look easy. Almost fun.

That he only sleeps in twenty-minute bursts is a topic he religiously avoids. 

Annie moves to sit down with him on the blanket. He nods at her arrival, but doesn’t look up from the screen, one finger tapping the down-arrow key at a steady pace. “You’re gonna hurt your eyes like that, kid. And you’ll probably develop neck problems, fair warning.” 

“Pfft,” he rolls his eyes. “You should really hang out with my grandfather, he’d love you. You could both grumble over ‘kids these days on their damn phones.’” 

“Maybe I should.” Something about Armin’s smile is infectious, his presence overwhelmingly calm. As if everything will be okay as long as he’s around. “So, which scientific breakthroughs are you tinkering with now?” 

Pushing his dark framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, he stops scrolling through a page littered with charts and intricately labeled diagrams. “Taking a break from the ol’ dissertation to read up on some fascinating research on algorithms that could potentially capture images of two neutron stars at the point of collision.” After three years of knowing him, Annie can proudly say that she understands what that means in full. 

“Nice.” She takes a long sip of her hot chocolate and looks up at the clouds. Not a star in sight.  

“Heard you have a new friend.”

Annie’s quick to snap her head back at him, noting the small smirk settling in the corners of his mouth. “She’s not my friend.” Or is she? Does selling a telescope to someone who doesn’t completely suck justify a friendship label? They have been talking more since then… but friend is such a strong word. “At least… I don’t think she’s my friend?”   

Armin shrugs, which is his way of feigning disinterest in a topic he’s very much interested in. “That’s not what Hange says.” 

“I’ve never known you to take Hange’s word at face value.” 

“And I’ve never known you to make daily noise complaints. I was under the assumption that was Moblit’s job.” He raises an eyebrow at his laptop, but she knows it’s meant for her. “And then, out of nowhere, radio silence from you? The same noise is still present, but now you’re suddenly unfazed? Hmm. Interesting.” 

“You know,” Annie sighs, leaning back on her elbows. “I’m starting to think you’re a little too observant.” 

Armin chuckles, light and airy, finally turning his face away from the screen to face her. “As crazy as it sounds, people and physics aren’t all that different. Both have patterns and rules that can be tracked and tested - ‘tinkered with,’ as you put it. And when those factors change, it’s for a reason.” He waves a hand as if to brush aside what he just said. “Newton’s first law of motion, all that jazz.” 

It’s annoying when he uses science to make sense of people. Specifically her. “Tch.” She takes a gulp of her drink and finishes off the cup.  

“So,” Armin continues, feeling around the blanket for his coffee only to find that he drank it all. “I saw Reiner the other day. He and Bertholdt were leaving your apartment.”

Suddenly her hot chocolate leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. “Yeah, they came to re-plaster my ceiling.” Part of her wants to ask him about the wedding. The other part doesn’t want to remember that the wedding exists at all. 

“Are you going to go with them to the wedding?” Leave it to Armin to get straight to the point. 

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to beat around the bush a little,” Annie sighs, massaging her temples. Reiner and Bertholdt’s offer is never far from her mind, so needless to say she’s put a lot of thought into the matter. “And no. I wasn’t invited, so I doubt… I doubt she wants me there.” 

“Good,” he says, turning back to the screen but clearly not focusing on anything in particular. “Now I can throw my invitation in the recycling. It’s taking up too much space on my fridge.” 

“You’re not going?” Surprise overtakes her, and she stares at him as he tries to ignore the prickly feeling of being watched. He has always hated being the center of attention. “I thought you and Hitch were close? You used to study in her apartment all the time.” Back before Marlo moved in on the third floor, when Hitch lived in the apartment Mikasa now occupies. 

“Of course I’m not going,” he takes a deep breath and looks her dead in the eyes, resolve unwavering. “Break ups, if you’ll recall, are all about picking sides - or at least they should be. And I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m Team Annie all the way.”

“Armin,” Annie says, a reluctant smile spreading from ear to ear. “What break ups are you basing your logic on?” As far as she knows, he’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month. 

“Hey, hey, no fair. Remember when you and I dated for, like, two weeks? That counts as a break up. And even then I was still on your side.” 

It’s times like this when Annie wishes she fell for him during those two weeks. But then she remembers the fact that Armin has a pet tarantula and thinks better of it. 

“You should probably take your own side from time to time. Gain some perspective, build character. ‘All that jazz,’” she mimics, air quotes included. 

“Where’s the fun in that? Besides.” He looks around the blanket again, the realization that he’s all out of coffee resurfacing for round two. From the light of his screen, she can see the dark circles under his eyes. “I like to think I made the right choice.” 

“Oh?”

He gives her a light flick to the forehead. “I still have you, don’t I?”

All the warmth from her hot chocolate catches up to her at once, spreading from her stomach to her chest to her cheeks. “Yeah,” she says, rubbing the spot on her forehead. “We still have each other.” 

“Good. As it should be.” He turns back to his laptop, scrolling through research articles once more in the comfortable silence. On the other side of the roof, Moblit has sunk deeper into the bean bag chair, his entire focus wrapped around his book. Meanwhile, Hange and Levi are speaking in hushed tones, their shoulders pressed against each other as they lean on the railing.  

There’s a slivered break in the clouds, a black velvet ribbon snaking in the sky like a road leading to nowhere.    

The wedding is in a little under a week, and every night Annie wars with herself on whether or not she wants to go. To see Hitch again. To maybe gain some closure. 

To prove she’s not so easily broken.  

“I hurt you, I know that. But we can move past this, right? We can go back to being friends again down the line? Right? …Annie?”

At the time, Annie hadn’t given much thought to what she was agreeing to. She just needed to rebuild her walls, to shut out what no longer belonged inside. “You didn’t hurt me. What’s done is done.” 

“But-” 

“Just leave. Now.”

And she did, without so much as a backwards glance. Annie broke down in the shower that night when she thought no one could hear her. But Armin did. And he spent the following weeks and months helping Annie piece herself back together again.  

The only other time she saw Hitch after that was in the hallway on the day she moved out. With Marlo. Annie had acted as though she didn’t see them rip their hands apart the second she came into view, but they all knew otherwise. 

And now, after all that, why should she go to their wedding? Why is she even entertaining the idea? Her jaw twitches at the thought of Reiner and Bertholdt thinking it a good idea to invite her.  

Armin looks up from his laptop once more when the rooftop door clicks open and shut. Mikasa makes her way to the refreshments table, clad in a tight black dress that settles a couple inches above her knees, a pair of sheer black nylons, black heels that give her an extra three inches in height, and the red scarf she apparently never takes off. 

Her red lipstick is a real punch in the gut.

Armin lets out a low whistle. “So that’s what she looks like.” From the corner of her eye, Annie can see the gears turning in his head - a new coffee delivery source has presented itself. 

And it isn’t Mikasa. 

“Why don’t you go say hi to your new friend?” He gives Annie a light shove with his elbow, not taking his eyes off the woman standing dangerously close to the coffee dispensers. “And bring me some coffee on your way back. Maybe two cups. A splash of cream, no sugar, pretty please and thank you very much.” 

“Wouldn’t that be your sixth and seventh cup respectively? You’re going to develop heart problems.”

His gaze shifts and he searches her face, eyes wide and voice low. “…Grandpa? Is that you?”   

“Oh, shut up. I’ll get your precious caffeine,” she says, knuckling his hair as she rises. “Addict.” 

“Thank yoooou.” 

Mikasa nods at Annie’s approach, a cinnamon powdered doughnut dangling from her mouth as she poured herself a cup of hot chocolate. “Hey,” Annie says, allowing three feet of space to hang between them. 

Mikasa bites down on the doughnut, placing the remainder down on a napkin. “Hey yourself.” A splotch of cinnamon sugar clings to the edge of her chin, which is hilarious, so Annie doesn’t point it out. 

They have seen each other quite a few times since their phone conversation a couple weeks prior. After work each day, they’ve exchanged brief, but friendly pleasantries:

“This rain’s a bitch.” 

“You’re a bitch.”

“Exactly, that’s why it only rains when I don’t have an umbrella. Like calls to like.” 

“And maybe thunder is just the sound of God laughing at you.”

“You know,” Annie said, looking Mikasa square in the eye. “Lately I’ve been thinking the same thing.” 

Then, two nights ago, after running into each other at the convenience store, they witnessed a minor car accident in the parking lot and narrated the scene as though it were a high-profile sporting event. 

“Are you blind? That guy was parked! He’s clearly not at fault!” 

