Chapter Text
Two weeks without food. Over a month--maybe two--sitting in this strange cell, deep underground, his wrists handcuffed together and locked into a pole with a notch in the bottom that sunk nearly two feet into the floor. His knees creaked, able to only handle a few positions before they started to go numb. His back was stiff in this position as there was no possible way for him to be able to lay down comfortably. The bricks beneath him had worn down his slacks in the knees.
How many times had he seen Hange and Erwin down here? Every day it felt like. Sometimes it was Armin. They had the decency to tell him the time of day. Whether or not it was morning or night. But they never came down here to converse politely: perhaps as some sort of punishment, he was forbidden food and socializing. He was questioned instead. Harassed.
Had Eren or Hange figured out yet that titan shifters have a massive appetite? Were they treating Reiner the same way?
Bertholdt coughed. A guard near his cell shifted. He almost laughed. It wasn't like he was able to shift here in this cell; his organs would have shut down long ago if he wasn't a shifter, but he spent so much of his remaining energy rebuilding them that even the thought of becoming a titan was far too much for him.
He hung his head. This was it. He couldn’t keep going like this.
"Bertholdt. How are you doing today?"
He opened his eyes, unimpressed at the blond boy that stood before him. If he had use of his arm, he would have gestured to the bags under his eyes, his greasy unwashed hair, dry, leathery skin, the dullness in his blue eyes, and the way his cheeks started to jut out. His clothes hung uncomfortably on his already thin frame. Instead he simply hummed at Armin, his gaze returning to the scratches and cuts in the bricks he grew oh so accustomed to seeing.
Today Armin had with him a chair, which he pulled up to the wall across the cell door, his hands resting against his thighs and his back straight. He wore the usual scout attire, with the green jacket emblazoned with the wings of freedom.
"Reiner's doing alright, you know. Hange thinks he's lasting longer down here just because his titan isn't so large."
Bertholdt coughed. Steam came out of his mouth. "Right, that's absolutely correct," he rasped. "Appreciate the update."
Armin gestured to one of the guards and the door was unlocked. Bertholdt was given water, steam coming out of his mouth in thicker clouds until he'd finally consumed enough to speak without his throat tearing itself to shreds.
"Are we going to keep doing this every day?" Bertholdt asked, bracing himself against the barrel of water that was suddenly dumped on his head. It was cool, refreshing actually, and for as much distaste he spat at Armin, he always welcomed it. His body was so hot. Too hot. Hot enough that he always felt like he'd just come out of the Colossal Titan. "You come in, talk to me, try to figure out how to prove that I'm not going to blow the place up?"
"You killed a lot of people. You know we can't just let you out. We can't just go on your word and they barely did with Eren as is."
"I am risking everything here, Armin. The war chief--the, um, the BEAST Tian, as you call him, is terrifying. I grew up with him as a kid and I know what he can do and he sat there and watched us betray him."
Armin shook his head. "That doesn't change the fact that you’re the direct cause of us losing almost a quarter of our population. Our world barely trusts Eren as it is let alone the Colossal Titan."
Oh how Bertholdt hated the look in Armin's eyes. He was so serious, nothing like the petrified boy he had joined the cadets with.
"We're trying to figure out what to do with you. Or rather, Erwin is. They've discovered something really interesting."
Bertholdt pressed his lips together. The guards left his cell, slamming the door shut.
"The Reiss family has been overthrown. Historia’s going to become queen. After a lot of investigating they figured out how the titans are made. Shifters, at least, but it's a step in the right direction."
"You don't know what you're doing."
Armin raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
Bertholdt inhaled slowly, closing his eyes to think. He didn't know how to word this in ways that an island isolated from the rest of the world could imagine. They didn't have heaters, or pizza, or trains, or large ships, or planes, and their war on the titans was nothing compared to what he, himself, had done to other countries when he was barely ten. Getting into the affairs of titans was getting into the affairs of Marley, a grave mistake.
