A/N: Good luck having a great day now suckers! ~Tumbles out the door~ OK but seriously, thank you for all your thoughtful reviews last chapter! They made my day ^_^ also, I felt like writing something sad because I was in the mood (I get particularly creative at night) to poke at your emotions. Oh, yes, and this is the second part of the drabble. Decided to expand it with even more useless ideas.
Important Notes: Hitch and Marlo are real characters. For those of you who only watch the anime, they're in the manga, stationed with Annie. Hitch is an absolute bitch. Marlo looks like he's the lovechild of the Three Stooges. Maxie and Devon are the names I assigned to those other guys also stationed with her who didn't have names... ~I love Hitch, she's hilarious.
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"Can I tell you I love you?"
She straddles his waist, moaning briefly as he slides into her familiar warmth with ease.
"I'd prefer if you proved it."
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Hitch has this unconventional way of expressing her thoughts, which includes physically harassing her object of topic with zero regard for the people she's affecting. Unfortunately for Annie, she's her roommate's current source of piqued interest… or, rather, her breasts are. Hitch sits at the table with her intense, emerald stare locked on Annie's chest, and her fingers prodding the perfectly round features beneath the ash-gray sweatshirt.
"They're really big. Let me hold them."
Marlo, across the table, instantly chokes on his water. "H-Hitch!" He exclaims, "You can't just ask her something like that!"
"And why not? They're bothering me. Don't they look bigger than usual?" She takes the liberty of cupping the closest one, weighing it in her hand like she's a human scale. "See! They're totally bigger! When the hell did this happen?!"
Maxie is snorting behind his hand in failed attempt not to laugh. Marlo glares at him and then at the girls. "Knock it off! She'll punch you out like she did Elliot."
"I'm just jealous." Hitch finally lets Annie go and turns back to her meal. They're having some kind of soup with chicken and rice, but it may as well be stew. It's good, none-the-less. "I want big boobs."
"I think you want boobs period." Maxie waves his spoon at her before sticking it in his bowl. "I couldn't find those if I had a magnifying glass." He reflexively ducks under her knife as it soars into the wall behind him.
Annie isn't very interested in eating, and she's too tired to deal with them. She hasn't been sleeping well because she's too sick to lie down for more than ten minutes at a time; her stomach refuses to quell in the presence of food, despite her sudden longing for it, and she ends up vomiting only a few minutes after every meal. This time she settles for tea – her least favorite drink – and stirs it around absently.
Marlo notices almost instantly – because he pays attention to the little things around him, no matter how much of a dolt people believe him to be – and tilts his head. "Hey, Miss Unsociable, are you alright? You look like you saw a ghost."
"I'm fine," she responds emotionlessly. Talking to them hasn't been one of her main concerns.
Hitch instantly shoves her in the shoulder. "Don't get close to me if you're sick! I have no intentions of catching your flu!"
Maxie rolls his eyes. "Knowing you, Hitch, you have every sexually transmitted disease on the face of the planet."
"Pfft, probably."
Annie watches them bicker back and forth before turning her gaze elsewhere, sapphire eyes glazed over with a weariness brought about by exhaustion. Maybe it's withdrawal from the cigarettes… she thinks, but then why wasn't I sick two weeks ago, when Eren crushed my last pack? I've had the itch for a smoke but not this badly… She tells herself that she just misses him. It's been a whole week since she's returned to her station but it feels longer than that. Much longer…
She turns her attention back onto her team when Hitch makes an incoherent remark. "Hm?"
"I asked if you're getting fat because you've been slacking off a lot."
Hitch had asked this question the night before, when she was leaning over the edge of the upper bed, chin recumbent in one hand and her legs kicking up in the air. She was not-so-discreetly observing Annie as she changed out of her uniform, emerald eyes skimming the blonde's exposed figure with a keen disinterest. Then she asked her silent friend that dreaded question.
Annie shrugs passively, sipping on her drink.
"Maybe you're on your period or something."
"HITCH!" Marlo snaps and the girl raises her hands defensively. "Seriously, we're eating!"