“Yeah, but he was also taking up two spaces. TWO. Feast your eyes on divine retribution, Annie. It only comes around once every millenia or so.”

After shamelessly watching the two car owners argue and exchange information with impressive reluctance, Annie and Mikasa walked back to the apartment building together without a single trace of their initial awkwardness. 

The last time they saw each other was earlier this morning, just before Mikasa left to go to her parents’ house in Concord for the holiday.

“I’d honestly rather skip Thanksgiving altogether. I don’t even like turkey.”

“Turkeys don’t like you, either.”  

“Good,” Mikasa muttered with crossed arms, as if shielding herself from the mere concept of poultry. “They’d better not.”

Annie had stayed home with a store-bought rotisserie chicken and her homemade pumpkin pie, ignoring the voicemails she received from her father throughout the day. Eventually, she turned her phone off and abandoned it on her bedside table. 

After spending a majority of the day marathoning 80’s horror movies in her living room, she had subjected herself to running errands for Hange. There were some loose ends that needed tying for the rooftop party a mere few hours later and Annie was the only one free. 

There’s still three-quarters of a pie left in her refrigerator. She saved it for no one in particular.   

Annie looks from Mikasa to her doughnut and decides on snagging a Boston cream for herself. “I didn’t take you for the Black Friday type.” 

“I’m not, I only came up for the free food.” One corner of her mouth tugs up ever so slightly. “But I could say the same about you. You don’t seem like the type to haul ass for a discounted appliance.”

“Believe me, I’d rather be asleep right now.”

Mikasa snorts. “With an alarm like yours, I find that hard to believe.”

“Pfft. You should probably invest in a mirror, because last I checked, yours is far worse than mine. I hear everything’s half off at Walmart, perhaps you should join me.” Shit, that sounds eerily like an invitation. Annie’s not trying to invite her not-entirely-awful neighbor on a late night shopping spree. 

…Right? 

“Walmart is the spawn of the devil.” Or she can interpret it that way, sure. That’s fine. “Why would you ever step foot in there?” 

“I want a slow cooker. And I’m not above clawing my way through a crowd of highly caffeinated zombies to get it at a fraction of the cost.” Speaking of caffeinated zombies… “Hold on, I’ve gotta refuel my friend before he blows a fuse. Be right back.” 

Annie pours two cups of coffee - a splash of cream, no sugar - and brings them over to Armin, who totally wasn’t eavesdropping just now. “Real smooth, Annie.” 

Retracting the coffee cups so they’re out of his reach is quite possibly the meanest thing she’s done all year. “I see you don’t need these, what with all that energy you’ve got there.” 

Armin - with blank, soulless eyes - reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out an atom keychain with three dangling keys attached. He twirls out the key to his grandfather’s old station wagon and, without hesitation, offers it to her. “Hand over the coffee and you can take my baby to the devil’s spawn.”

Well, how can she refuse her dear friend in his hour of need?     

When Annie returns holding the car keys of a man who currently seems to be praying into the steam rising from his paper cup, Mikasa stares at her with a cocked brow and something like intrigue on her face. “What exactly did you put in his drink to swindle him out of his whole damn car?”   

“Trust me, that guy would sell his liver for a single shot of espresso.”  

Tension weighs heavy in Annie’s chest, unknowing of how to proceed. Should she ask Mikasa to tag along? Since she already kind of did? Or should she leave it open-ended, and dump the decision-making burden on Mikasa? 

Hey, Mikasa likes heavy weights, right? Surely she’s tough enough to handle this load.

“I’m heading out,” Annie says in an attempt to sound casual. In reality, she sounds anything but. “So, um. I-” 

“I guess I could use a few things for the apartment,” Mikasa mercifully interjects before Annie has the chance to speak out of her ass. “New place and all. I didn’t get to keep a lot of furniture from my last apartment.” She pushes strands of hair behind her ear, not making eye contact with the short blonde in front of her, but rather looking up towards that break in the clouds. “Plus, you’ve bullied some poor kid out of his car. We might as well make the most of it.”  

For the first time in a long time, Annie’s heart skips a beat.  

Within a half hour, they are both staked out in a Walmart parking lot after having just stolen the last spot from a very bitter college student. Third row from the front of the building - not bad for someone who drove at the legal speed limit and did not take Mikasa’s shitty advice to “floor it, bitch.”   

“This is, quite possibly, the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done,” Mikasa says, keeping a firm gaze on the growing line outside the store’s front door. The cinnamon sugar is still hogging up real estate on her chin and Annie is delighted.   

“Need I remind you that you dropped a kettlebell through my ceiling?” 

“By accident. What we’re doing now is premeditated.” 

“You know we’re not here to commit murder, right?” 

Mikasa waves her hand absentmindedly. “Gross glorification of capitalism is murder to the soul.”         

“…Oh, okay.” 

The lines are long, wrapping around the side of the building, with people camping out in sleeping bags and tents, gathered in groups and sharing blankets and coffee thermoses. Most of them are probably here to make large purchases - television sets, game consoles, appliances, furniture, things they can’t afford any other time of year. 

Annie’s not concerned about the slow cookers going out of stock this early in the night, and Mikasa doesn’t have anything particularly popular on her short list of things she wants for her apartment - a pull up bar, a cast iron skillet, a new dishware set, a teapot, new bed sheets, a yoga mat, and the mirror. 

So, actually, she needs to buy a lot, and will be murdering her own soul for a reasonable price tonight. 

Annie is staring deeply into the steering wheel, imagining Mikasa doing yoga - very innocently, of course - when the countdown begins.      

“They’re going to open the doors in five minutes,” Mikasa says, pointing to the time on her phone screen with a manicured nail. Five minutes to two. “This is no time for you to space out.” 

“Ah, yes. How could I be so gosh darn silly.” Annie rubs her eyes and drags herself back to reality, though the mental image of Mikasa in yoga pants lingers like a pesky stab wound. “Do you want to get in line?” 

Mikasa shakes her head and slips her phone back into the pocket of the black jeans she changed into before they left, intentional rips starting at her knees and trailing up to chaotic heights on her thighs. 

Not that Annie has been paying attention, or anything. 

“No way. We can’t get in line now, we’ll get trampled. I’d rather be the one doing the trampling.” Mikasa is a little too impatient for someone who equates Walmart with the literal devil. 

“Then what do you suggest we do?” 

“Simple. Wait here until seconds before the doors open, then charge forward and plow through anyone in our way.” 

Simple. Her tactics are almost admirable, if not a little militaristic. “Aren’t you the one who thinks I could get taken out by a light breeze? What makes you think I can raid a Walmart?” 

Mikasa, entirely serious, thinks about that for a moment. “Well. You’re the size of a twelve year-old, so you can probably slip through the crowd and people would just think you’re a lost child.”  

“You really are the worst.” Mikasa smirks in response, and Annie has just now decided to begin an extreme muscle building regimen for completely unrelated reasons. 

Half a minute before the doors are set to open, they get out of the car and perch themselves at the head, ready to make a break for it. Mikasa starts running the second she sees an overworked employee pulling out a set of keys from the other side of the glass double doors. Annie has no chance of keeping up, instead maintaining a steady jog as she watches Mikasa delve straight into the mob of shoppers. 

As much as she hates to admit it, Mikasa is not wrong: Annie, who’s barely five feet tall, has no issue squeezing past hordes of raging giants who think she’s a preteen. 

She finds Mikasa in the cookware department with a new, fancy slow cooker box under one arm. “Took you long enough.” 

“Well, we can’t all be gladiators.” Finally, a snarky comment Mikasa seems to be pleased with. Annie’s smile reaches her eyes, even when she rolls them. 

“I actually did a study abroad in Italy my sophomore year, you know.” Mikasa leads the way to the next aisle, shouldering past people who look too tired to stand, but too wired to do anything else. Caffeine at its finest. Annie is not entirely surprised. Mikasa has always had an air of I’ve spent copious amounts of time in Europe about her that doesn’t stem from nothing. Plus, if Annie recalls correctly, Mikasa is also the proud owner of a green, white, and red sweatshirt with Veni Vidi Vici written in bold, annoying letters on both front and back. “I majored in archeology and actually studied gladiators.” 

Archeology. Now that’s not at all what Annie had expected. But then again, Mikasa has a real knack for putting holes in the ground, so she'd probably make a damn fine archeologist. “Did you go, and see, and conquer? Or is that just a Caesar thing?” 

They scrutinize cast iron skillets, testing the weights. Nine inches, or ten and a half - the decision’s a tough one. “Unfortunately it’s just a Caesar thing. But if I were maybe an inch or two taller and had a cool catchphrase, that country would be mine.”  