He cleared his throat. "You will have to destroy the war chief before he gets off this island. There's a strong possibility that the cart titan is with him, and she would need to be stopped too. Marley would swoop in, grab us and Eren, and destroy you in a heartbeat if they could."
"Why hasn't...Marley done so already?"
"Didn't want to waste the effort on a bunch of island devils."
Armin went silent at that. He lowered his voice and gestured for one of the guards to come closer. Whatever he whispered, Bertholdt couldn't hear, and he ground his teeth together.
"I can't imagine what they did to you Bertholdt."
"You can't! None of you can! I don't even know where to even begin to explain to you people what is outside of these walls when you barely know anything yourselves in here." Bertholdt twisted his head to try and wipe fresh tears off his face with his shoulder. "If they find out that we betrayed them they will kill my father and they will kill Reiner's family and try to salvage what's left to start all over again."
Panic rose in his chest. He tugged on the chains that kept him firmly on the ground. All Armin did was sit there and listen. "Please. Liberio is my home. They hate me but I did everything they wanted from a good Eldian and then some." What the fuck was he even saying anymore? The heat was rising to his head and his arms trembled. "If they come and get me they'll feed me to Galliard or someone else."
When Armin stood, the guards jostled, watching him closely as he approached the bars, wrapping his hand around the cool surface. Bertholdt couldn't lift his head enough from this position to see him.
"I don't know what you want from me anymore," Bertholdt whispered. "There's nothing I can do to prove to you that I want to stay here."
"Why though. Why are you so willing to betray your home?" Armin scowled. "Back when we were just cadets, you and Reiner spoke so fondly of going home. It was all you two wanted. You claim to be with us, but as of yet you've given us very little information."
Bertholdt couldn't help crying, but constantly having to regenerate his organs depleted him of any water left in his body, and too soon his eyes dried. "I became a warrior and serve Marley to help my dying father. He could get the care he needed if I managed to become an honorary Marleyan. I feel at home here but I have other obligations."
"If...if your father was here, would things be different?"
He had no answer for Armin.
Marley was his home. It's where he grew up and spent his childhood and who he swore loyalty too. He was going to save humanity.
But wasn't that Paradis claimed as well? He found comfort in being around these people, and though he'd never become as attached to them as Reiner had, he still thought of them...fondly. Like friends. Or classmates. Even if his heart had been elsewhere, the cadets and scouts let him work alongside them, something that Marley would never have considered under normal circumstances.
Bertholdt wondered if this is how Reiner felt. He'd been so mean to him, asking if he was with them or Paradis, a warrior or soldier, trashing him in that tower where they finally found the Jaw Titan in Ymir. It felt like an eternity ago.
"I can't answer your question, Armin."
"It's okay," Armin said softly. "I asked them to bring you some rations. I figured the protein bars we keep would be best."
"I could eat an entire box of those and still barely stand." Bertholdt shook his head. "It won't help me."
Armin laid his head against the bars. "Can you at least try?"
"So Hange can starve me for longer? No thanks."
"They thought it would be the best way to see how your metabolism works."
"Armin I am dying."
"What?" Armin pulled back from the bars.
Bertholdt coughed. "I give myself less than a week before I starve to death. And when I die, my Colossal Titan will go to some other Eldian baby who just happened to be born the moment I die. I don't know what Hange is trying to prove besides light torture against their enemies."
This time, Armin didn't know what to say. He hummed softly as he thought.
"At least try these."
"I will vomit immediately. But thanks."
"I will try to find something else but we don't have much else right now."
Bertholdt shifted so he was at least sitting down instead of crouching on his knees, ignoring the uncomfortable tug of the chains around his wrists. "They're not going to let you have anything for the Colossal Titan," he scoffed.
"You never know."
Armin disappeared after that and the guards moved one step closer to his cell. Bertholdt laid his head back against the cool steel bar, reveling in the relief he felt from his boiling skin; maybe if he had urged Reiner to continue running with Ymir and Eren, they wouldn't be here right now. Maybe he wouldn't be so close to death that he could literally taste it on the acid he kept spitting up. He just wished he was able to see his dad one more time before he died, but he didn't let himself get his hopes up. He did that too many times already.
