Fever - Armin x Annie

Coughs in the night. An excedingly high temperature. Red cheeks and pale forehead. Heavy breathing. Wet face. Shaking hands.

"Drink this, Annie, it should help you...", the boy said softly, holding a glass of fresh water. He was tired too, but made no complain about the hours he had wasted in that room while he could have slept. After all, her pain must be a lot worse than his.

"It's... al-alright... Go to your room."

Her reply seemed very hard to pronounce, but he stubbornly repeated his offer.

"Come on. There's no shame in accepting to be sick. Just drink the medicine, and it'll be alright. You'll be okay."
"I am okay", she managed to lie before coughing again. "You'll get sick too if you stay. Go... away-"
"If I get a cold, then you'll have to bear with me even more than now. If you want me to leave this room, do what the doctors said. Do it or else I call everybody to help me."
The thought of him coming back with the whole 104th promotion of cadets made her cough. She sighed in despair. God, was he stubborn... Why couldn't he leave her like the others until her fever calm down ? Even Reiner and Bertold had understood that she just wanted some rest, alone. Why did he have to stay there ?

"Armin, you're..."

What was she about to say, the boy didn't know, because she began to cough again, and he had to help her so that she could sit down. She had catched a cold a few days before, after training far from the usual training camp. It had beginning to rain and, when she reached her dormitory, she was shaking like a leaf and so wet that she seemed to have been swimming in her casual clothes. The next day, she began to cough a little, and her head made her suffer. But she said nothing. They noticed her illness when she fell in the stairs because of a dizzy spell. Later that day, they learned that her fever had reached almost 40 degrees Celsius. It was incredible that she had hold on so well, but it also meant that she was in a very bad shape. She didn't eat well, and even found hard to drink or to breathe normally. Perhaps, if she had talked about her sickness the first day, she would have recover in a few hours. Now...

"Annie, please. It's dangerous to take this thoughtlessly. Why don't you want to heal ?"
She didn't reply and tried to ignore him. And yet, by glancing at his anxious sapphire eyes, she felt guilty for being so mean to him. Of course it was very nice to stay with her and take care of her poor self, but hell, he should be tired by now... Where did he found all that energy not to sleep ?

"My fa-father used to..." - coughs - "say that taking a medicine was too easy. And that... I... I would be stronger by healing all alone."

"Oh." Was Armin's reply. He seemed to reconsider the situation for a moment, but then, he inhaled deeply and told her : "When I was a child, I was very weak and I got sick very easily. I couldn't do as well as others children in sports - I still can't. And I thought too that maybe, if I didn't take the medicine, my body would get used to the pain and I would become stronger. Actually, my state got worse and worse until my grand-pa found out what I was doing. I've never seen him so upset, and, how not, he made me take all the potions and everything. And, 'know what ? two days after, I had recovered ! I understood that everyone had been very anxious about me, that I just had played with my life dangerously... That's why I really think that you should take this and heal. Noone will ever know, I promise."
She hesitated for a long while. His story have had an effect on her, and she couldn't bear that suffering any longer. But still, what would her father say... ? "Noone will ever know", he'd said. She would have wished he could be right. A few seconds later, the coughs came again, and her whole body shoke out of effort. The pain was so harsh, that she almost cried when her head finally fell on Armin's shoulder. She saw the reflection of her pain in his deep blue eyes and mumbled :
"You won't say anything, right ?" He nodded, and she agreed to drink the glass of water. "Th...ank you."

"Your welcome, Annie. You'll be better very quickly, don't worry. Now rest. I'll have you something to eat, okay ?" He must have seen her confused glare, because he added : "I'm coming back soon, don't worry. Sleep."
His petite frame disappeared behind the door. The girl glared at it intently until he came back, and only then she allowed herself to turn her face so that he could think she was sleeping. She felt his hand on her forehead, checking her temperature. She knew he was listening to her respiration and forced it to sound regular and soft. And then, when she thought he would return to his room -finally-, he actually sat on the chair -his chair- and never left her. When she opened her eyes again, he was half-asleep and looked calm. Relaxed. Not knowing why, she asked him :

"Armin ? Will you stay here the whole night ?"
"Yes", he replied without opening his eyes.

"Why ?"
"It's a friend's duty to look over a sick friend."

"...Am I your friend ?"
He chuckled a little, as if it was already an evidence. "Sure. Now sleep, Annie. You're tired too, 'en't you ? Do you want me to tell you a fairy tale ?"
"Hell, no... But... Can I... Nothing, forget it."
She was about to turn herself to the opposite direction when he took her hand to stop her. Thanks goodness that her cheeks were already red from the fever, because she had never blushed like this before. Not really aware of talking, Armin asked her if he could take her hand to sleep, so that he would notice her fever calming down. She managed to say "okay" and even offered him to leave his head on the bed, near her, to rest properly. He accepted that offer gratefully, and fell asleep a few minutes after that, holding her hand on his. She looked at him, at his angelic face relaxing, at his shoulder going up and down at the rhythm of his breathing. He wore a tiny, gentle, innocent smile. And Annie wondered if she would have been different by meeting him before. And she still wonders how she is supposed to betray him when he had always been a good person to her. Maybe the only one, actually. Because he wasn't interested in her strenght or her good-looking, he liked Annie for the nice girl inside that tough body of hers.

He wasn't scared by her, even though he should. If things had been different, Annie would have liked to stay with him a little. She would even bother to fight anymore, she would just enjoy some time with him. But she was Annie Leonhart and her fate was already written by someone else. There was no way she could ever change it. There was no hope, no noble dream. Everything was an illusion. But Armin's hand, holding hers, was like a weight, reminding her that he was real. That she was real. And that maybe everything she had tried to ignore until that day was too.