The gears within Annie's mind grind to a halt and she turns her attention to her lap. Something within her snaps – she abruptly gets up and stalks out the room without a word, moving urgently despite the lack of interest in her features.
Hitch glances in her wake. "Hey! Annie! I was kidding, don't be so angry!"
Devon, at the end of the table, slaps his hand over his face. "Way to go."
"Annie!" Hitch calls. "Dammit, I'll get her." She swings off the bench and practically skips out the door, hands in her pockets and her hazel eyes scanning the corridor. Annie is at the other end on the stair case, head in her hands, uttering something under her breath. Hitch approaches her cautiously. "Uh, don't kill me please. I didn't mean to get your panties in a twist."
"I missed."
"You what?"
"I missed. Twice."
Hitch presses her lips into a thin line and moves closer, standing right at the girl's knees. "Uh-huh… that's not abnormal, you know."
"It means I'm pregnant."
"Ah, fuck, who's the baby daddy?" Hitch perches on the step at Annie's side, brushing shoulder-to-shoulder. "Is it that Eren guy from the Recon Corps who wrote you those letters last month?"
"Yes."
"Well hot damn. So that's where you went." She pats her roommate on the back. "Listen, I'm not good at this comforting stuff, but… I'm here for you if you need a shoulder to cry on! May as well. Everyone else is too fuckin' tall for you."
Annie doesn't say anything for the rest of the day – not that anyone notices – and Hitch isn't surprised to find her missing the next morning, gone with her bag, horse and all.
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"You're not mad at me?"
"Why would I be? …Annie, it's OK. We still have seven months to figure this out. And right now I don't regret a thing."
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Hitch knows there's something wrong because the room is quieter than usual, and she awakens to the intense silence in the midst of the night. The dark is illuminated fairly well by a lit candle that sits on the floor, even though it is almost burnt down to the base; she sleeps on her stomach, normally, so she crawls over to the break in the railing and peers down, an ominous feeling swelling in her gut. "Annie? Are you awake?"
Then she hears Annie sobbing, and the flame dances across what looks like blood. Hitch immediately climbs down the ladder, dropping to her knees at the head of Annie's bed, and nearly bites through her tongue trying to hold back a scream. There is blood alright – it's soaking into the sheets and shorts beneath Annie's legs as she curls against the wall, weeping into her arms.
Hitch joined the Military Police so she could be lazy, and avoid seeing so much blood out on the battlefield… but here it is, liquid crimson and sadness and all.
Of course, with her body being so young... Wordlessly, and out of sheer pity, she helps Annie up, carries her over to the bathroom, and lets her wash off before stripping the bed of its sheets, leaving them on the floor in a haphazard pile.
She finds a spare pair of pants buried in her drawer just as Annie finally emerges from the bathroom and hands them to her. "Here," Hitch says quietly, "you can sleep with me."
Annie wordlessly slides the pants on and follows the other girl up the ladder. The bed shifts as they settle under the covers; Hitch runs her nails along Annie's back when she shivers, fever quickly rising and body tightening, and hums soothingly into her ear. It's the first time Hitch is truly and genuinely nice to her, but she won't see this kind of care again for a long while.
They sit at the coffee table in silence during breakfast the next day.
Annie again isn't eating, intently staring at nothing, and Hitch plays with her food. She wears a kind of despondent expression that only occurs during the small interims of the day when being serious is required. Marlo notices of course. He always notices. "Wow, you're certainly talkative today," he quips, remark in Hitch's direction. She doesn't bother to acknowledge him. "Where's the funeral?"
"Stop," she utters, crystallized emerald eyes lowering to her plate, "just… don't. Not right now."
The table falls eerily silent. Maxie glances between her and Annie. "Did something happen?"
Marlo pokes him in the arm with his elbow. "Leave it alone. If they want to tell us they can."
"Yeah, but… Never mind."
Annie gets up and shuffles out, hands in her pockets and head hung. Hitch doesn't say a word.
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"We've been so careless… and now… How can you still love me, Eren? How can you not regret this?"
"Because you're the best decision I've ever made, Annie."
She smiles, faintly.
"Because we don't have time for regrets."
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~FIN~
