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As she walks, Historia lets her hands drift over the flowers. Her mind is wandering elsewhere.
The sound of children laughing reaches her ears and she pauses, one hand coming to rest delicately over her womb and the budding life nesting within.
The sun is setting, painting the sky in hues of pink and gold.
The orphanage workers have started calling the children back inside for the night and Historia pauses.
For an instant, she thinks about joining them, but she stays where she is.
She’ll walk back shortly, before Charlotte begins to worry. Right now, she’d rather be alone with her memories.
She and Eren shared so many stolen moments in this garden. Moments of mutual understanding and shared pain.
And joy.
Because while the weight of what they faced never truly left them behind, they experienced moments of genuine happiness together.
They’d been falling in love, coming to understand each other. And then Eren had told her of his plan, offered to wipe her mind clean of any knowledge of it.
She had refused, horrified by the very idea.
I won’t tell anyone about what you’re planning. We’ll carry this sin together on our backs.
Something warm trickles down her face. Historia brushes it away, but another soon takes its place.
Cupping a hand to her mouth, she swallows down the sob that threatens to break free.
She truly is the most despicable woman in the world, but this is a choice that she made freely and she’s willing to suffer the consequences of her actions.
Historia won’t allow herself to indulge in something as foolish as self-pity. She won’t weep for the decisions she’s made.
She turns away and begins her walk back, leaving the garden behind.
A queen has to think of her own people first and foremost. Anything else is secondary.
She understands that this is her responsibility and she doesn’t want it, but she doesn’t have it in her to turn it away.
She wishes she did.
Is this what you meant when you told me to live for myself, Ymir?
“Historia!”
One of the children- a boy named Gunter- rushes to her, grabbing at her skirt. He’s only five years old and he has no idea the kind of monster she is. The kind who will sentence children to die in order to preserve their fragile existence.
“Gunter!”
Historia doesn’t move when Charlotte calls for him, showing up with two-year old Elise in her arms. She looks exhausted, dark circles under her eyes and frizzy hair poking like brown straw out from beneath her kerchief.
She stops short when she spots Historia. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized-”
“It’s fine. He’s not bothering me,” Historia assures her. Because this… it feels nice. These children… they all deserve a world that doesn’t hate them, don’t they?
(The rest of the world has children too. There has to be a way to save her people while minimizing the bloodshed. But if there isn’t… Well, does anyone’s right to live trump someone else’s? They’ll fight with all they’ve got.)
“Let me help you.” She takes Elise from her. “You look dead on your feet.”
Charlotte wipes her brow. “Let me tell you, these children don’t stop.”
Historia smiles outwardly, though she feels that it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “They’re certainly handfuls.” She bounces Elise from one hip to the other.
The little girl grabs a fistful of her hair and stuffs it in her mouth.
“Yes, they’re certainly troublesome.” Charlotte smiles grimly. “It’s sad, isn’t it? They haven’t got any family except us here at the orphanage.”
“You’re doing a good thing here,” Historia says. “They deserve someone who cares about them.”
Charlotte looks at her seriously. “The one before you never bothered to come visit this place, you know. He didn’t care about the children. We barely got enough funding to get by.”
“I know.” It makes her angry to think about. While the rest of them faced either starvation or the titans, the ruling class lived in the laps of luxury, never knowing hunger, never faced with the gaping maw of a titan, never witnessing the deaths of dozens of close comrades.
Good riddance.
She’s glad they’re gone.
She didn’t want this role. It had been thrust upon her.
She’s trying. Most of the time, she doesn’t know what to do.
“So what makes you different?” Charlotte eyes her shrewdly. “Why do you care so much?”
“I…” She’s rendered speechless for the moment. Truth be told, she hadn’t expected to be questioned quite so blatantly, but it’s refreshing to be treated like this for a change.
With few exceptions, it’s like no one knows how to treat her now that she’s the queen. She wishes they would treat her like normal.
But what is normal anymore?
Krista is gone and Historia stands in her ashes. Krista had been their friend, but now that she’s gone, what are they supposed to make of Historia?
She blinks and finds herself back in the moment. She knows what Krista would have said. Krista would have smiled brightly and said, “I’m only doing what anyone else would do, aren’t I?” or something equally nauseating. Something nice and sweet. Because Krista was a saint. Something Historia is not.
What Historia says is, “It makes me sick to think of the king and all those nobles growing fat behind the walls while the rest starved.” Which isn’t actually answering the question, but it’s true nonetheless.
She doesn’t know that she can explain that when she looks at the children, she understands them. She knows what it’s like to be cast aside and unwanted. To have no one.
But that’s a side of herself she’s only ever shared with Ymir and now Eren.
If life had been different, she would have been a part of that circle, curling her hair and trying out the latest trends while the ordinary people struggled to make ends meet.
Maybe not.
Frieda had been decent and kind. But Historia isn’t Frieda. She doesn’t know if she has that kind of strength.
This is for herself, for the little girl she used to be, for the woman she is now.
It isn’t exactly altruistic.
At the threshold, Historia looks behind her one last time.
In the distance, there’s a figure on horseback. He’s close enough that she can start to make him out.
Eren...
If he’s here, then… Her heart clenches and she steps completely outside onto the stoop. She’s still holding Elise in her arms. She sets the little girl on the ground and takes her hand.
“Charlotte!”
The woman reappears. “Is everything alright?”
“Take her please? There’s someone I need to see.”
She doesn’t ask questions, but Historia also knows that she isn’t stupid. Still, she takes Elise and carries her away, leaving Historia alone.
Why is he here?
She steps forward. She longs to run to him, but she forces herself to remain still. Her hand drifts towards her stomach and rests there.
Their child hasn’t grown enough for her to feel them moving, but she’s acutely aware of their presence.
Eren approaches. His long hair is pulled back away from his face.
“Historia…”
“Eren…” She can no longer wait before she’s stumbling down the steps and into his arms.
He holds her tightly, chin coming to rest directly atop her head, before he pulls away from her, holding her at arms length. His eyes are haunted, his face gaunt.
It’s a look she’s grown too used to seeing on him.
What she wouldn’t give to hear him laugh again, to see him smile!
But happiness is beyond them.
“I had to see you again,” is all he says, but she doesn’t need him to say more. She needs him just as much as he needs her. Two people, equally damned by their own actions. What pitiful wretches they are.
“Eren,” she says, breathless though she’s exerted no effort. She reaches up, caressing the side of his face. He leans into her touch, eyes fluttering shut. “Eren.”
He sinks to his knees, arms clasped about her waist. His breath hitches against her abdomen. Though she knows their child isn’t developed enough for him to feel the flutter of her little feet.
Her.
She’s certain it’s a girl, though she hasn’t said so to Eren yet. She wonders if he has any thoughts about that, then is immediately stricken with grief when she remembers that there’s a chance he’ll never come home to meet her. Maybe in a normal world, they could have been parents. They could have been just a man and a woman, husband and wife, happy and at peace.
But fate won’t allow for that.
They don’t deserve anything less.