Work Text:
Armin wakes up, slowly, his eyes take time to open as if his eyelids were heavy, and his mind is still fuzzy when he finally looks around. He takes a deep breath, struggling, and finally sits on the edge of his bed. He looks to the other side, like every morning, and his eyes close in pain as he notices the now always empty space. He extends his arm forward to grab the cane against the wall and finally stands up. He moves towards a dresser and washes his face in a basin before looking at the mirror that hangs above him. When he looks at his own reflection, he doesn’t see a twenty-eight-year-old, he sees a frail old man, with pale hair and tired eyes. The wrinkles that surround his face belong to an older man, and the bags underneath his eyes don’t match the roundness of his face. He is not old, yet his image and the tiredness that he has to always carry now remind him that to an extent he is. He looks away from the mirror to pick the cane again and walks to the kitchen, at this own pace, making sure he won’t wake anyone up. Mikasa is still sleeping, but she will be up as soon as she hears him, and right now he just wants a bit of silence. He hesitates to make tea, but his pulse has been so deceptive lately he decides against it and instead walks to the door and exits into the porch. It is still early; the sun has just started to rise, and the cold of autumn sends a shiver down his spine. But he likes it, it makes him feel alive like he is still strong. He doesn’t sit in the chair as he usually does but instead watches the fields that extend in front of him, empty, quiet. He cannot help remembering how much this silence reminds him of her, stillness and quietness always surrounded her. And he loved it. He loved her silence, the way she would tell him with just a look, and how he understood it. Armin always loved words, to talk, to express himself; but with her, words felt empty most times, and instead they found that the silence was better, easier. They didn’t talk about what made them sad, they never explained their nightmares; but instead, they held each other when their demons caught on them. Armin closes his eyes as the tears fall down his cheeks, and he can almost feel her kisses on them, the way she would always kiss his tears away. It’s been seven years since Annie passed, and Armin still misses her like the first day. Their time together was so short, but it was probably the happiest time of his life; or at least the happiest he had been since his childhood. He takes a deep breath again, the past few weeks had been so hard, he feels his weakness getting worse by the minute; he finds himself often out of breath, and his muscles betray him all the time. The only thing that doesn’t seem to frail is his mind, and he is grateful for it. He doesn’t want to forget a thing. He lets his mind wander, through all that has been, through all his dead loved ones. And of course, he comes back to her, like always. It was one of the last days before she became really weak, she had been slow for weeks but that morning she woke up before him, energetic, she even smiled when he walked into the kitchen, a rare sight that melted his heart. They took the day off and packed lunch for the forest.
“We are pretty far already Annie, I don’t think we should go further”.
“Please, I feel good, and I want to see the lake at least one more time”.
Armin frowns at her words, he doesn’t want to be reminded. “I don’t want to have to carry you back.”
“Oh right like you wouldn’t enjoy that,” she says while smirking.
Now he smiles, he would enjoy it; but she would never let him do it. That is something that no matter how much they share would never happen. She stops to gaze at him and offer her hand for him to hold, he gladly takes it and they continue walking, now up a small hill. When they finally reach the top, the lake extends before their eyes, shimmering, clear as the sky. Annie looks bewildered by the beauty of the water and the mountains behind, and Armin is dazed by her. He cannot stop looking, the shine in her eyes, the curve of her nose, the smell of her hair, the shape of her lips...
“What are you staring at?”
“I'm just watching you," He takes a pause. "You are so beautiful.”
Annie blushes, she has never stopped blushing when he says those kinds of things and she probably would never stop. She squeezes his hand tight while looking away. He smiles, he gets it.
“Let’s sit there, it looks like a good spot,” she finally says.
They spent the whole day there, eating, walking around, kissing. They talked too, but never about the future or the past. They suggest what to do the next day, and Armin talks about his parents a bit. They even mention their training days for a little while. But everything that happened in the past ten years is not mentioned like it never happened, there is too much pain there. As the sun rises up at midday Annie leans on his chest to sleep. The silence surrounds them again. It was only after everything ended that Armin started to find Annie’s silence comforting. At first, it was frustrating, it reminded him of how he never got any answers, how he would stare at an expressionless face on the other side of a crystal wall. But with time, he learned to appreciate it; because even when she didn’t answer she looked at him, and her eyes were open and she was breathing, and he could feel her warm just by reaching forward. That is how he learned to love her silence, by appreciating her just being there, next to him, breathing, alive within reach. Their time together taught him that most of the times there is no need for words. He also helped her, to find the words when those were needed, to be patient, to give back, to love. They never told each other though, there was no need, they both just knew. That day, as Annie sleeps in her arms under the sun, he realises how much he will miss her. And he cries for her loss for the first time. He cries in silence, to not wake her up, refusing to accept that he would have to let her go soon. He shifts carefully to avoid waking her up, but she moves in her sleep, pressing her head against his chest harder and moving her legs closer together as if to hide in him. He smiles between his tears; carefully brushes her soft hair out of her face. He notices that with her body against his chest he can feel her sleeping heartbeat. He closes his eyes and focuses on that sound, soft, familiar, warm.
When he opens them, he is not on the shore of the lake anymore; he is back on the porch of the house they once shared. The same house they went back to that same day in the evening. It had been such a perfect day and even a better night. They made dinner together, even played soft melodies on the gramophone. He managed to convince her to dance with him. He still does not know why she accepted, but it did not matter then or now. What mattered was the feeling of her body against him as they moved in silence to the slow tune that played in the background. That night they made love for the last time, passionate, lovingly, and as they both fell asleep, he heard her murmur “You’ve made me so happy”. The next morning Annie could not get out of bed, and after that, it had been a matter of weeks. Armin is now back to reality, the pain so intense he has to hold his weight on the cane. He decides to better sit down before he cannot stand up and slowly moves towards the chair on his side. He gazes at the rising sun, slightly blinded by it, and when the light finally shines on everything around him, he sees someone standing not too far from the house. He raises his hand to block the light and gasps when he sees Annie standing in the field in front of him. She is smiling. Armin does not feel weak anymore; he does not feel the ache in his joints or the shortness of breath. He stands up and runs towards her, and he stops, just steps away from her. He smiles back at her sight, she is as beautiful as he remembers, even more so now under the morning light.
“You are back,” he says.
“No,” she smiles. “It is you who came to me; took you long enough.”
“You wouldn’t let me come earlier”, he replies.
“No, I wouldn't. But you are here now." She keeps smiling and Armin realises that there isn’t any pain in her eyes or sadness, not because she has forgotten but because now it does not matter anymore. “I am here now, and I won’t leave”, Armin says as he closes the distance between them.