Hours passed by the time Armin showed up again and Bertholdt had finally drifted off into a fitful sleep, his feverish dreams plagued with titans and Marleyan war and just how close he had been to death when Erwin broke through Reiner's armor and snatched him right off the ODM wire.
He was having a pleasant half dream of being back home during training now.
"Please just let me be," Bertholdt whispered, hearing Armin’s chair scrape along the ground. "I'm tired of it all right now."
"Now you're sounding like Reiner," Armin said, his voice wavering. "It's kind of...sad."
"Because everything I've said about Marley willing to kill you and my family without hesitation isn't already sad?"
The cell door slid open again and Armin kneeled down beside him. Bertholdt flinched from his cold fingers against his cheek. "I don't think there's anything about this that isn't sad," he pointed out. Bertholdt's skin was too hot to keep his hand there so he let it drop against his knee. "I have something for you. Open your mouth."
Bertholdt pressed his lips shut tighter.
"Oh don't be stubborn now!" Armin smooshed Bertholdt's thin cheeks with his fingers but the older boy scrunched his whole face from the effort it took to keep Armin out. "I had to fight for this stuff."
Still nothing. "It's just juice, come on I'm not trying to kill you I'm trying to...keep you...alive!"
He jammed his thumb into Bertholdt's mouth, getting a gasp out of him. Armin skilfully took the canteen he carried and pressed it to Bertholdt's lips, tipping it up to let the juice flow out.
Bertholdt mumbled incoherently, swallowing the sweet, sweet drink. It was...apple. A crisp, refreshing taste he'd all but forgotten about.
He blinked a few times when Armin pulled away and tightened the lid on the canteen. Armin gave him a look.
"What's wrong?"
"Why are you doing this?" Bertholdt asked.
"Trying to keep you alive? There's a lot of reasons." Armin reached to his side, dug in a box, took one of the protein bars, and unwrapped it halfway. He broke a piece off and pressed it to Bertholdt's lips, and this time he weakly, but willingly, took it. "We want answers. We want to know why a shy, meek boy like you decided to kill 20% of our population and then walk among us. We want to know why you did it twice. Why you became our friend. Tried to take Eren. Why you won't tell us anything. We want to know it all."
"I don't even know where to start. We were trying to save humanity."
Armin gave him another piece of the bar. "Why did you think you could accomplish that by destroying us?"
"We didn't want to. None of us did. We work for the will of Marley and they only wanted the Founding Titan your king keeps locked in the walls." Bertholdt's stomach twisted. "But it's not your king anymore."
"It's not," Armin agreed. "Eren's dad ate the prior Founding Titan and passed both the Attack and Founding onto him."
He tried to give Bertholdt some more of the bar but he shook his head aggressively. Bertholdt heaved, vomiting into the bin Armin held toward him.
"Fuck. That apple juice was nice too." Bertholdt forced himself not to cry. It was pathetic. "Thanks for trying."
This time Armin offered him some regular water. "We'll try again in an hour. We're planning on taking back Shiganshina soon. Eren said that his father's basement can give us all the answers."
"If it's that great a basement why are you so keen on keeping me alive?"
Armin sighed. "You keep asking me this. What if, consider for a moment, what if I just want to keep my friend from dying?"
Friend. There was that word again. It brought him back to over a month ago, when Jean and Connie and Armin were trying to get through to him. To try and get them to stop running. To try and get them to surrender and willingly come to this horrible prison to live out the rest of their term if they behaved. Of course these folks didn't know about Ymir's curse, but ever since the halfway mark just a few months ago it plagued Bertholdt's dreams.
Bertholdt felt big, fat tears roll down his face. "I'm sorry. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place."
Armin patted his leg. "We'll figure it out no matter how long it takes. It's like with Eren. We scouts don't want you dead. Most others might want to kill you, and Erwin might use you as bait, but we wouldn't...we wouldn't have gone after to bring you back here if we didn't care. Maybe that's where us and your home are different."