“…I honestly can’t tell if you’re a tyrant, or not.”  

The nine-inch skillet wins out. “Good.” Mikasa turns and steps around Annie, brushing shoulders along the way. “Let’s keep it that way, Brutus.” And then she winks.

It takes a moment for Annie to process that motion. But when it finally clicks, all the bells clang like heavy metal in her head.

Was that an actual wink, or is Annie just seeing things? Is Annie going crazy?

Did? Mikasa? Seriously? Just? Wink? At? Her? 

… 

She did. 

And now she has the audacity to act as though she didn’t just set Annie’s whole damn face on fire. As it is, Annie can’t demand an explanation for that right now. Especially not in a devil-spawning Walmart. 

Annie follows Mikasa as they weave through the aisles, staring at the spot on the taller woman’s back where all her muscles seem to connect to her neck. Mikasa’s broad shoulders are bathed in the store’s fluorescent lighting, a sunrise across the horizon of her outline. If she had any artistic abilities, Annie would paint this image. But she doesn’t, so she’ll just have to settle on having a reliable memory.  

The workout section is notably less populated in comparison to the rest of the store, but that by no means equates to having any more space to move around. Quite the opposite. Everyone in the aisle is clearly a frequent gym goer, which designates Annie to the position of needle in a haystack. Or strand of hay in a stack of needles. Not that anyone notices her either way - the aisle, comprised of mostly men, parts like the Red Sea when Mikasa breezes through, and it has nothing to do with the cinnamon still on her face (which is sadly falling off little by little). In fact, none of them look up to notice that she even has a face. 

Mikasa, in turn, remains completely unimpressed. Same shit, different day. 

It’s strange, walking alongside someone who garners this much attention without so much as batting an eye. Hitch also used to attract a lot of attention whenever they went out, but that was different - Hitch sought it out, a firecracker of energy mixed with a bubbly personality, always wanting to meet new people, make new friends.

Mikasa is none of that, yet she commands a room like she owns everything and everyone in it. A human magnet, a positive charge in a world full of negatives. A world full of Annies.

Annie decides that now is not the time to unpack that completely left-fielded comparison. She’s already weirded out from being at a department store in the middle of the night with the same asshole who threw a kettlebell through her ceiling, so adding fuel to the fire might tip her over the edge.       

In other news, the pull-up bars look nothing like the ones at Planet Fitness. Instead of large, clunky machines, they are, in fact, just bars that can attach to the tops of doorways. Go figure. Setting the skillet down on a shelf, Mikasa picks out a pull-up bar with a red base and black padding, then another that looks exactly the same only purple. Annie leans against a shelf and watches as Mikasa weighs each option in her hands. Dark hair frames her delicate features - an odd set of facial characteristics given that she is by no means a delicate person. Even in this ungodly morning hour, Mikasa’s eyes still have light in them, and are still able to carefully consider whatever they land on. As if everything she looks at is worth looking at. Annie can’t help but stare.

After careful consideration, Mikasa decides on the red bar and then hands it to Annie. “You can carry this.” 

“Sure, sure. OR. We could get a cart,” which, admittedly, is the same as saying, let’s wrestle through a jungle of hysteric soccer parents and broke college students alike! “…Okay, and by that, I mean, you can get a cart. For the sake of time.”

True to hypothesis, Mikasa is able to obtain the shopping cart through the hurried crowds in under five minutes, and Annie internally judges herself for being the slightest bit impressed. Clearly, she has low standards.

Because they are both dumbasses, they have to round back to the cookware aisles. Someone forgot that she needs a new set of plates. The old ones are, to use exact words, not exciting enough. Because eating meals should be exciting and fun . 

Annie grabs the first set of dull plates she sees - light gray with zero intricacies - and adds them to Mikasa’s stuff. They are almost immediately reshelved. Annie sets her sights on a plain white set that looks like it takes inspiration from printer paper, the last in stock, but Mikasa sees it first and preemptively sets it on the top shelf where Annie can’t reach. “So,” Annie starts. “Where did you live before you moved here? And by ‘here,’ I mean our building, but feel free to move into Walmart and talk about that instead.”     

That earns her a grin. “I’ll consider it. And I was in Quincy.” Mikasa grabs a set of dark red plates with floral patterns around the edge and shrugs. “Lived really close to the school I work for.” 

“And now you have a forty minute commute, minimum. If you don’t mind my asking, why did you leave?” 

With an alarming degree of internal decay, Mikasa turns to Annie and flatly responds with, “Eren, my old roommate, started dating a guy who looks like a horse. And then he just… moved him in within the span of a weekend.” She shrugs again with a forced nonchalance, but it’s obvious she still cares. “I left before I could commit a felony.”

“How noble of you,” Annie says, allowing for a pause. “Was it really that bad?” 

“Horse-Boy ate all my mozzarella cheese and replaced it with American.” 

Ouch. If there’s one thing Annie hates, it’s people taking her food. And people who eat American cheese. Hence why she lives alone. “Dude, I’m pretty sure people get sent straight to hell for shit like that.”  

Mikasa throws out her arms as if to say, right? RIGHT? And she is, in fact, right. “Thank you! Eren got all pissy when I brought it up. ‘It’s just cheese, Mikasa, get over it,’” she deepens her voice and mimics his words with air quotes to boot. “But it wasn’t just the cheese, you know? That’s just what threw me over the edge. It was a bunch of things - Jean’s stuff took up too much space in the cabinets, he ate all my leftovers, and he would hog the bathroom for hours. Plus, he was always running laundry, Eren always took his side during arguments, their bedroom always sounded like a torture chamber, and I always felt like the third wheel in my own apartment. After four months I just couldn’t take it anymore.”   

Not for the first time tonight, Annie lets out a low whistle. “Damn, that sucks. You’re a far greater person than me, I probably would have taken the felony charge.” 

“It was a tough decision.”

“Well, in the end,” Annie starts, letting the words tumble out of her like falling dominoes before she even thinks to catch them. “I’m glad things worked out the way they did.” 

Bless Mikasa’s soul for not raising an eyebrow at the comment. Instead, she just nods and says, “Me too.”     

~

Because Mikasa decided to buy the whole damn store, she offers to add Annie’s slow cooker to her transaction for the sake of time, to which she agrees. Annie now owes Mikasa thirty dollars, which she has decided to pay off entirely with pennies over the span of a few weeks. Once they’re done loading the car, it becomes clear that neither of them want to go home just yet, so Mikasa demands that they go to the “dwelling place of her eternal soul” next, should Annie feel up to it. 

That is to say, Mikasa wants to go to IKEA. 

Because, of course, her eternal soul resides in IKEA. How absurd of Annie to think otherwise.           

Annie, lost in a vast and bottomless pit of confusion that her own soul will likely reside in one day, responds with, “I mean, when you put it that way, I can’t really say no, now can I?” For the record, she can’t. 

And this is how they end up browsing through an entire section of horrifyingly ugly dining tables in a store that Mikasa’s soul may or may not haunt postmortem. Annie had never been to IKEA before now, so she’s more than a little skeptical of all the room displays that look like the sets of daytime soap operas. 

“Isn’t this where they film The Young and the Restless? ”  

“Annie, Annie, Annie. My dad watches that show, and he is neither young nor restless. What does this say about you?” 

Well, damn. 

The store itself is just as crowded as Walmart, but, unsurprisingly, this gem of a section is not. Mikasa says she wants to replace the dining table she broke in the ceiling incident. As any decent person would do, she says. Like a good neighbor, she says. All for the greater good, she says. 

Full. Of. Shit. 

Annie, being the pessimistic telemarketer that she is, has a bad feeling about this and spends a great deal of time trying to direct Mikasa towards the normal dining tables across the aisle. She even points out that the simple ones are significantly cheaper. Fruitless efforts, all of them.  

“So,” Annie starts, scrunching her eyebrows together. “This is the resting place of your soul, eh?” 

“Dwelling place,” Mikasa corrects, deadpan. “No one could feasibly rest here.”   

Annie’s eyes roll without her brain’s approval because the judgement is that strong. “Right. Of course. My sincerest apologies.” 

“You are forgiven,” she says before adding a nonchalant “heathen” under her breath for good measure.  

They pass a table that is, where functionality is concerned, a large chess board. Matching mugs in the shapes of every chess piece included. Very pricey. They give it an appreciative nod and pass it by. According to Mikasa, it’s not ugly enough. Annie will do just about anything to change the subject. “So why IKEA, dare I ask?” 

