Archive of Our Own

They arrived in Fort Salta late in the afternoon on the first day of winter. It was 855. Armin and Annie had been travelling by plane and three days by boat before that, all the way from the coast of Dadwene, where they had stayed for two weeks to negotiate with its government the repopulation of dozens of abandoned villages with refugees from the Marleyan Continent.

“If those villages have been abandoned, it is because of war, the one we lost against Marley, and with it our freedom,” said one young Dadwenian general at one of the meetings. “The people who should have had led their lives there, they had to leave for Marley in order to survive. Some as conscripted soldiers, others as seasonal workers. Others as illegal immigrants. They died in the Rumbling. And you ask now to give those villages to the Marleyans who managed to escape?”

Armin knew that story. He had known it for years, actually. It was, after all, Onyankopon’s story. He was from Dadwene, and he told them in detail what happened to his people after his country had lost its independence, the youth like him conscripted into  military service, made to contribute to the next war. 

Onyankopon had found himself in the position to advocate for the repopulation plan to happen, to hell with those who’d call him a traitor to his country. He was the one to tell the others about the villages and propose the plan in the first place, in fact. 

“After all, who determines that nations should be defined by geography, from spatial constraints, and not by the movements of the people being part of them, the homes they make for themselves for their own lives, not to conquer and dominate but to share and contaminate, to bring nutrition and care and life—just life—to abandoned lands?”

They could move forward with the plan, but only on five test villages. It was a win, but like many other wins in the last year, and really in all of his life, it felt like they paid a lot to get very little, and that very little would create more problems until they could reach a better resolution. One that could lead to people living in the continent of Marley once more, with crops and livestock to sustain themselves and new buildings and factories in which they could reinvent their lives and the world. It was still too early, however.

855 was the year the famine hit, and Fort Salta could only keep functioning thanks to its special status awarded by the refugee camp built at the end of the Battle of Heaven and Earth. Yet as afternoon turned into evening, it was getting very cold and very windy, and even from the landing strip Armin could see that the camp, despite being at its maximum capacity, now felt like a ghost town. People, done with the work of the day, were retiring into their tents and were preparing dinner.

Except for Annie’s father, of course, who was waiting for his daughter to exit the flying vehicle. 

“Annie!” He yelled as he saw her. She abandoned her luggage next to Armin to go and hug him tightly. 

Armin was kept by some Fort Salta functionaries who wanted to talk to him. He responded politely; from time to time, he would look at Annie and Mr. Leonhart talking at the end of the landing strip, a hundred meters away from him. In his mind, he sighed. He had to ask Annie to give him back his things from her luggage (they were used to having a jumble of their things mixed in the same bag when travelling together, he always brought too many books around and neither he nor Annie cared to have proper places for their stuff) so that he could leave for whatever sleeping arrangement the functionaries had prepared for him. 

“Of course we will be there tomorrow at 11,” said Armin. Yes, and in less than a week, Annie would leave again for Cotta to hold the reins of the shelter project while he had to travel all the way to the Western Continent to improvise a speech about peace-building in the age of uncertainty. He was going to do that with Onyankopon, and it reassured him that he would not be alone in a strange land, as the people from the Western Continent and Keso in particular had a way of speaking Common Eldian that made him very anxious for some reason. The cadence suggested that they meant something completely different from what they were saying in words, as if they were speaking another language. 

“But still, my friend, I understand I’m not the lady,” Onyankopon said. “And be serene, I’m not offended. I only want you to know I understand your anticipated melancholy.”

Armin didn’t want to stay away from Annie for a month. 

He saw that Mr. Leonhart was pointing at him. 

Sure, I need to go greet him, thought Armin, and that gave him a knot in his stomach. He would never stop feeling awkward around Annie’s father, he decided. The man knew about Annie's relationship with Armin and yet he never made comments about it. He would always talk to Armin very seriously, especially in the moments he was invested in his role of leader of Fort Salta.

Annie was looking at him too now.

Time to go. 

He got Annie’s luggage off the ground (even though one functionary offered to bring it for him), and with it his own, and imprecated at the thought that this last year made him physically weaker, possibly because of the lack of training and possibly because of the fact that the number of commitments he had made him forget to eat from time to time. That was terrible given that he was awarded very special treatment in which food was never scarce. Also, what did Annie put in his luggage? (Among other things, four volumes of an Encyclopedia saved from the Rumbling that he had acquired. He really had it coming.)

He reached the two of them and gave Annie her luggage timidly. “Wait a moment,” he said, looking at her. Meaning: you still have my stuff. She looked at him impassively.

“Mr. Leonhart,” he said as he reached for Annie’s father's hand with his.

Mr. Leonhart shook his hand, looking serious as always. “Armin,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fine, thank you. And how about—“

“So, I understand that you’re supposed to stay at the military dormitories, as if you were a recruit?”

That left him speechless. Yes, that’s where he was supposed to go. So the functionary had said. 

“Yes,” Armin said. 

“I understand you abandoned your military title, do you still count as military?”

“Not really, no,” he said, smiling. “But that’s the organisation of Fort Salta, I guess.”

“Well, the dormitories are two kilometers from here, and I’m not having Annie going around the camp to work on preparing your meetings all day.”

“Um…” Armin said and looked helplessly at Annie. But she would not help, and he did not understand exactly why.

“I have an extra camp bed, you’re staying with us,” Mr. Leonhart said. “Tell Certosino, he will know what to do. Is that all your stuff?”

He said it as if it was definitive already. He looked at Annie again. On her lips and in her eyes, a timid smile, a nod of assent.

So that was what they were talking about when pointing at him. 

He was going to spend the next days at his girlfriend’s father’s place. 

He was terrified. 

It had been a year since the Rumbling. The camp had become larger in order for people to have a semblance of home in the temporary structures they inhabited. Mr. Leonhart had a tent with three separate spaces, one for his sleeping, one for cooking and receiving guests to have meetings, and another for his daughter when she was home.

The extra bed had been put there, next to Annie’s, again as something definitive. 

“I’m sure you know how to make do with small spaces,” said Mr. Leonhart. 

The space was not so small, actually; Mr. Leonhart had a leading role in the community and the government of Fort Salta. He held small meetings in his house and cooked for his mates. But what could be considered Annie’s room was of course also her darkroom, so half of the space was taken by her photography tools, the ones she had accumulated in the past year. She spent time in Fort Salta with her father developing the film she had been shooting during her missions: at the beginning it was as a part of her job, then she started taking a personal interest in the pictures, too. 

#

Under the red light, Armin could see the photography equipment huddled up at the center of the space, both on a table and on the floor, and on three sides of the perimeter, too; on the fourth, a pair of camp beds, and over each of them two or three thin mattresses and two heavy blankets, all in a variety of nuances which he could not distinguish in that dimness.

Annie dumped her luggage on the bed next to the room divider. Then, giving Armin just a side glance, she went to the table and started moving stuff around, apparently trying to free a corner to work.

