"Christa." It hurt to talk. It hurt to do anything.

"Christa." She tried again. It was then that she noticed how cold she was—somehow, she'd ended up in a bed and all in one piece, but she still felt exposed and vulnerable. Only her hands were warm. Her hands…

With effort, Ymir opened her eyes and blinked. A pale, strained light was shining, catching the movement of every speck of dust. The stillness was strange after the heat and blood of battle.

Christa was there, her head bowed and nodding. She was sitting right in the middle of a weak sunbeam, which made her look more beautiful than usual. Ymir's stomach swooped a little, though that could very well be unrelated to Christa and more to due with the fact that her insides had just been rearranged. Her hands were so warm, she realized, because Christa was holding them.

"Christa," she said again, and this time, managed to squeeze her palm a little.

Christa's eyes flew open like she'd been caught nodding off during salute.

"Ymir!"

She really was beautiful.

"You're awake." She said it the way you'd gasp for air after being held underwater. "Are you in pain? Do you need anything?

Ymir coughed, which was a terrible idea. Once she started, she couldn't stop, and it hurt. She hacked and gagged and tried not to think about the sluggish pain in her gut while Christa stroked her hair. She couldn't ignore that, either. Sure, she was two steps from vomiting blood, but the fact that Christa was with her was… nice. It felt good. Comforting.

When she'd run out of breath to cough with, Christa washed her face and helped her sip water.

"I was so scared you wouldn't wake up," she said. "I didn't… you were hurt so badly, Ymir, nobody knew if you would be okay."

"Yeah, well," Ymir began, and stopped for breath and to let the pain pass—"You know me. Pretty sturdy."

And then she was quiet, because up until very recently, Christa hadn't
known. How would she react to the knowledge that her friend was a titan? And what about her, Ymir? She—Christa, Historia, whatever name you fancied—she was connected somehow to the slaughtered titans in the wall. Her kinsmen.

But she was still holding her hand. Historia, whom she'd been tied to by powers beyond her control, and Christa, the girl she'd chosen to love. And she had dark circles under her eyes from worry, and she'd fallen asleep clasping her fingers, and she gave until she had nothing left to give, and she had struggled through the snow for a heroic death, and she was all her talents and all her faults, and Ymir was pretty damn sure by now that she loved her.

"Christa," she said again. Christa smiled, in the manic way that often comes after great fear, the scared-shitless smile that couldn't be stopped with a fifty foot wall and never got written about in love poems.

That was about all she had strength for. Her throat ached from the talking and the coughing and her guts felt twisted, but just before she drifted out of consciousness she felt Christa press her hand to her lips, gently. Softly.

Ymir didn't smile in her sleep. She frowned. Her brow was furrowed, as if the land of dreams was full of incompetents and she had to sort everything out by herself.

Historia smiled, kissed her the rough callouses of her hand, and sat back. It would most likely be another rough few days before Ymir awoke. It would be even longer before she was fully healed—maybe never, it was hard to say.

But Historia was going to make sure—damn sure—that she didn't have to deal with it all by herself.