“I like assembling furniture myself, it makes my stuff feel like it’s really mine. Plus, I have a deep respect for any establishment with delicious meatballs.” That was quick. 

Another eye roll, another wave of exhaustion coursing through her. “Did you pick up that philosophy on your study abroad?” 

Mikasa smiles, soft and annoyingly attractive. “ Sì, bella. ” Annie knows exactly what that means, but raises an eyebrow as if she doesn’t. Flirting has never been her forte, nor has accepting compliments of any kind. Best to play dumb.  

It takes all of five minutes for Mikasa to stop dead in her tracks. “This. This is the one.” 

Annie doesn’t even need a fraction of a second to veto this decision. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. 

“You really don’t have to do this,” Annie says, feeling her veins throb in her forehead. A stranger passing by might assume that Mikasa’s excitement is pure. Innocent. Let it be known that that person would be a blind fool. Because Mikasa is currently trying to sell Annie on a bright yellow table with a hideous neon green cactus wearing a fedora shooting out of its center. 

“Oh, but I really do.” 

“No.” 

“Why.” Not technically a question, so Annie shouldn’t respond. But who is she kidding? When has she ever passed up the opportunity to say something stupid?  

Because I still have a single shred of dignity left to my name is what Annie should say. Instead, she goes with, “Because I’m the only prickly thing allowed in my apartment. It’d be a fire hazard otherwise.” 

Mikasa lets out a breath that’s halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “I think you could do with some company.”  

“And you think a plastic cactus straight out of The Blues Brothers is the solution to that problem?” 

The answer to that is yes, she clearly does. So much so that Mikasa pulls her phone out of her back pocket, takes a photo of the item number, and drags them both through the anarchic hellhole that amounts from the IKEA displays until they reach the warehouse to pay and make arrangements for shipment. As far as Annie’s concerned, Mikasa can buy whatever she wants. No way that cursed table will make its way inside her apartment. 

Annie tells Mikasa three separate times that this is a stupid idea. Once after the employee excuses himself to retrieve paperwork for their delivery options, another time just before Mikasa swipes her credit card, and again when they are back in the station wagon and peeling out of the parking garage.

“It’s a long-term investment,” Mikasa says, something like pride sparking in her eyes. 

“I don’t think you understand how investments work.” 

A cocked eyebrow and a sideways glance. “The mental image of you eating all your meals at the ugliest table I’ve ever seen is the greatest return I could ask for.”   

“Never pursue a career in business.” 

“Noted.”

At a red light, Annie leans her head on the cool glass of the driver’s side window. Snow began to fall while they were in the store and now a crystal veil is growing in the top corners of the windshield. Icy spider webs catching snowflakes as they fall. The silence between them is a thick blanket, warm and comfortable and easy to get lost in, the only sound being the instrumental holiday music trickling out from the radio. A soft piano cover of “Auld Lang Syne” that is only ever heard by insomniacs trying desperately to lull themselves to sleep before the night is up.    

“So,” Mikasa says just as the light turns green and they begin moving again. Her fingers are fidgeting with the hems of her sleeves. “The telescope finally came in.” 

“Oh?”

“Mhmm. Couple of days ago. It’s been taking up space in my living room.” The underbelly of that statement being I’m holding you to our deal, which is in turn a roundabout way of saying come over, damn it. 

Annie’s fingers tap on the steering wheel as if on beat with a particularly catchy song. “I suppose my time to shine has come.” 

“Lucky you.”  

The horizon is black ink beneath the snowfall. Annie checks the clock - half past four? Damn, they've been out for a while - and turns onto Mass Ave from the residential side streets she's so fond of traveling through. Some houses already have their Christmas lights up, with plastic Santas the size of garden sheds waving to passersby from their lawns. The main street is bright, even at this time, and they’ve already passed a handful of cars going in the opposite direction towards Boston. Home's not too far from here. 

Annie chews on her bottom lip. The question of whether or not she should invite Mikasa over for breakfast settles in her mind. On the one hand, they’ve already spent the entire night together, so sharing a meal isn’t that weird. On the other, Mikasa would be inside her apartment. Scrutinizing her things. Potentially searching for the spare keys when she thinks Annie isn’t looking. 

There isn’t enough time to go back and forth with the thought. They’re about to pass by the convenience store. 

“So,” Annie starts, and she is all too aware of the awkward pitch in her tone. “I have some pumpkin pie leftover. If you’re hungry, that is.”

“I could go for some pie. Let me guess - Market Basket? Stop and Shop? Whole Foods? Trader Joe’s?”

“It’s not much of a guess if you say all of them. And, for the record, none of the above. I made it myself.” 

“ Oh, ” Mikasa says, drawing out the syllable. “Now I have to have it. They say you can judge a person’s character by how they make their pies, you know.”

For sure, no one says that. “And what about people who don’t make pies?” 

“They’re hiding something.” As one does. 

When Annie and Mikasa step into the apartment, the first thing Mikasa does is evaluate where she’s going to set up the new dining table once it’s delivered.  

“I think it’d look really good right here.” Directly in front of the window facing the house next door. The lawyer’s house, to be precise. “I think Levi will feel refreshed seeing a cactus through his window every morning.”       

“You really just want the both of us to get sued, don't you?"

She shrugs with the reckless abandon of someone who isn't afraid of the law or the grumpy men who navigate it. "He's my cousin. If he tries anything, my Uncle Kenny will hear about it."  

Ah, right. Hange mentioned that they were related once, not that it’s at all surprising. Bad attitudes must run in their family. At least they’re both good looking enough to compensate. “Uncle Kenny sounds terrifying.”

“You have no idea.”  

Annie puts on the electric kettle for tea and takes the pie out of the fridge, cutting out two even pieces and transferring them onto paper plates. Mikasa leans against the counter and insists on microwaving her slice. 

“It’s pumpkin pie, you eat it cold.” Annie does not have time for these games. 

Mikasa, apparently, has all the time in the world. “This is probably how your heart iced over, if we’re being realistic.” 

“What type of monster eats warm pumpkin pie?” 

“The warmer the pie, the warmer the soul. See? I told you. People reveal their true selves through pie.” 

This is by no means pleasing, but Annie can’t stop herself from smiling anyway. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Weirdo.” 

Mikasa pushes herself off the counter. “Now, now. This weirdo has to use the restroom. Might as well snoop through your stuff while I’m at it.” 

“Whatever you do, don’t look under the loose tile by the sink. That’s where I keep all the cocaine.” 

“Pfft. At long last, I can get your ass locked up. I’ll finally be able to throw my kettlebells wherever I please.”

Mikasa strides across the room and disappears behind the bathroom door, just to the left of her bedroom. Outside, the sky is a pale blue and only getting brighter. Annie looks up at the newly plastered ceiling with a fondness that doesn’t completely surprise her anymore. She once thought of that hole as nothing more than a burden to cover up. Now she’s not so sure if the events surrounding it were all that bad.  

A soft knock at the front door. Probably Armin coming to get his car keys back. “It’s open,” Annie calls out. “Come in.” 

There’s a brief moment of silence, one where time seemingly stands still. Neither Annie nor the door moves an inch. Maybe she’s just hearing things, or maybe Armin fell asleep standing up. Both are equally plausible. Just as she’s halfway through the kitchen to see to the matter herself, the door creaks open. Hesitant. A deer sneaking up on a lion. 

The lush, light brown head of hair that ducks in through the threshold does not belong to Armin. “Annie?” 

It takes her a moment. But then it all comes crashing down.

“Hitch?”

Chapter Text

Beautiful. Always beautiful. 

Everyone says that time heals all wounds, that one day the waves will crash over you and you’ll finally feel no pain. It’s a nice sentiment, one that Annie wants to believe in, but she’s not sure if time heals anything at all, no matter how much of it passes. 

Time, of course, is indifferent, with no obligation to heal anyone. 

Maybe Annie’s clock froze over two years ago, or maybe some wounds don’t have a finite end, but the one thing she’s certain about is that seeing Hitch is no less painful than a knife in the chest. No less painful than when she left two years prior. 

“Annie.. Hi, um,” Hitch pauses in the doorway. When did she fully enter the apartment? Did she take off her coat in the hallway, or did she do that just now? 

The world spins on its axis. Annie can feel it turn. 

“I called Hange. Asked if you would be around today… They said you’ve been waking up pretty early lately, so I… I thought I’d try to catch you before you left for work.” She pinches the ends of her hair and twirls it around her finger. It’s longer now than it used to be. 

Still beautiful. 