“I wonder if I’ll be able to start the development of the batch from the Dadwene villages by tonight,” she said, taking out the developing tank from under the table, taking off the lid and looking inside it, to make sure it was empty, running a finger on the corners, searching for dust and dirt. “Ugh. Maybe not.”

She then turned to Armin, and smiled. 

“What are you still doing there?”

Surely enough, he was still holding his luggage in his hands. 

Armin cleared his throat.

“I’ll help you with preparing the equipment,” he said. “But, um, Annie… are you sure…?”

In response, she went to him, took his luggage, placed it at the end of the second bed, then she went back again and wrapped her arms around his neck, looking at him in the eyes.

“What do you think, Armin?” She said. “Not that I had anything to do with it, anyway, so you shouldn’t ask me. Now please cut it and go help Dad with dinner or something.”

But she did not let him go and drew him closer instead. She kissed him softly and then less so, until he understood everything was ok, and that he definitely should go help Annie’s father with dinner, or something.

#

Fort Salta, xxx yyy 855

Dear Mikasa,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I really appreciated receiving your last one, and I am glad to know that you are settling down comfortably in Shiganshina. Your goat sure does sound like a really nice little beast to take care of. You must have already decided by now but I’ll give you my opinion anyway: trust me, Connie would be a great name for her.

Both Armin and I are well. We arrived in Fort Salta a few hours ago, after months of being pushed around for this or that reason. 

And for the trials, of course. Armin will tell you about them.

I’ll tell you more of what is going on around here.

There are three main refugee camps in Fort Salta now; around thirty-four thousand people live here. These are the first days of winter, and the desert gets very cold at night, but with the remaining factories having been converted to the production of essential goods, we have good insulating tensile structures for houses, sleeping bags and blankets, and even some heating devices around the neighborhood.

I call it neighborhood because that is what it is, and while personally I’d rather avoid meeting Reiner’s mother (or heaven forbid, Reiner himself, although he is not here now) on the way to get water, I’m glad that while I’m away Dad can count on a community that has been here since the first days, be it the Liberio Eldians or other refugees from the nearest regions. 

I could never expect for my father to make friends.

But I could never expect much for me, either.

This time Armin is going to stay with Dad and me. Until we leave again. 

It was Dad who asked him, and, as you can imagine, Armin accepted rather graciously and not at all by being his most awkward, stuttering self, as if he hasn’t spent most of this year negotiating and making speeches and solving unexpected crises and saving himself and everyone else from far worse situations.

But of course you know him better than I do, so please do imagine that and have fun with it.

He will be fine, so don’t worry about him being alone, or having too much time on his hands so that he will end up overthinking everything. I won’t let him.

He’s next to me now, writing a letter for work. He looks tired but he has eaten well and he will rest well: soon we will both get to bed. 

I will continue this letter tomorrow.

Laying on the camp bed next to Annie’s, he tried to close his eyes and get to sleep. 

He could not. 

He was still thinking about the comment he made about Mr. Leonhart’s soup. He wanted to compliment it but of course he did it all wrong. At that Mr. Leonhart glowered at him, as it happened sometimes. When he made a fool of himself.

So, really, quite often.

Which was ridiculous, given his current position and the responsibilities he was entrusted with. 

How could he manage?

Annie’s breath was regular: she had fallen asleep quite easily, laying on one side, facing him. Her expression was serene, and he tried finding relief in that. She was ok. She was home, and he was with her, in case anything happened. 

They were going to be fine. 

“So, what are your next plans?” Mr. Leonhart had asked him at dinner.

His next plans, their next plans…

Of the things he needed to do on the morrow, before the meeting: collecting the new census data, and then counseling some of the high functionaries working for the camp management on what to do come the highest peak of winter, considering the lingering threat of the famine. Annie, on the other hand, had some meetings too, and needed to develop the photographs from the Dadwene villages so that they could be shown in the next weeks to the others and to the diplomats from Pilli; then…

Your next plans. Your next plans. Plans.

“Armin.”

Annie was awake and looking at him.

“Annie,” he said.

“You’re thinking.”

“I… I am.”

“Stop thinking and sleep.”

He should have learned that when he fell sick with exhaustion some months earlier; he did not.

She sighed, and with an effortless movement, she slipped into his bed and wrapped her arms around him.

“Sleep,” she said in his ear.

“Mh.”

“See you can’t think straight anymore. I’ll make you work hard tomorrow. You have to have energy for that. Sleep.”

Sleep. Sleep…

Her sweet, citrusy smell and the light touch of the strands of her hair against his cheek felt like a heavy blanket enveloping him, something neither here nor there, celestial in nature and yet unmovable, secure. 

Then his eyes opened again all of a sudden.

“Annie,” he said. “Maybe we should talk some more.”

“About…?” He heard her say.

“About getting married.”

She pulled away from him, looked at him in the eyes. It was dark in the darkroom and yet her eyes shone like beacons. Safety while traveling at sea…

But she did not look safe, now. 

“I thought we were ok with what we’ve decided. Waiting until the crisis is over.”

“I know, but…”

“But what?”

#

They had talked about getting married, or rather, of the reasons they both had to not get married now. The policies on family planning around the world that put a block on marriage licenses, for example, and how them getting an exemption because of their status as heroes would give them a bad look, would lessen the faith in the Allied Nations and set a precedent for the policies not to be applied. They were conflicted about the policies, of course, especially as impeding marriages would not do much to avoid pregnancies anyway, but what then? They could not solve every problem themselves; they could not have a hand in everything. 

“I don’t understand, Armin, how you can be so rational in all the reasoning you do, and yet here the fact that we are sleeping together but not getting married puts you in such an uncomfortable place.”

Why. Why. Of course, what else would put emotions in his reasoning, if not her.

(“When it comes to Annie, you suddenly become stupider than me, you cannot think straight anymore,” said Connie. 

“Honestly, no, Connie, Armin is very much thinking here, and has always been thinking, even when it is about Annie,” said Jean. “He does not lack the brain, only the confidence. Besides, it’s very difficult to get stupider than you.”

Connie pulled a face at Jean.

Armin sighed.)

#

But what did Mr. Leonhart say at dinner, once again? 

“What are your plans for the future?”

Or: 

“What do you plan on doing in the future?”

Or was it:

“I’m doing this for my daughter, but I still feel you’re a scoundrel and a cheat, and you’re taking advantage of my little Annie.”

No, he didn’t say that. 

Armin had felt Mr. Leonhart’s severe gaze on him though. So it was just as if he actually said it. He knew it.

Armin tried to make things better. He talked about the soup.

He said:

“I didn’t know you made soups, Mr. Leonhart.”

Or did he say:

“I didn’t know you (knew how) to make soups, Mr. Leonhart”?

Of course, as if a man who brought up a girl since a very young age wasn’t capable of cooking, and not capable of cooking soups, of all things.

How did Mr. Leonhart respond, then?

Why did Armin then say, “We haven’t had soup in some months now… I like it.”

Did that sound condescending? Did that sound like he meant, “We eat abundant, refined meals when we’re out in the world, we can have better things.”

