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once the war is over, you and armin decide to get far away, as far away as possible. as much as he’s hurting, you know it'll only be worse to stick with the people who survived the rumbling. he listens to you and you travel to the other sie of the world. you think he will want a house near the ocean but he refuses, saying he can’t look at it the same way anymore.
you find a very small house in the countryside, where he can read on the porch and you can cook dinner for both of you. you help him when he jolts awake due to the constant nightmares and hug him back to reality whenever you see his eyes getting lost in his memories.
a year goes by and you realize he's on borrowed time, the titan he inherited only letting him live nine more years. that’s when you decide to cherish every moment you have left with him.
armin is twenty when you ask him to marry you while you're both stargazing. the very next morning, you go on a quick trip to the city to do so. you come back and pretend it's a new home and you're settling down for the very first time. he carries you when he crosses the main door and you rediscover every room of your old home, giggling about how lucky you are it already has everything you need. you spent the night snuggling each other in front of your fireplace, gazing lovingly at your matching rings.
he’s twenty-one now and even though the nightmares are not as usual as before, he still has them every once in a while. you've found it if you hum to him while letting him rest his head on your chest, your heartbeat calms him down. you ask him to let you know every time he wakes up from an awful nightmare, but most times he doesn’t if you haven’t already opened your eyes. he sits on a chair in front of a big windows in your shared bedroom and watches the sunrise, trying to focus on everything good that he has now and not on all the things he did and saw during the war.
when he's twenty-two you tell him you want to have a child. he mentions how young you are and his eyes fill with tears as he reminds you he's not going to be around for long. you tell him that's the whole reason you want to. you admit that, while it’s true you want a part of him to stay on earth when his time is over, you also think he would be a great father for the first few years of your child’s life. he’s kind, he’s generous, he’s smart and the world needs more people like him. he hugs you tightly and nods his head silently.
you're giving birth to your first daughter when he's twenty-three. she has his blue eyes and your hair and you never thought you could love someone as much. he is the one that reads to her every night before bed, humming a tune very similar to the one you do whenever he has a bad dream. armin remains as accommodating as he was when you were pregnant, not letting you do any housework and rubbing your shoulders and legs with your favourite creams. he’s the one that gets up from bed when your baby wakes up in the middle of the night, always asking you to rest until you’ve completely recovered. even after you do so, he always tends to let you sleep.
your house is a mess by the time he’s twenty-four. baby toys are scrambled all over your home and you’re pretty sure the shirt armin is wearing is in fact, yours. even so, you’ve never felt happier in your life. your living-room holds memories of you and your husband sitting on opposite sides of the carpet while you’re teaching your daughter how to walk. your kitchen reminds you of your baby on her highchair giggling as she watches you and armin dance while making dinner. there are nights when you feel him trembling next to you. ‘do i deserve this?’ he asks, his voice broken and mind filled with memories of all the lives lost. you assure him he does. he definitely does.
armin is twenty-five and spends all his afternoons at the porch with his daughter sitting on his lap, holding one of the many books he owns. you’re cleaning the kitchen when hear both of them laughing, so you leave everything and watch them lovingly through the kitchen window, smiling at how happy they seem. he notices you and asks you to join them, a big smile on his face. one of the many that made you fall for him. you nod and almost run to your family, kissing your daughter’s head and your husband’s cheek. you rest your head on armin’s shoulder as he keeps on reading to both of you and think this is where you always belonged.
when he's twenty-six, armin is the one that suggests getting a dog. you were on your way to the city shelter when you spotted a sick dog walking down the road alone. his legs are trembling and his tail is between his legs. you pick him up and turn around, straight back to your home. both of you nurse him back to health and he becomes the new member of your little family. armin loves how protective he is of your daughter and how much fun you have with the dog, teaching him a lot of tricks and then putting on a little show for him and your kid. your dog loves laying next to armin when he’s sitting outside and reading on his own. you snap a photo of them and it’s still one of your most precious possessions.
your daughter learns how to read when armin is twenty-seven and of course, he’s the one that taught her. you still remember the gleam in his eyes when he ran to the garden, where you were taking care of the flowers. he took your hand in his and led you to the living-room. you were greeted by your daughter pointing at one of armin’s old books with a grin. ‘sun!’ she said and you and armin squealed in happiness. since then, she only gets better and even asks to read to you both every night before bed. you’ve never felt as much adoration as you do when you watch her read and when you turn to armin, you realize there’s years in his eyes as well.
armin knows his time is coming by the time he’s twenty-eight. you know it by the way he startles more during his sleep and when you wake up to see him staring idly through the bedroom window, his eyes looking at everything and nothing at the same time. but unlike your first years together with him, you see there is no fear in his eyes anymore. the storm has ended in the ocean of his eyes and it seems he's just waiting for the sunrise. your daughter is about to start school and you both know she's going to learn about what happened to the world some years ago and which part he played in it. a part of him wishes he had more time to try and explain everything to her but he knows it’s not possible. so, he decides to leave a letter for her to open when she turns fifteen and you promise to give it to her when the time comes.
it's been a week since you said goodbye to each other and your daughter is still sleeping with you, her eyes filling up with tears every night. when she's finally asleep, you sit in the same chair he did and look through your window, wondering if you'll ever get used to a life without him. you know there was a life before armin but now you don’t think that was real. the sky is dark and you wonder how you could be in so much pain even if you knew what was coming. still, you would do it all over again, you think and you bite your lip to stop tears from falling again.
that's when you notice the envelope behind the curtain. you take it and your hands shake when you recognize his handwriting, a small 'to my wife' in the centre. you open it quickly and inside you find nine pages, one for each year you’ve spent together away from everything. he recalls the first time he saw you, the first time you talked to him and the first time you shared a meal together. you had never known he had loved you way before you loved him back and reading his past thoughts made your heart clench in both happiness and anguish.
he reminds you he's in every star that shines at night, in the warmth of your home's fireplace, in your daughter's eyes and in the early morning ocean breeze. he says he knows he avoided the last one ever since the war ended but he still believes a part of him stayed there. he says that, even if eventually turned into a bad memory, having to see people die at his hand in the same place he loved dearly, the memory of him sinking his feet in the water when he was sixteen was the first time he felt truly happy.
you damp the paper with your tears but can't hold your smile, feeling as if a part of him has also made a home in your heart. you press the letter against your chest and inhale slowly, taking a seat on the chair again. the letter still holds on to armin’s distinct smell and you wish you could make that moment last forever.
a few rays of sun start shining through your window and that's when you know.
you're taking your daughter to see the ocean today.