Annie clears her throat and hopes that her imposing thoughts will clear away as well. 

Traitorous thoughts for a traitorous woman. I can’t even keep my own head on my side. Armin might be the only one on Team Annie.

“I--” Annie hates how small her voice sounds, like it might blow away with the slightest breeze. Weak. Broken. Pathetic. Like it had been sliced open and the wound never bothered to heal. She steels herself, coating her voice in layers of anger and force and the complete and utter apathy she always dreamed of having when this moment inevitably came. “I don’t work today.” Why did I tell her that? What do I expect from her? To apologize for barging in? To come back later? To stay? 

To stay.

No. No! Anything but that! 

“Look, Hit-” No, she can’t even say her name. Not out loud. Not like this. Not with her standing there in the same forget-me-not dress she wore when she drove three hours to introduce herself to Annie’s father. The same dress that once spent more time crumpled up on the floor of Annie’s bedroom than on Hitch’s lithe body. “...This isn’t a good time.” It will never be. “Leave.” 

Hitch grips the ends of her sleeves in clenched fists, her arms pressed to her sides. “Annie, please don’t be like--” 

Ah, this again. 

“Leave,” Annie says with finality, but what she really means is, I’m not the one being unreasonable here. I never have been.

“Look, I just wanted to come by and say that--”

“Leave. Now.” Please stop looking at me like I’m the bad guy.   

“Will you just let me-” 

Annie knows her words are double-edged the second they leave her lips. “Go back home to your doting fiancé.” Shit, shit, shit. “You shouldn’t have come here.” 

Hitch leans back as though she’s been slapped, like she’s the one who’s been caught off guard. “Annie… that’s not fair.” 

“Is that so? Could’ve fooled me.” Hitch has always been a bona fide master of turning Annie into a fool, ten times out of ten. Perhaps she’s here to reclaim her title.  

Hitch stands there for a long moment, staring at Annie with something like pity in her eyes. Infuriating. Hitch opens her mouth once, twice, and just before she says anything, Mikasa’s voice cuts through the room. A saving grace. 

“Annie?” Annie turns to see Mikasa standing in the threshold of the living room with her arms crossed over her chest, defensive without a cause. She has one arched eyebrow and a thousand questions flashing in her eyes. “Is everything okay?” 

Hitch’s jaw drops. “O-oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company over.” She takes a step back, her face growing pale. “Your… friend?” 

Friend. 

Why would Hitch care about that? What does it have to do with her at all? 

Mikasa answers before Annie has a chance to. “Something like that.” 

“Oh. I see.” The tension between them is palpable, Annie almost chokes on it. Hitch shifts her weight from one foot to the other and visibly steels her resolve. She never was good at hiding her heart from her sleeve. “I just wanted to drop this off.” She takes a few confident steps forward and hands Annie a square, pale pink envelope with Annie Leonhart written in Hitch’s familiar cursive script. Annie almost doesn’t take it. 

But of course she does. She knows exactly what this is. 

“I’ll get going now. Sorry to have bothered you.” 

And just like that, Hitch is gone, leaving only the scent of her vanilla perfume in her wake. Annie can’t even make out the echo of footsteps down the hall over the sound of her raging heart. The world outside is silent, and yet she can’t even hear herself think.

Mikasa is beside her in seconds, replacing the empty space in Annie’s vision where Hitch once stood. “Annie? Annie… Why are you crying?”

~

On average, any two stars are over four light-years apart from one another. That means that, from any given angle, a star can see the distant lights of other stars, all of them appearing so close together, and wonder why it’s the only one left alone. Annie thinks about that from time to time when the nights are at their darkest, or when the city lights blind the view of the sky. 

Tonight is one of those nights. Annie is on the roof of the building, setting up Mikasa’s telescope against the biting cold. The events of that morning are still reeling in her mind, causing her to make mistakes she normally wouldn’t make. Mikasa is down at the convenience store picking up a box of instant hot chocolate and some mini marshmallows. Annie isn’t really in the mood for sweets, but she agreed because she wanted some time alone. To think. To reflect. But not to cry. She will not cry over this anymore than she already has.

When the telescope is screwed in and secure, Annie gives it a go. It’s been a while since she tested the product she spends all day promoting. One of her favorite constellations, Cassiopeia, is visible this time of year, so Annie stands facing north and points the telescope all the way up. It’s a literal pain in the neck to see, but worth it nonetheless.   

Seeing that cluster of stars reminds her of when she taught Hitch how to find them. It had been a late autumn night, much like tonight, and Annie was just about ready to tell Hitch she was in love with her for the first time. Everything was so simple back then, the world filtered through a rose-colored lens.     

But that was before Marlo. Before his warmth made Hitch realize just how cold Annie could be. 

“Annie, one day you’re going to wake up and realize that you’re all alone.” Hitch had been so angry during their last fight - fiery rage born from guilt, from her own infidelity, from dissatisfaction in the person she claimed to have loved. “And you know what? It won’t be because of me, or Marlo, or anyone. It’ll be because of you.”

Hitch had disappeared from Annie’s life not long after that, as resoundingly as she’d first appeared, and Annie was left alone in the quiet of her absence. She’d never known the true scope of her loneliness until she had adjusted to life without it. A rookie mistake. But since then, Annie has had to turn from her own loneliness, a vulture that nests in the hollow space where her heart used to beat. Because whenever she points to it, it always points back. 

Annie doesn’t realize that Mikasa has returned until a plastic bag plops down over her head. “I don’t know if you like milk or dark chocolate more, so I got both.” 

“Thanks.” Annie rises and places her hand on the telescope. “Here she is - satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.” 

Mikasa smiles, soft and not fully convincing. “How are you doing?” 

“Fine,” Annie says, but it sounds more snappish than she intended. “I’m fine, thank you. It’s fine.” 

Mikasa moves over to stand next to Annie, playfully nudging her elbow into her. “Everyone knows that ‘fine’ actually means ‘not fine at all.’ It’s okay to not be okay, you know.” 

“If you use it twice, it negates the original meaning.” 

“You said it three times. I’m not a math person, but I’ve always been particularly skilled at counting single digits.” 

Annie’s mind is elsewhere, she’ll admit to that, but Mikasa is determined to bring it back to the here and now. Thankfully, it works. “Wow, maybe I should go back to college.” 

“Elementary school.”

“Don’t push it,” Annie says. Mikasa chuckles and looks to the telescope with a curious tilt of her brow. Annie follows her line of sight. “Is there a particular constellation you want to see?” 

“I don’t know much about stars, to be honest. Big dipper, little dipper, horoscope signs - that’s the extent of it,” she shrugs and wraps her arms around her chest. “I’m happy to see anything.”

“Horoscope signs? Are you one of those astrology gurus?” 

Mikasa lets out a single, exhausted chuckle that speaks volumes. “I’m not, but Eren is.”   

“Ah. My condolences.”

“Thank you.” 

They spend the next hour under the stars visible through the filter of city lights. Annie finds every constellation Mikasa can list off from the star gazing app she downloaded on her phone and then some. At the end, she lands on Cassiopeia. 

“This one is my favorite,” Annie says, moving aside to let Mikasa peer through the microscope lens. "The stars themselves look like a lightning bolt, but it's supposed to be this beautiful woman who thought she was hotter than a group of sea nymphs." 

"I bet the nymphs weren't too thrilled to hear about that," she smirks as she kneels down to fish a water bottle out of the plastic convenience store bag.  

"Not at all. They got Poseidon to send a monster after her to get revenge, but Cassiopeia ended up chaining her daughter to a rock as a sacrifice. Kid ended up getting saved by Perseus, but still. What a dick move." 

"… And why is this your favorite constellation?" 

Annie rolls one shoulder and looks from the stars above to Mikasa kneeling below. "There's a dark sense of humor to it. She sacrificed her daughter to the gods and for what? Beauty? Bragging rights? And now her constellation is hardly anything to look at. You can't even see it most of the time in these parts. Serves her right."

Mikasa snorts, rising from the ground. “There’s a vengeful spirit trapped inside of you. You should get that checked out by a professional.”

“Who says I’m not the vengeful spirit?”

The feel of Mikasa’s hand pressed on Annie’s shoulder is one of surprising warmth against the crisp autumn air. “You’re not.” 

There’s a sting in the corner of Annie’s eye, probably from the wind, from being too high up on the roof. The air is thinner up here and her eyes have always been easily irritated. “How do you-”

“You’re not.” 

It’s as if Mikasa is speaking to everything and nothing, a thousand words versus two, technically three if Annie separates the subject from the verb, which she always tends to do, especially when she is the subject in question. 