The pastries Annie liked so much, which big cities like Pilli and Belsina did throw at them, with every shop (“patisseries”) welcoming them, on their afternoons off, with a warm and cozy atmosphere. 

Instead, he felt cold in Fort Salta. He felt agitated.

Annie then started talking about the strange fruit and sweets they had in Dadwene, and Mr. Leonhart from then on only cared about focusing on what his daughter said to him.

Armin had been saved. For now.

#

Back in bed, he said:

“I just think we should have a plan.”

“You mean in case I get pregnant?”

“Ah—erm…”

“What else?”

“It is just… it’s just—”

She sighed.

“Please don’t say it does not look respectable.”

“I want to be true to you, and to your honor.”

“Are you not? And what honor, by the way?”

“Annie…”

“You also said you were going to let me have time to find myself, what I really like and want to do with my life. Maybe I do not really want to marry you. Maybe I want to marry someone else.”

“Wha—!“

But she was laughing—that secret, silvery laughter he had learned to hear from her in the last months—and now she was kissing him, holding him tight once again.

“Sleep,” she said in his ear once again. “Sleep. I’ll marry you later.”

Later. Too vague.

Every other conversation was lost then, and he slept.

#

Fort Salta, xxw yyy 855

Dear Mikasa, 

I will try to continue this letter a bit more, although there is nothing particularly new to tell you. I thought I would have some time to start developing my photographs today. Instead, I got involved in two more “urgent” meetings and even in solving one dispute between two Eldians here. 

They really do not know it is Armin they should call to do this kind of stuff, as I am pretty useless as a mediator. 

Dad says he needs to play the role more than ever, especially now between people of different communities. I gather that everywhere it is the same: Jean has been telling me of very similar situations from where he, Reiner, and Pieck have been posted in these months. 

As far as I am concerned, I prefer focusing on my job, doing my thing, and on my own, although lately I have taken charge of a number of community projects in C— and that means that I have to postpone everything until I’ve given enough orders around. Connie—who works with me there—says I am very good at it, so I am really wary all of the time because I trust Connie’s judgement very selectively, as everybody should, in fact. 

On the other hand, Levi is helping us with these projects and I find him way more reliable, and he does not complain too much, so I suppose that’s really something, isn’t it?

Indeed, there are still many things we do not choose to do and we have to do all the same. In the end, they are not half as bad as they seem initially.

I will tell you more about what is going on in C— another time, it is getting late and besides it is too much a delicate topic to discuss in words. Words that once on the paper are fixed, and there is nothing fixed about the whole thing yet. So.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will be able to talk to you about the new batch of photographs taken in D—. Yes, tomorrow.

H.D. would indeed tease me in knowing how long and rambling my letter is getting. She would tell me I’m boring as hell. I do agree, and that’s why you should have her read the most boring parts, if you see her somehow. 

I hope she is fine. 

That evening, before dinner, they took a stroll around the camps, Annie and him. Fort Salta had drastically changed from the first days they have been there, when they had started figuring out places for people to sleep, to be medicated and to eat with makeshift means, the actual fort, half-destroyed from the actions of the last Titans, not being enough for neither the Marleyan soldiers, the Eldians, nor most of all for the people that were already arriving there, pleading for help.

Fort Salta was now one of the biggest refugee camps in the world, one that “could easily never cease its function,” as one former general of the Exharcate told him, indicating that for many, the situation of emergency might never end. For many, the spartan city in the desert was going to be their home forever.

Armin wanted to be more hopeful, despite his cautious nature. He wanted to think that one day the Liberio Eldians would find a way back home, in houses of concrete, in neighborhoods with running water and electricity, the houses and the services he had destroyed no more than fourteen months ago with the force of the Colossus. 

Was that why he wanted them to leave Fort Salta? Because he felt guilty? Again, and again, even now?

Maybe. Or maybe this was just his small way to imagine a future that was made of people he knew, the Eldians who accepted him and his comrades at the end of the world regardless of any past action. With some reservations, maybe, but accepted nonetheless. They worked so hard for their families and the other refugees, they deserved a future. As for himself and his friends… he could not think about it. He had much trouble even trying. It made him mad with confusion, and every thought was a solid step in the dark, something he could not take back, something that could make him fall into the abyss of his mind. Was this why he was so concerned about not having married Annie yet?

As they walked around the camps, they discussed how it changed from the last time they had seen them, the newer structures and the new sections, or “neighborhoods”.

It was not the first time they came back to find Fort Salta so different from the one before, even in the times they left the place for just a couple of weeks. As he looked at the eastern end of the camp, as he tried to recognize where they were in relation to where the Battle had happened, he thought that in the end he had to accept that the place he once knew was lost forever. Was it there, on the perimeter of that section, the place where he sat down to talk with Annie at night, the place where they exchanged their first awkward, desperate happy kisses, the place where they started opening up to one another? The place where they had learned how to hold hands, seen by nobody, because it was better for everyone that people would not start talking about it?

Even then, they did not hold hands in public, and their kisses and their touches had acquired new dimensions, and while he felt happy, and so lucky, and grateful, and so in love, sometimes to the point of feeling like he could not contain it all, he still longed for the places of the days past.

Maybe he was not the only one.

“Seriously. They removed the funny-looking rock?”

He didn’t need to ask which one. He knew. On the northeastern side of the mesa where they were now, until some time ago, nothing had been built. The camp was placed looking southward, where the sea was (invisible from there, but that was the right direction), the side from where reinforcement and help would arrive. Nobody wanted to look at the remains of the Rumbling unless it was necessary anyway, and especially at night, nobody would venture there, not even couples looking for some privacy.

So Armin would go to that side to sit by himself next to a tall rock, a funny-looking rock, as Annie would call it (“It looks like Connie’s head”), confident that nobody would bother him there.

Annie had found him quite easily back then, and of course, he didn’t count her as one of the people that would bother him. All kinds of emotions got to him when he saw her each and every time but annoyance was certainly not one of them. He felt shock that first night though, because he did not expect that she would abandon the safety and comfort of being at her father’s side to go look blindly for him. And when she did, and when he ended up crying in her arms, the weight of the first meeting with the Tyburs and the Allied Nations still on his shoulders, he was afraid that she would just leave, disappointed in how pathetic and useless he was (the meeting had gone extraordinarily well). Of course she did not.

“Come,” she was saying to him presently, grabbing his hand with hers.

“Annie, what…?”

She led him in the narrow space between two tents, swiftly, making him very aware of the risks of tripping over guy ropes and pegs. He managed to go through unscathed, however, and here they were, in a very tiny plot between the structures of the camp and the base of the escarpment of the mesa. Annie checked the terrain with a foot: there was a place that looked softer and had a different color. A tent had been erected over the place the funny-looking rock once had been.

“Well, go figure,” Annie said. “Not a real problem, though. We’ll always have the real Connie looking over us.”