"You don't know anything about my home," Bertholdt said. "But...you haven't hit us because we were outside of the internment zone or lagging behind during training or turned us into pure titans because we looked at a soldier wrong."
"Mm...I need to go now, but we can continue this when I'm back. Like I said, one hour." Armin gave him a sympathetic look as he left, the cell doors closing once again with a heavy slam.
---
Only the few scouts that knew of the current situation sat around the desk in Erwin’s small office and on his couch, waiting for Armin to return with whatever knowledge he may have gotten during his visit with Bertholdt. It usually wasn't much, most of the time nothing at all, but they would take what they could get these days.
They were all quiet, none of them having the guts to break the silence with their what-ifs and speculations, and even Eren was quiet, having screamed Reiner and Bertholdt’s names and cursed them enough that he was tired ages ago. Days ago, even. He couldn't focus on any training and Erwin gave him a rare reprieve from Hange.
Light drifted in from behind the curtains, a soft and warm, deep orange glow that darkened the already sleepy room where the light did not reach. Jean traced the wood grain in Erwin’s desk, Eren sitting directly to his left, knuckles white as he gripped the edge, and Connie sprawled on the couch half asleep. They would have had Historia there with them, but she had business to attend to with her new role as queen, leaving Jean, Connie, Sasha, Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and of course, Erwin, Hange, and Levi. Only Erwin was with them now, sitting at his usual spot at his desk, scribbling frantically in an empty journal.
Nearly all of them jumped when they heard the click of the doorknob. Armin walked in, the canteen he so desperately asked for tucked neatly under his arm.
“Arlert,” Erwin greeted, glancing up from his journal. “Welcome back. Have you learned anything?”
Everyone leaned in. Even Connie had jolted upright.
“I have, but I can’t say it’s good news,” Armin began. He swiftly moved to the couch, settling himself down beside Connie, and setting his canteen on the table. “He’s had some sort of training far beyond what we could imagine, for one.”
Sasha nodded. “Bertholdt was in the top three.”
“Yeah. Exactly. With his abilities I don’t think the place he came from would’ve wanted someone who got angry easily, or jumped to conclusions.” Armin rubbed his chin. “He isn't as damaged as Reiner is. He knows who he is, what he wants, but he’s confused. He doesn’t seem willing to talk very much, but there was one peculiar thing.”
Jean raised an eyebrow. “What’s the thing, then?”
Armin cleared his throat. “We know from some of Hange’s tests with Eren, Ymir, and the other titans--I think Bertholdt called them ‘pure’ titans?--that regeneration for a titan shifter can depend a lot on their will to do so. Hange was having trouble with Reiner, and sometimes he’d just stop regenerating all together. Especially when he thought he was genuinely still on the team. Bertholdt has been using every bit of energy he can to keep his dying body regenerating, to the point of breathing steam constantly. I don’t know why yet, but he mentioned his dying father too.”
He could see the insults spur in Eren’s mind. The boy nearly started cursing them again, stopping only at a stern look from Erwin. He pressed his lips together.
“There’s...a lot happening. He calls the place outside the walls ‘Marley’. Mentioned the word 'Eldian'. Said he serves them as a warrior, and that they’d kill him and his family to ‘start all over again’. They were going directly for the Founding Titan...to save humanity.”
“Bullshit!” Eren finally shouted, slamming a hand on the desk. Connie gave Armin a strained look. “I don’t believe one word of it. He’s a traitor, what if all he’s telling is lies?”
Armin locked eyes with Eren. “If you saw the same look on his face as I did...I...I think you’d understand. He looked scared, Eren, despite all the tough talk and claiming we don’t know what we’re doing. He grew up with the Beast Titan and I think he’s more afraid of him than any of us. He’s afraid of his home.”
Eren gritted his teeth. "It doesn't matter how he feels. He's the direct cause of every single one of us losing someone."
Armin shuffled around in the bag he kept under the table and fished out his notebook and pencil. He started to scrawl nearly as frantically as Erwin had just been doing.