Annie’s disappointment is palpable when Mikasa brings her hand back down to her side. “Maybe. But you haven’t seen all the Yelp reviews I’ve written.”  

The moon reflects in the shine of Mikasa’s lip gloss, her laugh reaching the corners of her eyes, and Annie has the invading thought, the nymphs would have tried to get rid of you, too. They wouldn’t be able to stand the competition. The thought doesn’t frighten her in the way she anticipated.  

“I should have known you were a Yelp reviewer. I bet you also send your food back at a restaurant if it’s not exactly as you ordered it.” 

Obviously she is. “I deserve what I pay for,” Annie replies, feigning a sense of bashfulness. “Is that so wrong?”

Mikasa presses her palms together and taps her index fingers against her mouth. “Of course not, of course not. You ordered extra pickles and gosh darn it, are you going to get them.” 

“No pickles, actually. They ruin everything they touch.” Alternatively, they might just irritate Annie’s acid reflux, but that’s neither witty nor attractive, so she keeps it to herself.

Mikasa takes a step closer to Annie, now mere inches apart, and looks down at her with a grin. “Good, you can give them to me then.” There’s something in the way the words roll off her tongue that is both casual and definitive, like weekend plans they’ve set time and time again. Yes, of course they will be out at restaurants together, all dolled up on a Friday night, and Annie will order a burger without any modifications. Of course she will give Mikasa her pickles, why wouldn’t she? That’s what she’ll do, as if she’s already done it a thousand times before.

“Well,” Annie says as genuine bashfulness creeps in. “Good. It’s a shame to see food go to waste.” 

Wow. That’s about all she can come up with, huh? Clearly she hasn’t flirted with anyone since… actually, she’s never been the one to do any of the flirting. Her and Armin ended up on a date by chance, and Hitch… 

Hitch. 

And suddenly, it all comes spiraling back. 

“The invitation,” Annie says to no one, least of all Mikasa. “I should probably throw that out.” 

Annie doesn’t expect Mikasa to answer, the comment sprang up out of nowhere as far as she’s concerned, but of course she rolls with it. Mikasa never misses a beat. “Is that what that is?”

“Yeah.” Annie looks down at the telescope, the mechanical eye that sees far beyond the fog of light pollution and holy matrimonies. “My ex. It’s her wedding.” 

Mikasa thinks about that for a moment, considering Annie’s downcast profile with something like understanding. “So, we’re not crashing it?” 

They must have been soulmates in a past life, Annie and Mikasa. She’s sure of it. 

“Depends. Do you know how to dance?” 

“Not at all,” she says with confidence. “In fact, I’d say I’m terrible enough to make a scene.”  

Annie grins. “Perfect.” 

~

I’m still young enough to be a selfish asshole, Annie thinks as the doubt of crashing her ex-girlfriend’s wedding starts to sink in. Is it even crashing if she was invited? Either way, she feels uneasy about it, despite the adrenaline pushing her forward, which is why she’s going to consult Armin. No matter how fair or stupid her idea is, she doesn’t want to go through with it without him. He’s her rock, her center of gravity. She can’t imagine a world in which she confronts her ex-girlfriend at her wedding reception without his support. And if he says no, then that makes life easier.  

Armin answers the door on the third knock, his red pajama pants and black t-shirt hanging off his body like leaves on a willow tree. “There is such a thing as waiting until morning, you know,” he says, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. 

Behind him, three laptop screens shine in the darkened room, the light akin to the unnatural glow of hospital waiting rooms. He hasn’t slept at night in over a year, only ever getting in a couple of hours in between his classes and research at most. He says it’s because his dissertation planted itself in his head and hasn’t shut the fuck up since. To Armin, knowledge is his symbiotic lover, the parasite he can’t live without. It hasn’t always been this way, apparently. Hitch mentioned once how Armin used to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed over his research - that he lived his life for it, not in spite of it the way he does now. He only ever looks like he’s enjoying himself when he’s reading newly published papers. Anyone else’s work, just not his own. Annie used to get on his case about the matter, telling him it’s not too late to change paths if this one makes him so unhappy, but he always chooses those moments to wax poetic. 

“The world is wider than our minds can comprehend, Annie. There’s too much of the cogs to make the machine function, but not enough of the things worth functioning for.” 

“…You ran out of coffee beans again, didn’t you?” 

“Heh. I’m glad we’re on the same page. Please pick some up on your way home from work tonight.”

He’s a real bastard when he wants to be. Annie can’t tell if it’s a defense mechanism, or just part of his charm. Or both. Probably both.   

“Oh, sorry,” Annie says, keeping her sarcasm amicable. “Did we wake you?” 

Armin looks past her at Mikasa and his eyes light up. “No, of course not. Come on in!” He steps to the side and gestures them forward, giving Annie a wink as she passes. 

Switching on the lights, Annie can see just how disheveled his apartment really is. “Did a tornado blow through here?” 

“Do deadlines count as natural disasters?” 

“Yeah,” Mikasa pipes in just as Annie rolls her eyes. “I’d say so. ‘Man-made’ is just ‘natural’ in a different font. A disaster nonetheless.” 

Armin gives Annie a look that says, in no uncertain terms, I like her already. She smiles and gives his shoulder a nudge.  

“Mikasa, this is Armin. Armin, Mikasa,” she says, motioning between the two. She isn’t in the mood for small talk, so she cuts right to the chase. “We’re here because Hitch showed up at my place this morning to invite me to her wedding. Did you throw your invitation out yet?” 

Armin freezes, processing. He checks his watch and moves to sit on his sofa - forest green with a blanket of printed essays and crumpled up balls of notebook paper. “It’s one in the morning and I haven’t had coffee since ten. Can you repeat that, but slower?” 

Annie sits across from him in the armchair he usually naps in, the only comfortable piece of furniture he owns. Mikasa sits next to him, eyeing his research strewn about. Annie explains the situation to him again, slowly this time, and allows his brain to catch up with the information she’s just sprung on him. Before he asks, she pulls out the proof: an envelope holding a lacey white and pink card that reads, Hitch is getting hitched! The same one he received. 

Well, not the exact same. Armin gets a plus one, which Annie makes a point to emphasize. 

“Oh, I see,” Armin says as realization sets in. He doesn’t seem too surprised, but he’s never been the disbelieving type. Annie could tell him that she met God at the Starbucks down the street and he would rattle off about the potential electromagnetic makeup of the divine. Armin believes in what he sees, and now he sees a plus-one-less invitation with Annie’s name on it. He looks at Mikasa with a grin and a raised eyebrow. “I take it you’re my date?” 

“If you would be so kind,” she nods, smiling at him as if they’ve known each other for their entire lives. They’ll probably get along, which could either be really great, or really troublesome down the line. 

Armin doesn’t take much convincing as gets up to fish through his recycling bin, pulling out a near identical card. “This is not how I thought my night would go, if I’m being honest.” 

Annie lays her elbows on her knees, leaning into them with her head down. “You and me both.” 

“Don’t look too excited.” 

She both is and isn’t looking forward to it. On the one hand, she wants to prove to Hitch that she’s moved on, that she’s found someone who accepts her icy nature, embraces it even, and doesn’t ask her to be something she’s not. She wants to prove that Hitch did not break her, not completely. To Hitch, Armin, Reiner, Hange, but most importantly to herself. Annie wants to know, once and for all, if the band-aid is ready to come off, if it has fulfilled its purpose, or just festered a larger wound. 

Which is why, on the other hand, she feels the nausea that can only come from confronting not the ghost that reflects in her mirror, but the person who saw it first. There’s a chance that the past two years have been for nothing, and that scares Annie more than being alone. 

Wow, now who’s waxing poetic? Annie pinches the bridge of her nose and looks to Mikasa, who’s studying the crumpled wedding invitation Armin handed her. 

“Is it really okay for me to go?” Annie asks no one in particular. “I mean, she must have only invited me out of pity, right?”

“Why would she send out pity invites to her wedding?” Mikasa means this in a comforting way, probably, but she doesn’t know Hitch. The woman who only volunteers at homeless shelters if she can take pictures for the local newspaper. (But hey, at least she volunteers, which is more than Annie’s done.) 

“To Hitch, pity is the only gateway to kindness,” Armin says, waving his hand over an invisible arch. “She only befriended me because she thought I looked lonely.”  

For the record, she was right about him. Not that Annie will say that out loud. 

