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A part of me hopes that there’s something more beyond the walls, waiting to be found.
Annie didn’t know why that had stuck with her the way it had.
Maybe it had been the look on Armin’s face, clouded with bittersweet memories and almost fond as he touched back on that sense of wonder from his childhood. Maybe it had been the dull fatigue in his voice, weary of all he carried but wearier still with the knowledge that it wasn’t over yet.
Maybe it was just the optimism that he’d always clung to, always formed his entire sense of self around, even when everything beyond that foundation lay in tattered, heartbroken ruins.
Armin had lost himself more times than Annie could count. From when they’d first met, he’d been self-deprecating, valuing his life as little more than a blade of grass in a field and longing for a way out. She’d heard of how many times he’d welcomed death, only to be snatched away from between its teeth.
He was a man of heartache, of mourning and disgust at the impact of what little he took from the world, but despite it all, his bones were tethered to a dreamer’s spirit.
It should have been frustrating, but Annie had never quite been able to hate him for it. She hated inconsistent people - liars, normally. Armin was no different when the situation called for it, but…
She trembled, and reached up to tie her hoodie’s drawstring tighter, pulling the collar more snugly to her throat. If she tried hard enough, she’d eventually convince herself it had just been the chill that sent shivers up her spine.
The sun was kissing the horizon. Armin had long since headed back inside.
They’d spent a while on the deck sitting in silence. Annie had run out of courage before she’d run out of questions, and she squashed all the ones that still plagued her in her fist, imagining them smearing, bloody, over her palm.
Why me? Why didn’t you give up? Why did we have to meet like this, on opposite sides of a war? Why did I waste the years we could have spent until the world started to end?
She’d never get the answers, now. She told herself she didn’t want them, but she knew there was no chance of convincing herself that far.
After Armin had left, Annie had spent a while longer pacing the length of the deck. There was an unsteady itch at the base of her spine, and it inched upward and out, all the way to her hands. It tingled in her knuckles, urging her to hit something until she bruised.
Punching things had been an excellent outlet, as complicated as her feelings were about her upbringing. She mourned the lack of training equipment on the ship.
The sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the ocean red. Annie stopped her pacing and stared out across the waves, and she tried not to feel sick at the thought of how much blood now stained the world.
Marley was gone. She could never go home.
She clenched her fists tighter, and imagined the icy sting of her ring jutting through the meat of her palm. She’d formed a weapon out of even her flesh, and fought since her childhood for the sake of earning her family’s safety, but there was nothing for them now but the bitter, metallic end, smeared into the dirt with all the hundreds of millions of other corpses.
Her father was probably already dead.
Another shiver. Annie clenched her jaw, staring dully into the sea as if it would bring her father back, as if it would wipe away all the years she’d suffered to buy a quiet retirement.
“A lot on your mind?” a voice cut through the breeze, snapping Annie from her train of thought. She didn’t flinch - that instinct had long since been trained out of her - but she stiffened, eyes opening wide.
She turned. Hange stood across from her on the deck, thumbs looped through their belt loops. They watched Annie quietly, and cocked their head to one side as if it would help them better get the measure of her.
“That should be a given,” Annie responded coldly.
The chill in her voice was as much an instinct as flinching, but it was one she’d learned to weaponise. If she’d been better at utilising it, maybe she could have driven Armin away from her sooner and saved them both the heartache. Maybe then she wouldn’t have spent four years turning the same few moments over and over in her head, asking herself why it had mattered so much how well Armin thought of her.
“Sure,” Hange stepped closer, taking off their glasses and smoothing their sleeve over the right lens.
They paused for a moment before cleaning the left one, too - it was useless to them, now, but either habit or some quiet sense of mourning made them continue its upkeep. Annie watched as they hooked them back over their ears, and sharply inhaled.
“But you more than most. I’ll wager you’ve had four years to dwell on very little, and now you’ve suddenly got to catch up with the rest of us. It must be hard.”
Annie bristled. She resented being seen. She resented her misery being so clear to understand when she’d spent so long making sure no one knew why she suffered.
“You don’t know me,” she narrowed her eyes.
“Not as much as I’d like, I’ll give you that,” Hange shrugged. “But I know enough to make a pretty educated guess.”
They stepped closer and turned, resting their back against the railing. They hooked their elbows over the rail and tipped their head back into the breeze, until their ponytail drifted behind them like a flame behind a torch.
Annie looked away. She stared out at the sunset, thinking about her father, about Armin, about Eren, about Reiner, about nothing at all. She couldn’t afford to get sentimental now, not when she’d resigned to walk away from this.
For a while, Hange didn’t speak. Annie didn’t know why they’d come up here, but she knew there’d be a reason. Their manner of speaking had never made that much sense to her, but she understood enough of them to know that when they weren’t rushing into speeches about their passions, they liked to roll their words around before they chose to say them out loud.
They were watching her. Annie could feel the hole their eye was burning into her side, but she refused to look back. She loathed scrutiny - it reminded her horribly of that tiny front yard, of the punching bag she’d never hit hard enough to impress her father - but she handled it best by feigning nonchalance.
She’d never been the best actor. She preferred to stay out of the way, hidden far enough from focus that she was never really a suspect.
It had almost worked. It would have worked, if it hadn’t been for Armin, but he’d taken notice of her from the start, and she’d never really had the will to shake him.
“You and Armin, then, huh?” was Hange’s eventual comment. At that, Annie did flinch.
“What?” she turned to face them, her face twisted - into rage, maybe, although she was never sure anymore. It had been too long since she’d felt sure of anything.