“He said Marley could destroy us in a heartbeat, but they haven’t yet because they don’t want to waste their time on a bunch of devils. He was shouting the same type of stuff when we found them running away.” Armin started making bullet points as the light in the room faded with the setting sun. “He called the Beast Titan ‘war chief’. Said if he left the internment zone Marley would hurt him. I told Bertholdt I’d be back in an hour though, so I’m heading out again.”
Mikasa was about to tell him not to when he snapped his notebook shut and stood up, passing it off to Erwin. “I wrote what I’ve learned about the titans here. It matches up with what Ymir and Historia have told us. When Bertholdt dies, if he isn’t eaten by someone else, the power of the Colossal Titan will be transferred to someone else, likely a newborn. I think we should keep him alive, even if...even if Hange had other ideas. We should keep a titan like that on our side.”
The commander flipped through the notebook filled with Armin’s descriptions, drawings, and explanations of everything he’s learned from the titans through Eren, and especially these days, Bertholdt and Reiner. Ymir was clueless, because despite having also come from Marley, they’d quickly realized she was many years too late and grew up in a cult, so nothing she was able to tell them was accurate or viable anymore. She did at least try to explain stuff to Historia, as fractured as it was.
“Thank you Armin,” Erwin said with a smile. “I can assure you Hange does not want to kill them, but I can’t blame them for how they feel. Annie is...well, we lost a lot of good people.”
Armin pressed his lips together. “I understand. We should focus on Reiner next, I think, or maybe have someone try to talk to him while I talk to Bertholdt. I don’t think I’m quite as qualified to handle Reiner.”
“I’ll think about it. Before you leave, let me ask you a question.”
“Yes?”
Even Sasha became quiet as the commander spoke. “Do you trust what Bertholdt has to say? About life outside the walls and the titans?”
“They...spoke fondly of their home when we were cadets,” Armin said, gaze never leaving Erwin’s. “I don’t think the decision to betray their home and their family back at the tower was a light one. Thank you for listening, commander. I’ll be back later tonight.”
“Do what you need to.”
On his way out, before returning to the underground holding cells, Armin stopped by the mess hall. He went for bread and oatmeal garnished with some fruit today, but he also asked for some soup which he carried carefully down the stairs with him after he finished his own meal.
Bertholdt looked even worse than when he left somehow. He sat with his legs out in front of him, his head back against the bar that chained his hands to the ground. His eyes were closed and the visible grimace on his face tugged at his heart.
“I’m back. We’re going to try something else.”
The guards let him into the cell. Armin knelt beside Bertholdt, pressing his hand to his forehead, yanking it back as the sheer heat from the boy’s body nearly burned him.
“You really didn’t think that would happen?” Bertholdt asked. He didn’t bother to open his eyes.
“Needed to make sure you were still alive.”
Armin had one of the guards bring in his chair that he then used to set his food down on. “I need you to sit up, please. I asked for some soup, maybe it’ll be nicer on your stomach than the protein bars.”
He could see the amount of energy it took for Bertholdt to sit back up. He hung his head, as if he couldn’t even hold it up anymore. Armin couldn’t see his face, hidden by harsh shadows from the torches in the hall, until he tipped Bertholdt’s head back to face him.
“Do you really want to try so hard?” Bertholdt whispered.
“Yes. Open your mouth.”
“You make me feel like a child.”
“Me and Mikasa deal with Eren,” Armin pointed out, but it got no response out of Bertholdt. He gently cradled the bowl of soup in one hand and stirred it with the provided spoon. “Besides, I don’t think you can really do much on your own right now.”
“Not with my arms-hrk!” Bertholdt jumped at the spoon getting shoved in his mouth. “Come on!” Another spoonful. And then another.
“I’m not letting you worm your way out of this!”
The noise that Bertholdt made almost scared Armin, rattling him to the core. It was like...a strangled animal. The sound of defeat and despair. Armin leaned back, splashing some of the soup on his uniform; Bertholdt was trying to kick him away, but he had no strength left in him to do anything.