He continues, a smirk lining his face before his story could warrant it. “And she only started hanging out with Reiner when he lost his wallet and asked if anyone had seen it. Hitch thought he was just poor and asking for money, so she bought him dinner. She had a lot of explaining to do when his wallet turned up at the end of the night.”   

“Pfft, she sounds hilarious,” Mikasa snorts, but her eyes don’t match her words. “I bet she’s fun at socialite tea parties.” 

She is, unsurprisingly. Annie only knows because Hitch dragged her to her grandmother’s high tea every other Sunday. Annie’s never been one for drama, but she could have listened to Hitch gossip about her trust fund cousins over a pot of English breakfast for hours. 

Circling back to the point, Annie says, “Basically, it’s entirely possible she invited me out of pity, yeah?”

“Not necessarily,” Armin says, but he really means yes. “Hitch has been wanting to patch things up with you for a long time now.” 

“So, in order to patch things up, she invited me to her wedding? To the man I caught her in bed with?” The room goes silent, awkward. It’s been a long time since Annie said those words in that order. Armin looks away, but Mikasa catches her eye and holds it in place. She knows about Annie and Hitch’s past relationship, but it’s her first time hearing exactly why they broke up. 

“I think it’s a bad idea.” 

“I don’t,” Armin says, confident. “Annie, you’re like tea. The longer you let something fester, the more bitter you become.” 

“How does going to the wedding equate to throwing out tea leaves? Wait…am I the water, or the leaves?” So many questions, so many ways to derail this conversation. 

Armin looks to the side and shrugs. “No metaphor is perfect.”  

“That was a simile,” Mikasa chimes in. 

He rolls his eyes at her. “Don’t you start. Look, all I’m saying is that space has done nothing for you. You’re a confrontational person, I think you should take this opportunity to face Hitch and move on.” 

Mikasa’s eye twitches at that. Annie can’t help but wonder if the thought of her own lingering feelings for Hitch upsets Mikasa. She would hope, but that seems like a cruel thing to wish upon someone. Annie doesn’t want Mikasa to get caught up in whatever mess she’s failed to clean up from two years ago.

She sighs. This isn’t the time to evaluate whatever new mess is being formed between herself and Mikasa. “Confronting Hitch on her wedding day…don’t you think there’s a better time and place?” 

“I’m not saying you should affront her.” He’s quick to respond, like he’s already considered every argument she could make. “I’m saying you might find it easier to move on if you accept the olive branch you’ve been given.”  

Annie grumbles in the least cute way and slouches in her seat. “She could have just sent me a text or an email.” 

“You blocked her.” 

“A letter.” 

“You would have ripped it up without opening it, don’t act like you wouldn’t have.” 

He’s right and it’s unbelievably frustrating. Her voice raises an octave. “She could have just blindsided me outside the building. I mean, she did show up at my apartment without warning.” Blindsiding people is actually Hitch’s passtime of choice. She’s dramatic at the best of times, a nuisance at worst.  

“Would you have talked to her if she had? Last I checked, you kicked her out pretty quickly.” 

Annie didn’t tell him that. The realization is shared between the three of them. “Wait, how did you-”

“Insomniacs don’t sleep. Shocker, I know.” Armin wrings his hands in his lap, not making eye contact and instead focusing on the hem of his sweatshirt. “I heard her voice in the hallway and figured it was about the wedding, though I never thought you’d actually want to go. If I’m being honest, I was kind of looking forward to ordering Chinese and watching movies that day.”

Annie looks at him, her eyes a question her mouth won’t ask.  

He holds his hands up. “Annie, you came to my door in the dead of night and asked if we should go. I know you more than anyone else, for better or worse, so listen to me when I say that you’ll regret not following your instinct.”  

Annie swallows. "And what if my instinct is wrong?" 

"Doesn't matter. I've never seen you look so determined about anything, least of all this. If you're right, you're right. But if you're wrong, then we're wrong together."

There's a lump in Annie's throat that's threatening to expose her as a crybaby, so she stays quiet and nods. 

Next to him, Mikasa's skeptical frown is replaced with a soft expression she seldom wears. "I'm with you, Annie, whether you want me to be or not." 

She does. More than anything, she does.  

~

Annie doesn’t wake up the morning of the wedding, if only because she didn’t fall asleep the night before. Her nerves are cotton balls in her chest and she’s really starting to regret that RSVP. 

Armin knocks at her door just as the birds outside begin to chirp, two mugs of coffee in hand. “Figured we could watch the sunrise.” 

They drag her couch over to face her window, the sky bleeding light across the horizon. Armin leans his head back and watches a cobweb sway on the ceiling fan. “It’s not too late to back out, you know. If you don’t want to go.” 

“Am I that easy to read?” 

“Normally? No. But you’re practically a picture book when you don’t get any sleep.” 

Fair enough. “Am I just being petty?” 

Armin thinks about this for a moment, which just means he’s thinking of a way to say “yes” without it coming off as harsh. “Probably, but it depends on why you’re going. If you’re just going to drink and dance like an idiot with your new girlfriend-” 

“She’s not my girlfriend.” 

“-then go for it. It’s a little petty, but it’s no harm, no foul. But if you’re going to get revenge on Hitch, or ruin her day, then yeah. It’s worse than petty.” 

Annie sighs. She’s not out for revenge, at least she doesn’t think she is, but she also feels unsteady in her resolve to confront the woman who slashed a hole through her heart. Once she proves her point, then what? Will her spite win out? Will Hitch even care? Is Annie just going to tell her she’s a cheating bastard and that karma’s a bitch? To see if she can hurt Hitch one last time? “And if I want to leave early?” 

“Then we’re gone. All of us.” 

He means it, she can tell. Armin will never abandon her, no matter what she does, even if she makes every wrong decision and ends up being the monster of the story. Confronting Hitch means isolating herself from their other friends, a ledge Armin can and will catapult himself off of for Annie’s sake. She doesn’t feel right doing that to him. He’s loyal to a fault and Annie would never forgive herself if she took advantage of that. She can never begin to repay him for always choosing her.  

She leans her head on his shoulder, holding her coffee mug close to her chest. “Thank you, Armin. For everything.” 

~

Mikasa arrives ten minutes before eight, her hair corded in a loose bun with thick strands spilling out to frame her face. It’s effortlessly beautiful, which means that it probably took an extreme amount of effort to pull off. She has her pale lavender dress folded over her arm, the hem falling at her knees, and a square makeup bag in hand. “I scheduled a cab to come at ten, is that too early?” 

The ceremony starts at eleven in a suburb twenty-minutes out from the city. “That should be fine,” Annie says, counting her breaths. She’s already done her hair, ironed straight and tossed to the side, and is waiting on Mikasa to help with her makeup. Her dress hangs in her closet, navy blue with silver sparkles across the bodice that fade into the skirt. It’s a prom dress. She found it at Macy’s at half price. Armin is ready to go and lounging on Annie’s couch with a book he picked out from her shelves at random.   

Mikasa does Annie’s makeup first, holding Annie’s face in one hand as she brushes foundation and concealer from the crown of her forehead down to the base of her neck with the other. She looks as though she’s just begun a painting, biting down on her lip as she pushes broad strokes of cream down the bridge of Annie’s nose and curving out to her cheeks. Their faces are inches apart when Mikasa draws on Annie’s eyes, and Annie wonders if Mikasa can see the nervousness on her face, or if the concealer washed it all out. The end result is the same as if she simply applied a light, but elegant layer of eyeliner and mascara, but the real magic comes in how Mikasa was able to gloss over every imperfection on her skin. As if she’s never known acne a day in her life.    

“Thanks,” Annie says, turning her face in Mikasa’s compact mirror. “It looks great.” 

“Anytime.” Mikasa smiles and nods before locking herself away in the bathroom to finish her own face. When she emerges, Annie is already dressed and waiting on the couch with Armin. To say Mikasa is stunning is an understatement - the dress flows along her body like running water, the skirt layered and raised above the knee in front and floor-length in the back. Annie catches herself staring, but doesn't look away. 

"You look beautiful," Armin says, though it's clear he's speaking on Annie's behalf. 

Mikasa speaks directly to Annie. "Thank you."

They reach the church with time to spare. It's a tall, stone building that looks like it was designed by a Disney animator, with pointed roofs and stained-glass windows straight out of a fairytale. It probably would have been classified as a small cathedral if it was built a couple hundred years earlier. Orthodox churches don't fuck around with their architecture, they're all or nothing. 