She turned to Armin and took his hands again, both of them this time. She looked at him and blushed. As it happened often with her, her impulsive nature found a halt when it came to them: she’d made the first move, and then she’d wait for him to make the next one, uncertain that it would ever happen. Except it had happened many times now, and it was going to happen again. He left her hands to wrap his arms around her waist, to draw her close to him and to kiss her. It came naturally now. He was more confident than before, surprisingly more confident in his own personal estimate, maybe even too much. But he didn’t think of that just now, he just wanted to kiss her. Soon they slid down to the ground, sitting against the escarpment, and they kissed some more, slowly, meticulously. Like they did back then.  

Everything was changing so fast once again, non-stop since that day in Liberio… he felt he had found his center, and then he kept losing it, as if there was no way the center could stay the same for more than one day, or one hour really.

Slipping away from his fingers, every little moment. Soon that week would end too and he would be separated from Annie, and he still could not decide on what to do, what to do with his life and the commitments that forced distance between himself and her,  and from his comrades, every day a little more.

Not that they would be able to stop anytime soon. That was, after all, his salvation.

Was this why he felt so restless these days?

“I love you,” she said.

Opening his eyes at the end of that impromptu make-out session, everything around him stood still. Even time stopped. Only Annie’s clear eyes, her slight smile, her long fingers intertwined with his, only those things signaled that they were alive, that they were both alive, and well, and together, for now.

She met his gaze with hers, and so they looked at each other for some time. Just like that, quietly holding hands.

“I love you too,” he said finally.

Armin felt a little better now.

After all, he thought, it had always been the same story: him rushing towards the future unprepared, she dragging him back to the present, to himself.

He really was so lucky.

#

“And what did Onyankopon say, then?” Mr. Leonhart asked. 

On the second day, at dinner, they discussed in detail the meetings in Dadwene with Mr. Leonhart. As the leader of a good part of the community of the main camp, and among those responsible for making decisions for the Liberio Eldians in particular, Mr. Leonhart was indeed very interested in the possibility of leaving Fort Salta to plant their roots in a more hospitable land, where they could even have actual, proper, permanent buildings to live in. 

And exactly like Armin, he had, overall, a very good opinion of Onyankopon, and highly valued his actions and thoughts. 

“A young man who is both honest and smart,” he would say. To that Armin would nod. He indeed agreed, as he had trusted Onyankopon with his life once and would again, and after all now they were not just allies sharing a common goal, but friends too. 

He could not avoid thinking, however, that maybe Mr. Leonhart thought that Onyankopon would have been a far better choice for a boyfriend for Annie. More knowledgeable about the world, more mature, and in a less risky position than the “man who killed Eren Jaeger.”

He shivered. 

Annie was recounting the discussion between Onyankopon and the young Dadwenian general.

“Then Armin proposed to have an exchange in that sense, and that caught the attention of the general.”

“I see,” said Mr. Leonhart, and he addressed Armin: “So, it looks like it worked out perfectly like you planned, am I correct?”

Armin raised his hands. “Well, it’s not like we obtained a lot,” he said, and he saw that Mr. Leonhart looked unconvinced. “And the project is going to be resource-intensive. I am not sure…”

“We still made it, but the junta wants us to fail,” Annie said curtly, lowering Armin’s defensive hands with one of hers, lingering too long on the one nearer to her, squeezing it. 

“Bad for them,” said Mr. Leonhart. “It will be way easier to manage starting from just five villages. We will not fail.”

He paused, looked away, and then he said: “Although…”

“What is it, Dad? You think the people from Liberio would rather not leave?”

Mr. Leonhart sighed. 

“A lot of the people from Liberio want to leave indeed, but to go back.”

“To go back…?”

“To Liberio itself. Whatever… you went and saw it, you showed me, to whatever is left of it.”

Armin did not know what to think about this information. It was, of course, understandable. It was also unpractical. 

“Why go back? To remember the good old times?” Annie asked. Armin could see she was upset. When they managed to arrive to the coast, during their survey missions in the very first months after the Rumbling, uncaring of the winter, they had a hard time finding out where they were exactly, all the points of reference, even the shape of the coast, marred and transformed permanently by the Rumbling. But when they reached with certainty what once was Liberio, the place Annie wanted to come back to for so many years, Annie had cried. 

He could see why she had conflicted feelings about her long-gone illusory paradise, her imagined final destination. He wanted to take her hand, to reassure her. Whatever it was going to be, they were going to—

“So, what do you think, Armin?”

Mr. Leonhart was asking for his opinion. And he was waiting, because at first Armin would not respond, still checking on Annie from time to time, seeing if he could just squeeze her hand under the table. If he could—

“You don’t want to say?”

No… he didn’t. He wasn’t prepared about it, although he had thought about it in passing from time to time: after all the East coast was a crucial territory to be in, to keep an eye on Paradis, to reach Paradis. But then, not a great thought to share with Mr. Leonhart, wasn’t it? And in general, he felt that Mr. Leonhart, with his inquiring stare, would just want his opinion to invalidate it. Like Annie herself, Annie’s father had a lot of informed opinions. Unlike Annie though, he would not be gentle with him. That’s what he thought. Helplessly, he looked at Annie again and found that she was looking back at him. Her hand was now finding its way to his right over the table.

He just had to say it all, didn’t he? Or she would not stop.

He looked at Mr. Leonhart.

“Well,” he said, and began to list the reasons for which going back to the East coast of the Marleyan continent could be a very bad idea, and then, surprisingly, the reasons why it could be a very good idea. 

Ok, maybe he did think of it more than quite a bit.

“Talking with the biologists, it could be easier to bring life back to the land starting from the coast, but on the other hand transporting organic materials there may prove unfeasible, unless of course they came from a nearer place and would fit more the kind of flora and fauna that was populating the East coast before, which would mean they should come, possibly, from Paradis.”

He nervously laughed, to show that he did not really believe it possible, although, of course, it was not impossible. And then another thought hit him, and then another, so he started talking again, a jumble of arguments one against the other, starting sentences before finishing the one left in mid-air… that could work, somehow. It could work.

“So in the end, if Liberio is to be rebuilt, it will not happen before many years from now, so the Dadwenian project may still be something to consider.”

He was finally finished, and he found that Mr. Leonhart was still looking at him seriously, but also a bit startled, as if he had said something plainly ridiculous. On the other hand, Annie had been holding his hand all of the time, so maybe that was the problem for Mr. Leonhart. Armin looked at Annie’s hand and then at her. She was no longer upset, he saw that she was thinking. 

“So, um,” Armin said, and turned again to Mr. Leonhart, feeling suddenly very hot. “Of course, it’s just… speculative thinking. Nothing set in stone, or anything.”

Mr. Leonhart must have thought he was an idiot and a naive one at that, to make it even worse.

He usually kept that kind of reasoning for the people closer to him and for a reason. Jean by now had learned how to point out weaknesses in his arguments, and Annie had been doing the same since forever, and now even more, candidly and without reservations. Onyankopon was really good in adding to the speculations, making him see boundaries he did not consider. He was generally wary, still, of Pieck, who usually kept quiet until she was ready to destroy everything. But even she had begun to actually engage, and without her condescending attitude. But then, yes, there was a reason his speeches, even when improvised, were different from the way he shared his ideas. Because in the latter setting he looked like a fool, and an upsetting one at that. 

