Chapter 1 : Memories
Armin Arlert lumbered into his office, he was completely drained from the practice that day, even though the Titans had been eradicated, the Survey Corps still had to practice on the titan dummies that the man knew to well from his training 10 years ago.
"Why must we still do these stupid training exercises!" He thought to himself, but then he remembered, "Oh yeah, it's under the orders of Queen Tiny."
The mere thought of her brought anger to him, it had been 6 years since what happened, and he still had not forgiven her. He didn't think she had forgiven him either, but he didn't care, she could hate him all she wanted, it didn't change the fact he was right about what happened.
What made his fatigue even worse was the absolute mountain of paperwork he had to fill out, he sometimes considered not doing it just to annoy her, but she would probably turn the scouting legion into the plumbing legion, he'd probably still have to do all the paperwork for that too.
He thought once he became commander he would be done with all this crap, but he couldn't have been more wrong. It had seemed that, despite the titans being wiped out, the survey corps' work had almost doubled, he couldn't help but feel that by giving him more work, this was Historia's way of torturing him.
He gave a grumpy sigh, got up from his bed and went over to his desk. As he sat down he bumped into the bookcase behind his desk, causing a large book to fall on his head.
"Gah, fuck!" He shrieked, looking down on the book that hit him, "Since when did I have books this big?" He remembered when he saw what it was, though.
It was a photo album which for the life of him he couldn't remember where it came from. For some reason he had put it on the top shelf for him to forget, but he couldn't remember why, so he decided to look through it, after all it gave him an excuse not to do work.
The first picture was of the whole 104th on an off day, Sasha was attempting to steal Connie's food, Jean was looking at Mikasa, Mikasa was looking at Eren, Armin was playing chess with Annie, Ymir and Krista were chatting and Marco, Bertolt and Reiner were playing poker, Reiner and Bertolt were neck and neck whilst Marco had half as much chips as the others.
He was amazed at how much he had changed since those days, his lanky body was now much more broad and useful, his height had gone from 5'4 to 5'10 and his hair now reached shoulder length and had to be tied back during missions and training.
The rest of the pictures were similar, and brought back good memories to Armin, he smiled to himself as he flicked through the rest of the pages. However, his smile faded and he stopped flicking through the pages as he came across one picture, it was taken just after they got the news that they had won against the titans, it contained everyone who was left after the war, the happiness on everyone's faces was unbelievable, considering that they had lost almost everything in the conflict.
His dismay came not from the moment it was taken, nor the picture itself, it came from the person he was with, Historia. They were in each others arms, Armin was picking her up and they were looking at each other smiling, the picture was taken right before they kissed. He remembered now, the album was given to them when they were together as a two year anniversary gift, how he had it was unknown to him.
He looked at it in utter distraught, sweat began to poor down his forehead, a million thoughts ran through his mind, how many pictures of them were there? Why do I have this? Does she know about it? What should I do with it?
He knew one thing though, he had to get rid of it. He was going to throw it away, but as he he was about to get up someone knocked on the door.
"Come in!" He called.
The door opened to reveal a person slightly younger than Armin, she was one of the recruits who joined a few years after Armin did. She had auburn hair green eyes, and stood a few inches below Armin. He recognised her and began to start trying to match a name with a face.
"I want to say... Karen?" He thought to himself.
The young woman sat down at his desk and proceeded to explain her presence.
"A few weeks ago I sent in a form for a leave of absence," She explained, slightly nervously, " I just came to check it had come through."
"I'll check right now," Armin replied, "May I have your name?"
"Karen Karess." She answered.
"Oh fuck yeah! I was right!" He thought, "Commander Arlert 1, rest of the survey corps 0!"
He looked through the files in a cabinet with his back to his guest, it was because of this that he didn't see her reach across the table for the photo album and begin observing the picture on the current page.
He went through the files looking for her name, oblivious to what was going on behind him.
Montes... Marrant... Lester... Lambert... Keeves... Kirigaya... Karess!
He removed the file from the cabinet and began to look through it.
"Who's the girl?" A voice came from behind him.
At that point Armin knew he had made a mistake.