Hange cooly blinked, not backing down. They’d made the assumption knowing they were right, knowing Annie couldn’t wriggle out of it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Annie tried regardless. She looked away again, staring towards the opposite end of the ship, at a little flock of sea-birds that were tussling over a fish that had been swept by a wave onto the deck.
“Sure, Annie,” Hange replied, still calm. They knew better than to believe her.
Annie curled her lip. She was normally so much better at coping with prying eyes, but after all this time… Shit. She was tired.
“Why are you asking?” she spat through gritted teeth. “Why do you care? We aren’t friends.”
“Sure,” Hange stood a little straighter. “But we were comrades, once, until I realised there was so much I didn’t know about you. I love a good mystery, you know.”
“I’m not yours to dissect,” Annie glared at them from the corner of her eye. “Nor am I willing to be your next Titan test subject. I thought I made my thoughts on that clear from the start.”
A flicker of sadness crossed Hange’s face.
“Ah, Sawney and Bean,” they sighed. “That was a shame. I wish you hadn’t done it.”
Annie glared at them and said nothing. She turned away, watching as one of the sea-birds wrenched the fish from its fellows and threw its head back, swallowing it whole.
A bitter taste welled on her tongue, and guilt prickled in her gut. Maybe if she hadn’t done it, if she’d let Hange do their work, they’d have learned all they needed from Titans, and so much of this bloodshed could have been avoided.
Annie would have failed her mission, most likely. She’d have lost the retirement she’d been raised for, but maybe it wouldn’t have led to the world turning flat under the feet of hundreds of titans.
“We don’t know each other, Annie,” Hange sighed and pushed away from the railing. They moved to stand next to her, looking out to watch the birds along with her. “But I’d have liked to. I’m getting pretty good at reading people even outside of times of crisis, you know.”
“Is that so?” Annie cocked one eyebrow. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius.”
“Sure,” Hange barked with laughter. “A scientist, a strategist, a soldier. I know what I’m doing and I know how to read whether a person will react to the techniques I was taught, but the complexities of conversation have always been a little harder for me to grasp. People tend to think I’m a little much.”
Annie said nothing, and clamped her jaw shut tighter.
“What?” Hange eyed her. “You thought I didn’t know? Of course I did; I just didn’t care. I’m not here to please. I won’t change myself to make myself more palatable. I have what I need in the small few who listen.”
Annie huffed through her nose. She rolled her shoulders, and pulled at her hoodie strings again. Her collar wouldn’t tighten further, but gripping something between her fingers was a small sort of comfort.
“I’ve learned a thing or two from Armin, as it turns out,” Hange continued, and their mouth twitched into a smirk as Annie whipped around to stare at them. “Yes, really. It’s almost annoying, really. He was supposed to be the student. Maybe he was when it came to Titans, but he’s always been better at understanding people than I have.”
Annie’s throat tightened, and she turned away. She took a step away from them, finding it suddenly suffocating to be so close. The confession that she’d been keeping buried deep in her gut rushed from between her teeth before she could think to stop it.
“I’m leaving.”
She sucked her lips between her teeth as soon as she’d said it and bit down hard.
“I’d guessed,” Hange answered, their voice gentling, and Annie glanced at them over her shoulder. “I understand. Really, I do.”
Annie snorted, scoffing at the thought, but Hange flicked their fringe from their face with a forefinger.
“You’ve been fighting this war a whole lot longer than we have, Annie Leonhart,” they said quietly. “And when we lost Erwin, Levi and I learned a thing or two about knowing when to recognise when people have had enough.”
Annie turned, facing them head-on, and Hange dipped their head.
“You’ve done enough fighting.”
Annie’s chest seared. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she nodded in turn, grateful for their understanding, and maybe a little emotional at being told she was finally allowed to rest.
They both knew how slim their chances were, here. If the world would end no matter what, Annie wanted to die with the agency she’d always been denied. It was the last shred of control she’d ever get to have over her own life.
“I won’t convince you to stay,” Hange cocked their head, pinning her with another suddenly analytical stare. “But I must ask…”
Annie narrowed her eyes, raising her hackles again, but Hange stayed calm.
“Is this really what you want? Do you want to run, or is this just another fear response you’re pretending is strength?”
Annie blinked, stepping back, and if she hadn’t been so bone-tired, she might have burst out laughing. Her jaw fell slack for a moment, and she tasted salt on the air. In her exhaustion and her guilt, it almost tasted like blood.
“Please, Commander,” she tried to say with anger, but it came out muted, just as tired as the rest of her. “It was never strength. All of this, becoming a Titan, fighting a war I didn’t care about… all of it was cowardice. I’m long past pretending. I’m done.”
She gasped once she’d finished, her chest suddenly feeling entirely empty of air. She heaved, swallowing as much of the sea air as she could and trying to get the taste of death out of her mind.
Her eyes were burning. She wouldn’t cry, but she was weary, and emotional, and furious with herself for how much she wanted when she knew there would be nothing left for her at the end of this but a grey, lonely death.
She longed for Armin’s dreams. He’d always been so effortlessly convinced of his happy ending, of a promising future outside the walls, and despite knowing the crushing, awful reality that waited for them… Annie had been comforted by it.
Hange nodded, and reached out to take Annie by the shoulder. They squeezed her there, reassuring, and shook her once before letting go, and slipping their thumb effortlessly back into their belt loop.
“Well,” they accepted. “All right, then, Annie. I wish you luck.”
They turned to leave, leaving Annie there alone on the deck, and when they vanished below, Annie felt something that hurt oddly like grief in her chest.