After he excused himself, he kept on covering his eyes, almost in shame. But then he thought, why? He was actually right, or better yet he had some good points. Mr. Leonhart did not attack them, he could not. Going back to Liberio, or, to the coast, was indeed something to consider, whether people liked it or not. And in the meantime, they could still… 

But he was tired, and needed to go to sleep. 

#

He found himself awake in the middle of the night. He opened his eyes before closing them again. Think about Annie, he said to himself, think about her being happy. It was too easy for his mind to start planning the day ahead of its own volition; maybe it was morning already after all, maybe he didn’t need to go back to sleep, maybe he could start writing. He needed to write to Jean in Felaodi and then he needed to get back to his letter to Mikasa. He had noticed Annie was way ahead with hers, and he had said to her he wondered how she could do it so effortlessly, in a way in order to praise her, not for the fact that she was writing to Mikasa—something he would could have never hoped for, a strange bond born out of them working together during the Rumbling—but because of the will she was putting into expressing herself, opening herself to others—not just to him—forging connections with the outside which was once such a terrible, cruel place for her. 

“In truth, with Mikasa, it comes out naturally, it’s strange,” Annie had said in response. “She is not here and she cannot see what we see and I cannot see what she sees and yet it feels like I can understand. Does this sound stupid?”

No, he had said. Not at all, but he wanted to know more.

“It’s like,” she said, “as if in the end we really knew and understood each other all along, and we just could not accept it. Until those days.”

It felt right to him, and it felt good, despite the melancholy he presently felt at the thought of Mikasa, of Paradis, of home. In that warmth, he thought, he really should go back to sleep. 

But then an image hit him, and it was so strange because he rarely got something for such a remote past. He remembered his mom laughing in the shop in the back of the house, as she secured a number of bolts with a wrench right in front of him. “It’s like we always knew we were going to be together, your dad and I,” she was telling him. “We knew each other for such a long time and I’ve always liked him quite a lot and he liked me quite a lot but we never said anything but we knew: we knew, we fit just right. So when we tripped against each other that day…”

What happened, then? 

He was pulled out of his reasoning as he sensed Annie’s hand on his left arm, a nervous grasp.

“Armin. Please talk to me,” she said. “Armin—”

“I’m here. I’m here, Annie. We are both here,” he responded automatically, reaching for her own arm, before even having the chance to open his eyes and look at her. When he did, and once he could see a bit in the dark, he found her face contorted in a grimace, her other hand reaching for her own heart under the blankets, her knees up to her own chest. The nightmare. He pushed away his blankets and leveraged himself on one hand to slide into her camp bed, and under her blankets next to her: to hold her, to let her feel his lips on her right temple, kissing her lightly. Then he pulled away, massaging her shoulders with his hands. 

One, two, three. 

Her eyes opened. He could see them well now, light as they were, trembling with terror and tears. 

“Can you see me?” He whispered. “Can you feel me?”

He continued caressing her shoulders and her arms, and then on the shoulders again but reaching under her chemise, his hands warm enough (“How can you always be this warm?” was her usual protest) not to be startling on her skin. 

She was terrified, still caged in her dream, and even if he knew that he had to know better, he felt terrified too, desperate for her trouble. 

“Annie, can you hear me clearly? I can talk some more, but please tell me something.”

“Yes. Talk.”

“Ok,” he said, and he drew her close again, her head resting on his shoulder. As he started telling her minutiae about his latest meeting with some functionary, the first safe things that came to his mind to ground her in reality, she began to cry, softly first, and then violently, the crying turning into sobbing. 

“Why, why,” she said over and over against his neck and his ear, and each time he made his embrace tighter. She needed time to wake up. 

He would have rather her have a full night of sleep, but what time was it anyway? And they had no meetings the next morning, she could rest then. Luckier than most times she got her nightmares, and luckier than most times he got his nightmares, and she stayed by his side trying to make him reason over things that happened a long time ago. At least the only thing that Annie needed was to know that she was alive and that she was free to move and to reach for things in the outside world. To touch, to hold, to talk to. 

(“I wonder if it would be better for you to see or hear someone else while you have such a moment,” he had said to her once. “After all, you used to hear me even back then.” In the crystal, he meant the crystal. “Maybe you’ll benefit more from—“

“It’s not the same,” was the words with which she interrupted him. “You sound different from what you sounded from inside the crystal. And you look different from how I imagined you in my mind. Noticing the difference is what helps me. So don’t even try to suggest that you’re not good for this, Armin. I need you.”

He tried to think about it every time his thoughts went in that direction. Also, he reminded himself that that was why he had to keep his hair short. When he told Annie it was one of the first times he heard her full laughter. “Not the point of you looking different now!” She had said. Oh well, he could be wickedly funny now, at least.)

Thinking about this, he sat up and kept her close, making her sit on his lap, holding her by the back. So that she would not risk choking with the sobs. 

There were movements in the next room.

“Annie?!”

It was Mr. Leonhart’s voice, acutely agitated. 

Armin could only manage to raise his head to see Mr. Leonhart peeking inside the room, holding a lamp in one hand. At the sight of his trembling daughter, however, the man entered the room and tried to get as close to her as he could. He had to sit on Armin’s bed in order to do that. He placed the lamp on the table, reached for his daughter. 

“Dad,” she said weakly, turning to her father. She sounded better now. 

Armin loosened his grip to let her move. Instead, Annie remained where she was, and Mr. Leonhart only squeezed her arm, and she nodded as she continued sobbing. 

“You need some water,” he said. He went outside and in no time he came back with two glasses of water. He handed them one each, to Armin’s surprise. He accepted the glass and drank, still looking at Annie, making sure she’d drink too.

“I’m fine now. Thank you,” Annie said. “No need to make a fuss out of it or anything,” she then added. But as she was still sitting on his knees, one of her hands over his to sustain herself, he felt that she was actually okay with receiving the attention, that she was in the best place she could be, with her father, and with him.

This only—he had always known rationally, accepting the invite, but it never hit him truly until now—made him understand that regardless of the misunderstanding and the botched communication with Mr. Leonhart, he too was in the right place, next to her. 

(He had also expected much worse, with the back of his mind, when Mr. Leonhart came in. He expected Mr. Leonhart to tear Annie away from him with force, to save her, to have her close as Armin wanted her to be to him. He did not. Everything felt normal, quotidian, even calm despite the commotion.)

Everyone went back to sleep, Armin in his bed, Annie in hers after stretching up a bit.

Before falling asleep, really asleep this time, she commented:

“You were right, we definitely can’t do much without being heard here.”

In the dark, he still saw that she was smiling, and knew that she was blushing as well.

Instinctively, he wanted to cover his eyes with his hands, embarrassed: she was fine, and perfectly capable of messing up with him at any moment. But again, she was fine, and that was the important thing. 