Armin pressed his lips together and made a decision.
“Guards. Do you have the keys to his restraints?”
“...yes.”
“Do I have clearance to use them?”
A hushed whisper. A hesitant voice. “Yes.”
He was handed a heavy key nearly as thick as his finger. Bertholdt watched him carefully with his dead blue eyes, his head never turning but his gaze still following Armin until he was out of sight behind him. Armin was sure if Bertholdt had any moisture left in his body he’d have been sweating profusely, though these days he would heave or shake if he thought he was in danger. It was a far cry from the strong and cunning soldier he knew when they were cadets.
Three heavy clicks later Armin was pulling the bar out of the ground, freeing Bertholdt’s arms. They were still handcuffed, though, and without the support of that metal bar he’d been leaning against for over a month, Bertholdt suddenly fell backwards, hitting his head heavily on the ground. Armin flinched.
“Shit. I’m so sorry.” Armin threw the bar aside. “Here.” He pushed Bertholdt up despite the heat, supporting him at the shoulder. “Guards!”
As always another barrel of water was pushed into the room and Armin told them to just dump it even though it would soak him too. He always requested cold water for Bertholdt specifically, which steamed up the cell the second it hit his body but cooled him significantly. Armin flinched at the chill.
Bertholdt only stared ahead of himself in disbelief, his eyes wide, face and hair dripping with water. Armin moved around front, holding him up by his shoulder and making sure that he could be seen.
“Hey. Bertholdt. Are you okay?”
“Y-y-you let my arms go.”
“Well, sort of. Here, water.”
He drank his water with newfound interest. He wouldn’t take as much as Armin was trying to give him, pushing his arm away with his shoulder when he’d had enough, but it was more than he’d taken at one point on any other given day. Armin was, finally, satisfied with the results.
“I’m just trying to help, but I need your cooperation.”
Bertholdt swallowed. He opened his mouth for the broken piece of protein bar Armin held out for him. “What cooperation. I knew there had to be a catch. Are you just trying to get information out to then kill me?"
It was now or never, really.
Armin gestured for Bertholdt to look at him, and he got those same sad eyes. He stood so close to him that he could see his reflection in his eyes, and Armin realized he’d adopted that stern, cold look that Erwin often gave his peers.
“I need to know if you’re with us, or if you’re with Marley. I cannot stop them from killing you if you prove otherwise.”
The silence from Bertholdt was almost deafening. Armin didn’t look at the iron pole he took out of the floor, but for a split second, he saw the expression on Bertholdt’s face change, and he almost considered putting it back in. Even the guards outside stiffened.
“You. I’m-I’m with you.”
Armin moved in what felt like slow motion as he took the other key from the guards. His heart pounded in his chest; either this was going to work, and Bertholdt really was on their side, or he would be single handedly dooming the entirety of the walls for his own foolish decision. His breath caught in his throat as he reached behind Bertholdt to stick the key in his handcuffs, the sound of the lock mechanism unlatching almost making him freeze up.
That moment felt like an eternity.
Bertholdt slumped forward into Armin, light as a feather. His arms hung weakly at his side, wrists scarred and raw, his face pressed gently against Armin’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure how to help Bertholdt so he just wrapped his arms around him softly, letting him weep and weep until there was no more water left in his system.
“I can’t promise you much right now,” Armin whispered as quietly as he could so the guards couldn’t hear. Bertholdt nodded weakly. “We still need to talk to Reiner, and figure out what to do about Annie. I’ll see about getting you a bed, or at least a mat to sleep on. I can't stop Hange from doing anything to you though.”
“Okay.”
“Can you try to have some more soup now?”
“No. Please...please just let me lay down. I don’t care if it’s on the ground, I’ve slept on worse.”
One of the guards handed him a blanket from a bed in another cell. There wasn’t a pillow or anything for now but before he moved Bertholdt to the ground he took off his scout jacket and rolled it up unto a makeshift one. Bertholdt tried to shake the blanket off of him because he was already hot, but when his head hit the pillow, he was out like a light.