The sanctuary is its own spectacle, large enough to fit at least five-hundred people comfortably, even more when standing space is included. The walls are ivory with crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Bouquets of white and pink flowers hang at the ends of each pew, a long, white carpet trails down the center aisle, and lit candles line the panes of the stained-glass windows. Each window depicts a different scene from the life of Jesus, from his birth all the way to his ascension into heaven. At the altar lies an ocean of flowers surrounding an archway where the bride and groom will say their vows. Behind that is an ornate wooden table with an old, atlas-sized Bible propped up on a display stand. It's open to the book of First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. The wedding verses. 

Annie takes a seat in the far back corner, next to the window depicting Judas' betrayal. Mikasa and Armin follow. 

Marlo arrives with the priest at the end of the aisle, his bowl-cut looking especially pristine, almost sharper than the white tuxedo Hitch clearly picked out for him. Annie's never seen a man pull off a white tux before, but Marlo wears it well.

Guests start filing in not long after and Annie recognizes the majority of Hitch's family members, her parents most of all. She only hopes that they don’t recognize her. Annie has always been forgettable, a blurred memory that begins to fade the moment she leaves a room. Her father used to tell her that she’s plain enough to do just about anything with. It wasn’t until she met Hitch, and Hitch met Marlo, that she understood what he meant. Luckily, no one looks back to see the ghost of Hitch’s past haunting the first day of her future.  

Annie is lost in her own memories when the organ starts to play “Canon in D” and the bridesmaids begin their walk down the aisle. Hitch used to say that she wanted a summer wedding, out on a beach somewhere, drinking piña coladas out of coconuts and feeling the warm sand between her toes. Winter is such a dreary season, especially in Massachusetts; it washes out the sunshine on the brightest of days. 

Mikasa nudges her just as the music begins to change and everyone rises. Annie is short, barely five-foot-one, and needs to lean over the pew in front of her just to get a glimpse of the aisle. 

Hitch is a swan, and she means that literally. Her dress is heart-shaped and strapless, all smooth silk and feathers trailing behind her. Instead of a tiara, she has a jeweled headband in the shape of feathers that holds her veil in place. It’s the kind of dress that would look tacky on anyone else, but Hitch has more than enough confidence to make it work. 

Marlo looks at her and, for a moment, it’s as if he’s frozen in time. Hitch reaches him and he comes alive again. Her parents are crying in the front row, the priest giving them a warm smile before he begins. 

“Dearly beloved,” he starts, and the words sting Annie in varying shades of green, like they were hers to hear, but someone else beat her to it. 

The priest gives the traditional speech, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, ‘til death do them part. They don’t recite their own vows, which is typical of Hitch. Annie’s sure that everything she would want to say to Marlo on their wedding day has already been said a hundred times over. The ceremony is more for the family than it is for them. 

Before the final kiss, the priest reads a verse from the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the one on display on the table behind them. 

“Love is patient,” he starts, and Annie’s train of thought swerves off the deep end. She thinks back to her time with Hitch, how she called Annie patient “to a fault.” 

“We’re not getting any younger, you know. Could you at least try to think about our future? Maybe a house and some kids down the line? Pretty please?”

“Love is kind.” 

“You’re cold, Annie. Some days you're normal and then other days... I don’t even recognize you when you get like this.”

“It does not envy, it does not boast.” 

“Why do you hate Marlo so much? He just moved in, we hardly know the guy.”

“It is not proud. It does not dishonor others.”

“I’ve done a lot of compromising for your sake, Annie, and I’d do it again and again without question. But for God’s sake, would it kill you to budge for me once in a while? Just get to know my friends! You'll like them, I promise! I'm not asking for much.”

“It is not self-seeking.”

“What do you mean I can’t talk to him anymore? Marlo’s just a friend! Annie, I love you. You know that, right? Right? …Annie?”

“It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” 

“Why do you get so fucking pissed every time I say hi to him? He’s our neighbor, for fuck’s sake! What am I supposed to do, act like he doesn’t exist? You’re such an ass sometimes. At least he actually says hi back. All you do these days is act like I don't exist.” 

“Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.”

“Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? You were right, Annie! You were always right and I was always wrong! Congratu-fucking-lations! But was it worth it in the end? For you?” 

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 

“You were always faithful to me, but you never had faith in me. Why did you always assume the worst in me? Why was I always the monster in your head? Damn it, Annie, why were you so eager to let me go?” 

“Love never fails.” 

But Annie’s love did. Time and time again, her love failed. She sees that now. 

The stained-glass image of Jesus and Judas looms over her and she can’t help but wonder if she is the betrayer or the betrayed, or if such a thing even exists. Perhaps she and Hitch are a little of both, perhaps they have been all along.   

Marlo kisses Hitch and she’s beaming with her entire body, the flower girls tossing pink and white petals in the air above their heads. She looks happy. Brighter than any star Annie has ever known. As Hitch makes her way up the aisle, Annie makes a wish and lets it all go.  

~

The reception is being held at Hitch’s family estate, a modern mansion built on the backs of her mother’s career in fashion design and her father’s surgical brilliance. The sky is dark and filled with pink clouds, foretelling the snowfall that’s sure to come. The moon is new, not that it matters. Annie is standing with Armin and Mikasa at the front gate, watching as the other guests file into the house. 

“Are you ready?” Mikasa asks tentatively, placing a hand on Annie’s shoulder. She looks from Annie to Armin and back, unsure if she should say what they’re both thinking: Let’s go home. Clearly, you’re not as ready as you think you are.  

She’s not, but she’s a liar at the best of times, delusional at worst. “Yeah, just give me a minute.”

Armin and Mikasa share a look before he turns to leave. “I’m going to say hi to Reiner. I have my phone on me if you need anything.” 

Annie hums and watches as the first flakes of snow stick to his hair. She feels a little lost without him by her side, but Mikasa’s hand on her shoulder holds her steady.  

“Do you want to go in?” Mikasa asks, understanding that it’s a loaded question. “It’s an open bar, so we can drink them below the poverty line if you’re up to it.” 

“I- I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can see her, not again, not like this.” Annie says, voice raw, and Mikasa gives her shoulder a squeeze before sliding down and taking hold of her hand. Sudden warmth against the cold, a small comfort in the coming storm. “I thought I could show up, be an asshole, and walk away feeling better about everything, but… I just can’t.” Annie pauses, staring holes into the ground. “Did you see them?” she asks, not waiting for an answer. “They looked so happy. So at peace.” 

“And you don’t want to take any of that away from them?” 

That’s not it. Not even close. “I mean, yeah, I don’t want to make her feel bad on her big day, but-” But what have I been doing these past two years? Why am I still stuck in the same place I was when I first told Hitch to leave? 

Why can’t I be happy, too?

Annie’s shoulders are heavier than they’ve ever been. “I think… I think I’ve been angry for a long time,” she starts, and suddenly the dam of words reaches its breaking point. “I’ve spent all this time blaming Hitch for anything and everything - my trust issues, my dead-end job, my shithole apartment, my loneliness, all of it. I kept thinking that these things only happened to me because she cheated, that I’d be happy today if it weren’t for her. But Mikasa, those things were there long before I met Hitch and those things are what drove her away.” She’s crying now, her voice a wavering mess. Drops of snow land on her face, mingle with her tears. Annie turns from Mikasa, but still holds on to her hand. “I thought that this would fix things. That I would see her, realize that she’s not worth my time, my energy, my hatred, and things would start to get better. But it’s not. She’s just as incredible now as she was then. Mikasa, I still love Hitch,” Annie says, squeezing her hand and refusing to let go. Mikasa doesn’t move toward her, but she also doesn’t move away. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you into my mess. I should have sorted out my own feelings before placing them on you. I should have-” 

“You don’t owe me an apology,” Mikasa cuts in and rubs her thumb on the back of Annie’s hand. “You don’t owe me anything. We’re friends.” She says the last two words like they’re a solution to a problem Annie can’t define. “And one day, when you’re all sorted out, if you decide you want to owe me something… Well, I can wait. For you, I will wait.” 

Annie looks at her now, her cheeks red from the cold, flecks of snow caught in her hair like stars in the sky. Annie doesn’t even think about it when she embraces Mikasa, her arms wrapped around Mikasa’s waist and pulling her in as if she’s trying to absorb her into herself. Mikasa is warm and solid and here, she is patient and kind, she protects and trusts and hopes and perseveres. She’s all the things Annie isn’t, but wishes she could be. One day, she’ll get there. One day, her love won’t fail.


“Let’s go home, Annie.” And they do, hand in hand, the journey back filled with snow and tears, confessions and acceptance, ice and warmth.   

Meanwhile, somewhere out in the universe, so far that the naked eye can’t see, two lone stars drift just a little closer together.