He did not cover his eyes. Instead, he searched for hers, he leaned towards her, and kissed her good night.

#

He woke up to see, in the dark, Annie resting peacefully under the blankets, only half her face visible between them and her unruly hair. He stayed like this, looking at her for a while, as it had become a morning ritual for him, sliding into conscience as he watched her. Then he got up, checked his pocket watch, and went to the other room to prepare some tea. 

He found Mr. Leonhart there, standing next to the burner, monitoring the water kettle already. 

“Ah, Armin,” said Mr. Leonhart. “Tea will be ready soon. Please eat something in the meantime.” He showed him the table. They had to make do with powdered milk and crackers, mainly, but Mr. Leonhart had managed to scour some eggs too, and he had cooked them already. 

“Uh, thanks,” said Armin, feeling conflicted at the thought the man would sacrifice his credits to make them eat now when they could have just about everything once they got to Cotta. “That is… really too much,” he said, indicating the eggs.

Mr. Leonhart shook his head firmly, and helped himself with his cane to get to the table and sat down. He put one egg on Armin’s plate. “Eat,” he said. “I don’t want you underfed while here.”

Armin smiled and accepted the plate. He cracked the eggshell; he started eating. It was still hot.

“Thanks,” he said, again.

Mr. Leonhart nodded and took one to eat himself.

“I hope you managed to get some rest,” Mr. Leonhart said. “Annie is still sleeping, I gather.”

Armin nodded. “Yes, she needs some more time to feel better and rested, after a nightmare.”

“I know.”

Armin shot a glance at Mr. Leonhart. Of course, he thought, of course he knows. He nodded again, he looked down at this plate. 

They both continued eating, a bit nervously, until the kettle whistled. Armin stood up then, “I’ll do it,” he said, without leaving space for Mr. Leonhart to say anything. 

They stayed in silence as Armin brewed the tea and while he served it, as well. Mr. Leonhart just nodded when Armin poured tea in his cup.

Then, as Armin lifted his own cup to get a sip, Mr. Leonhart said:

“You know, I once had your name down in my kill list.”

“Huh?!”

That made him spill the tea on his hands and hence burn his fingers. He put the cup down on the table, awkwardly, and raised his head to meet Mr. Leonhart’s gaze.

“When Reiner Braun returned to Marley, he said that a certain Armin Arlert was probably responsible for my daughter’s capture. I shouldn’t have access to that information, but I managed to get it anyway. And I wrote your name down, and thought about it.”

He paused, looked down to drink his tea, then looked at Armin again. 

“I gathered that you were my daughter’s age and yet I imagined you completely different. A scary,  heinous soldier from Paradis. All in all, a devil of the island.”

Armin nodded. He really did not know what to say, he  just kept hold of a napkin which was enveloping his burnt fingers. (No, it was nothing major, but the lack of regenerative powers still hit him sometimes. He felt defenseless. Once again.)

Mr. Leonhart sighed.

“So, that is probably why when you presented yourself in front of the Marleyans to advocate for us, I heard your name but I didn’t really connect it to the character I had in mind. Only later it came to my mind that you were the same person.”

“Oh. I see.”

“A great disconnect between the image I had of you, and the young man with a clean face. You.”

“Yes.”

“At the time I couldn’t think much else. You made such a big scene. But later as I understood, and looked at you and at your movements in the camp, I knew I was right. You are scary.”

Luckily enough, Armin still hadn’t tried to go back to his tea, or he would have burned himself for the second time. The very scary man from Paradis, defeated by some hot drink.

“I—“

“I don’t think you’re in the position to deny that. You have a way with words that trumps the need for acts of violence. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. And of course, the power you had over my daughter, reunited with her finally and after a week she had already decided to leave for some rescue mission hundreds of kilometers eastward.”

“Annie decided that for herself,” said Armin automatically. He didn’t even have to try, he remembered those days so sharply. He didn’t ask her, and when she said she was coming, he tried telling her nothing will change what I think of you whatever you do. But she had shaken her head, there was something else there, something he still did not understand. Something he didn’t know just yet. 

But it didn’t matter now. He understood that that was The Talk, the one Jean and Connie teased him about for so long. 

Strangely enough, he didn’t feel scared. Just puzzled. 

He saw Mr. Leonhart shaking his head. Annie would do it in the very same way.

“It took time for me to understand what was going on between the two of you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my daughter does not talk much.”

“Heh.”

(He was an idiot, wasn’t he? Was he trying to provoke Mr. Leonhart now, with that?)

“And you tried very hard to avoid me at every turn. I got there anyway. No thanks to you.”

“I love Annie.”

He didn’t plan to say it, he didn’t even think, he just said it. Maybe it was because of what happened last night, he felt in a secure position. For no reason at all: Mr. Leonhart could well beat him at any moment, cane and all. 

Mr. Leonhard in fact leaned over the table to give him a slap on one arm. He looked upset now.

“Ah—“

“I very well hope you say that to my daughter!”

“I—I do!”

He did, he did. Of course, the marriage thing was complicated, but what could he say to Mr. Leonhart? He knew about the policies. He knew they had to present themselves in a certain way. But trying to talk about future plans in that sense would sound something out of a real scoundrel, wouldn’t it? Especially because Annie hadn’t had her say yet. Not yet. And he didn’t want to promise anything to others. The future was uncertain. So what he could say to—

But Mr. Leonhart was back sitting in his chair, arms crossed, absorbed in thought.

“Dammit, I didn’t want the conversation to go there,” he said, almost to himself. “My daughter decides for herself, I don’t need to know that you have good intentions or whatever. Annie decides.”

Armin nodded.

“I can always fix things later.”

Ok, that was threatening.

Mr. Leonhart shook his head again, took his cane and stood up, took his empty plate (somehow he was done with breakfast; like with Annie, food disappeared without notice with him?), put it in the bowl for washing it later. 

“I just wanted to tell you that you almost convinced me, yesterday, about Liberio. This is what I wanted to tell you. You really raised points I did not consider.”

“Oh. Um, thanks,” said Armin. “And, if I can ask, what did not work for you? In my arguments?”

Mr. Leonhart turned to face him. “Nothing. It will all just depend on where you and Annie are going to be, after all this.”

Oh. 

“You don’t expect to get rid of me that easily, I hope?”

Armin raised his hands in front of himself, in defense. “No, no.”

It was almost comical, looking at it from the outside. 

Mr. Leonhart sighed. “So that was just a confirmation of my original statement. You are a scary young man, who could become dangerous. That’s why I’d rather have you here.”

“I—I beg your pardon?” Asked Armin. Now he could drink his tea finally, but he stood up anyway, the cup in his hand. With the other, he tried helping Mr. Leonhart. The man had started moving pieces of papers and a variety of objects from a shelf, as if to organize them. They looked like verbals from community meetings. Mr. Leonhart let him. Armin let down his cup once again, so that he could help properly. 

“There is another reason I harbor no tender feelings for Liberio, as you can imagine. For a time, I thought of the city as my opportunity for freedom. When I first arrived as an illegal immigrant, before I got caught and tested, and forced into the damn internment zone. 

“I slept in one of those dormitories for factory workers. I was on my own, nobody knew me. I worked hard, I had good intentions. But that didn’t matter in the end.”

He turned to look at Armin.

“I had good intentions and ambitions, and I got punished for it. And that made a chasm out of my heart. And I ended up making another creature pay for that.”

He sighed, but for a moment it sounded like a sob. He continued:

“I know you are a bright young man, with good intentions, whatever that means nowadays. In no way I’d dare to compare my accomplishments to yours. But at the core it’s always the same. You’re lucky to have your friends. You’re very lucky to have my daughter. But you cannot expect me to just let you be on your own while you’re here. Annie says you tend to suffer from the blues.”

“I—yes,” said Armin, simply. He did not know what to say, and really, now, was just overcome with emotions. 

He did not expect that.

“So,” continued Mr. Leonhart, “what I wanted to say the other day, the question you could not answer to, I thought maybe you were just tired and I could not explain it but: if you tell me when you will be in Fort Salta, even if it’s just you, I’d like you to stay here. Understood?”

The plans for the future. Of course.

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

A nod. Just that.

They finished with the papers, Armin finished with his tea. They exchanged some more words, casually, about the functionaries from what was once Marley that were managing the logistics in Fort Salta. 

Then, Annie entered the room. 

#

Annie—in her cozy hoodie, hair pulled back in a bun—watched them from the other end of the table, her hand already grabbing the last egg, breaking the shell and ripping it away so that she could eat it on the go.

“I have started with the development of the films,” she said. “I need water.”

“I’ll get it!”

Armin, startled, turned to see Mr. Leonhart looking at him. 

They both had responded to Annie at the same time.

For a moment he felt he could not breathe, something in his throat would not let him. 

He tried anyway, and let it out.

It was a chuckle.

Mr. Leonhart took a breath, too. 

“Tell us what you need, Annie.”

Annie looked at them, impassive. 

Then, she said:

“Armin, go fetch me twenty liters of water.” (Twenty liters!) “Dad, you can help me on the developer mixture and temperature monitoring, but before that I need new vinegar. I’ll wait for you inside.”

She turned around and disappeared again into the darkroom.

But just before that, Armin managed to catch a glimpse of her expression, of her clear, beautiful eyes. 

She was smiling.

#

Fort Salta, xxz yyy 855

Dear Mikasa,

It got postponed to no end, but today I finally had time to develop the photographs I took in these last months. For once I had everything needed for the job—not like that time I made Pieck angry because I stole her coffee beans to make the developer mixture; this time Kadok sent us the chemicals—, and both Armin and my Dad helped me with the process. You know what, I think Connie is right: I am good at giving orders. Overall, despite some mishaps, I must say we had a good day together. And that we produced nice photographs.

So, as promised, I am sending you some. 

The photograph with the tall pillar was taken in Y— some time ago. It is called a tekhenu, and the city has many of them in different neighborhoods.  For those who are practicing religion there, it’s a symbol of connection to divine entities, those who live up in the sky. 

The pillars are not autochthonous, they have been made in the southern regions and then transported to the city in a single piece, a long time ago.

They look so tall now, but the Colossal Titans were double their height. 

I sometimes wonder when we are going to forget what it looked like, not just the Colossals but all of the Titans, while we carry the burden of how it felt and we can no longer communicate.

Armin says this is why we should preserve proofs of every part of our history. Our shared history, the history of the world: of what remains on Earth and what only in our mind. 

Personally, I don’t believe in history books. They have always told me lies. 

Still, what am I doing, once again? Helping Armin to get his proofs. Every little thing we remember from the time Marley was a great nation full of people interested in exploiting every little part of us.

It makes me sick, and yet I cannot stop looking at the words Armin writes, the ones he writes after listening to me, the ones I can’t stop vomiting regardless of how I feel and how I feel about them. I hate them and they hate me and yet we cannot part. And then, after some time that I look at them, everything becomes blurred and I can read no more. 

With images it feels better. 

It feels right, it gives me clarity whereas most words take it away from me. 

I like it how it feels, as the image develops on the photographic paper, on the negative, to find it focused, to see the neat contrast between one object and the other, between background and foreground, the expressions of the faces of the people appearing in it, the details of their hands and their knees. Escaping from darkness once and for all, being fixed on paper and still feeling alive.

I only wish I could send you at least one portraying Armin. There is one I’ve taken of him talking to Onyankopon in the desert which I am very proud of; Dad also liked it quite a lot and looked at it for a long time, which I think embarrassed Armin. But I must say the days here are strengthening him: he appears way more nonchalant today, about talking to my father, about dealing and working with him. Taking my orders. 

I must say I feel relieved: he is so good with machines and technological devices but he would have made a mess of the darkroom if he got stuck in his awkwardness today. 

Instead, it almost felt like we’ve done this many times, the three of us together. Maybe we should consider making it a staple of our time spent at home. And at some point I might also need a third helper, you know, there are lots of things to do… 

Wait, speaking of the devil, Armin is interrupting me—

Back home from the meeting of the evening, he found her sitting at the table, writing her letter. He wrapped his arms around her briefly before dragging a chair next to hers. He embraced her again. She turned around to kiss him.

“What?” She said then, separating from him. “You are tired?”

He rested his head on her shoulder, then. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I am.”

“Go to sleep if you’re tired. We have stuff to do tomorrow. Real stuff.”

“Everything is real,” he said.

Mr. Leonhart too entered at that very moment. He did not take off his hat.

“Dad,” Annie said. Armin raised his head, sat straight, moved his arms so they could look… more respectful? Well, bullshit, it was too late. He was sitting straight but he was still clinging to Annie somehow. Nothing could change that image, even if he retracted from her. Worse, it would have only made it worse. And untrue.

Mr. Leonhart looked at the two of them. 

“I’m going to go listen to the meetings of the railway workers,” he said. “I’ll be back later. At some point.”

At some point. Too vague. 

“Goodnight, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Leonhart.”

He left them like he found them. 

Annie turned to Armin again, and he leaned to embrace her once more, burying his head on her shoulder.

“Dammit, Armin, I get it that Certosino…”

“He never stops talking. Never.”

“Welcome to a torture made by the heavens for you and you only.”

“That’s not the real torture, for me.”

Yes, he liked to complain. To her. She would just listen and nod for the time he needed, and then finally she would tell him to get a grip. It was a nice feeling, being told off by her like that. 

“Annie,” he said. “We leave in two days.”

“I know.”

He sighed, and then raised his head and drew hers close to his chest this time, so that he could envelop the totality of her. 

She let him. 

“I am happy that your work in Cotta is going well. I really am. But on one side I wished it wasn’t so you could join me in Keso.”

It was her turn to sigh. 

“Listen to you, hoping for the worst and shit.”

“I know.”

And then he said:

“I miss you already.”

She shook her head against his chest. 

“What bullshit. We have two more days.”

“Listen to you, looking at the bright side.”

“Shut up.”

She also said:

“I’ll miss you too. But only then. Not now. And after that we’ll be back together again, and I’ll miss you no more.”

He didn’t respond, he just brought one of his hands to her head to caress her gently, to draw her closer and closer. It was nice that way. It was as it should be.

 After Trost, after the dissolution of the 104th Training Corps, as he worried madly for Eren, trying to tackle the enigma of his transformation, unable to process the violent loss of his comrades still, no idea of the real scope of the truth, no idea of the truth at all if not just a hunch, a remote part of his mind still entertained the thought of his simple crush, imagining a time when, coming back from one mission with the Survey Corps, he would take a license to visit the inside of Wall Sina and in doing that he would go look for Annie, he would go to say hi. Maybe he would bring her flowers, and stories from the outside of the Walls, because even if she said she just wanted to do her thing, save herself, the times she chose to listen to him, during cadet years… he had this feeling she would do so again, that she would like that, maybe. By then, looking at it rationally, half of the foundations for that to happen the way that he imagined were already destroyed, and there were still too many factors that would make the whole thing highly unlikely. But he didn’t know the truth yet, and that was why, in the end, it all came to what he hoped for in the cruelest of ways: him taking licenses to visit her inside Wall Sina, in a dungeon, for four years. Just stories from the outside; no flowers allowed. 

In those years he missed her all the time, even when he could see her sleeping, trapped, just right in front of him. Was it strange then that even now he harbored that feeling, that hole in his heart, even as it swarmed with the comfort of her embrace, with the comfort of knowing that it all paid out in doubles for them, in the end? And maybe he could not bring her flowers all of the times, nor chocolates—which she definitely preferred to flowers—, and admittedly her stories from Cotta were far more extravagant and funnier than the one he could tell, and sometimes even more painful. 

And still, even then, he had her and she had him, like he had envisioned once. 

The route had been different, and yet it still led them there. The thing that was there, for them, as if eternal, buried under layers of lies, omissions and misunderstandings, under the hatred of others, under their own hatred for themselves, and most of all under the heavy weight of events that had not taken place yet, and that they could not see it coming at all, not in that form, not in that order. Finally, as they kept moving, the events worked as magnets, making everything fall into the right place, revealing to them the raw truth of their love, but not in its entirety yet. Not just yet.

Who was he to demand to have it all now, to stop it from developing in order to have it fixed, absolute, in his hands to make use of it, a tool like any other? Was there even such a thing, in the world, for them?

He decided he didn’t want to know. That he would keep moving, that she would keep moving, so that they could fall into each other again and again, until they would be whole once more as they were always meant to be. 

He knew then what his mother had said about his father.

We fell into each other’s arms all of the time

We fell into each other

So that was it. He knew now and could not go back anymore. 

He said:

“I’m sorry for pressuring you about the marriage thing, it was just me being scared.”

“Mh, I could not tell at all.”

She was teasing him.

Then she said, more seriously:

“You know that whenever that is going to happen, in the best-case scenario, we are going to use it to seal some international pact, to divert attention from other stuff happening or for some other political shit, right?”

“We don’t have to, necessarily—“

“But we will do it nonetheless, and you know it. And you have to be ok with that. Because I am ok with that. As long as it’s me and you and you don’t have to marry the little Tybur girl or her mother or whatever.”

He chuckled. “Again with that story?” 

“I am jealous, remember.” 

She was laughing too. Somehow that made the both of them feel relieved. 

“Seriously,” she said after a while. “I don’t care. Nobody else decides what’s between us. It’s only for us and it’s there regardless of anything.”

Right. She too knew.

“I’m glad we had today to be together,” he said then. “With your dad, too. That we had these days, in general.”

She pulled away to look at him.

“Is that right? You mean it?”

(She meant the part about her dad.)

“Yes,” he said. He smiled and that made her smile in return. She climbed onto his lap, kissed him on the right temple, where his bad headache dwelled sometimes. 

He cupped her face in his hands, brought her lips to his, so that he could kiss her. Yes, he was tired, but maybe not that much, maybe they could just have some time for themselves. Maybe—

“I can’t leave you for ten minutes and this is what you’re doing in my kitchen.”

They broke apart, startled. And terrified. Well, he was terrified. 

Mr. Leonhart was at the door again. 

“Fuck,” muttered Annie. 

“I’m talking to you, Armin Arlert,” said Mr. Leonhart.

“We should have moved to the bedroom ages ago,” continued Annie in his ear. 

“Ah—erm… Sorry, sir…?”

The savior of the world, the great orator, master manipulator, Armin Arlert. Twenty-one years old, away from home indefinitely and ready to be expelled from the one he had found along the way. 

“Dad. We need some time before we leave. Please?”

Mr. Leonhart sighed, covering his eyes with his free hand. He reached for the hanger, took something out of the pocket, and headed for the exit again. 

He turned to look at them again. To look at Armin, in particular. Armin could not understand whether Mr. Leonhart was more angry or more embarrassed. It was a strange look.

“I am watching you,” he said to him.

“…Yes. Yes sir.”

Mr. Leonhart looked at his daughter, nodded, and disappeared into the night of Fort Salta again.

“Ah, Annie…” Armin said after a while, with her still kneeling on top of his lap. Uncertain of what to do next.

“Oh come on, Armin, he was fucking with you. He has a lot of fun that way, let him have it.”

“What?”

“He was trying very hard not to laugh at your confusion!”

“He wanted to kill me!”

“Points of view.”

“Annie.”

“You have to think of a plan for next time.”

“Annie.”

“But later.”

She got off him, took his hand with hers and with the other gestured in the direction of the opening to their bedroom. 

“Let’s go,” she said.  

He could not judge how good she was at giving orders, he would do whatever she asked of him anyway. So he followed her. 

Despite being winter, the temperature inside was comfortably warm.

#

Reprising from where I left off yesterday—

I know I wrote a lot, saying at the same time too much, and nothing at all. This is what the times we live in require of us, so I dutifully oblige. After all, this is not the first separation I experienced whose real scope I understood only after it happened, a moment too late, really, and as much as I’m doomed to repeat similar patterns in my life, I also know now that I can change them a little, with time.

I will not spit on the opportunity that has been given to me.

And for this reason I will not let the time away from the people I care for to go by as if it never existed; as if I do not exist and cannot speak; as if there was never something that I wanted to say to them when I stayed quiet and kept to myself.

 

I will write two copies of this letter: I know already that I have talked a lot and Armin will suggest to cut most of it due to having revealed too much information (and absolutely not for his being embarrassed at what I told you about him), so I’ll copy it down in a reduced form, and all of this before Armin goes through it to censor the specifics that remain, so that we are able to send it to you with some peace of mind regarding your safety, ours and Kiyomi’s as well. 

Please know, however, that the other copy will stay with me, and even if you can’t read it now, it’s there, and it’s for you, and it will reach you one day, when we finally meet again.

Restful, dreamless nights to you, Mikasa.

Love,

Annie