The decision


Hanji Zoe sat alone on the staircase outside of certain resident's house. Anyone who paid attention to her might think that she was a corpse which had suffered a horrifying death. But she was alive, just that she hadn't been sleeping more than 8 hours for the past three days due to the survey trip and the fall of Wall Maria. She was extremely tired but couldn't sleep. Her mind was jammed by billions of questions.

There is a titan which is taller than the wall itself, where does it come from? If it has always been there, why does it destroy the wall now, but not earlier? Will titan evolve, will they grow? Will that titan destroy Wall Rose too? And Wall Sina? When?

While her mind wandered a thousand miles away, someone stumbled on her feet and almost hit the ground. She stood up reflectively to grab the person, but her broken leg ached and she couldn't stand straight, resulting in the two of them falling on the ground at the same time. A cracking sound came from her already injured leg. She grimaced silently, the medic had warned her to avoid walking for the next two weeks, but she was sure that two weeks would not be enough for now.

Hanji sat up and laid her back on the wall painfully, she would have to wait until Moblit came back with her food and water to ask him to get the medic. She looked at the clumsy person sitting in front of her and figured out that the woman was someone she knew.

"Audrey?"

Audrey did not go checking on her instantly. She gave her a brief apology without even looking at her and straight went to untying the bundle behind her back, it was lucky that she fell on her front, which did not hurt the baby that had been resting behind her back. Hanji was amazed that the baby did not cry even if her mother fell on the ground. After making sure that the child was not injured, Audrey tied the baby back and was finally able to spare her attention to Hanji.

"I am really sorr...Ms. Zoe?" Her surprised expression turned into worried when her eyes laid on Hanji's feet "Oh God, you are hurt!"

Audrey quickly sat beside her and checked on her leg.

"Oh, Ms. Zoe, I am so sorry..."

"It's okay, we soldiers get new cuts on a daily basis, wounds are our friends."

Hanji waved her hand and squeezed a smile to Audrey, trying (and perhaps failing) to show cheerfulness that she didn't quite feel inside. Hanji stopped her as she offered to look for the medic, saying that she would ask Moblit to do the running. Feeling bad for further injuring her and being unhelpful at the same time, Audrey offered to sit with her until Moblit was back. In the presence of silence, Hanji wondered would Audrey be interested in listening to her theories about the titan.

"Ms. Zoe..."

"Hanji...just call me Hanji."

"Hanji, how are your friends and families?"

Before Hanji figured out where to start her theory, Audrey burped out one of the most unwanted questions that Hanji had been avoiding since the fall of the wall. No, she did not want to talk about the people she had lost. She had been encountering constant lost since entering the recon corp, but it didn't mean that she was used to it (and she hoped she would never get used to it). She had been busying herself with other topics, e.g. her hypothesis regarding the 60 meters mysterious disaster. A topic like this kept her brain functioning, or else she would have collapsed long ago. Making a long exhale, Hanji adjusted her injured leg to a more comfortable position as she spoke.

"Some survived, but some couldn't make it."

Audrey stared at her quietly for a few seconds before pulling her blue orbs away.

"Everyone I know was gone. Mother, father, Lora...my husband..." Huge drops of tears slid down her rosy cheeks "My husband...he was supposed to stay in Trost...it was our wedding anniversary, he wanted to surprise me...he shouldn't have."

Audrey's eyes were focusing on nothing in particular, speaking at a volume no louder than a whisper. Hanji looked at her, temporarily putting the thought of discussing her hypothesis at the back of her mind. Audrey seemed to need a listener as badly as her.

"I should be happy...happy that I am alive, right?" Audrey covered her face with her shaking hands as she spoke. "But being the last to stay alive... ...I never knew that staying alive can be such a horrifying thing."

As those familiar words hit Hanji, a sudden feeling of ache occurred in her numbed heart. This was exactly what she thought during all her sleepless night after every outing. People always said that surviving an outing was lucky, but she wasn't sure if seeing people died in front of you one by one was really a blessing. Hanji didn't want to die, she was sure about that, but that didn't make being the last to survive more appealing.

"How am I going to live without everyone?" As Audrey looked up to the sky, tears fell from the edge of her eyes. "I...don't know where to go from here, Hanji."

Hanji lowered her head, the reflection of her glasses shielded her emotions away from others. Silence stretched over the place once again, occasionally broken by the passerby. Hanji was debating whether to shut up or to speak out, it took a century before she finally spoke again.

"Half of the recon corp died during the outing a few days ago, the other half of the remaining died during the evacuation of Wall Maria."

Ah, her brain started to jam again, she should probably stop the conversation. They would be having a meeting later that evening, her mind needed to be in a functionable condition. However, the rest of the sentence came out without her consent, her eyes remain glued on the ground as she spoke.

"Moblit and I were the only survivors in my batch, every corp member who graduated that year died. "

Hanji suddenly felt like she was out of oxygen, she took a few deep breaths to soothe her lungs. She hoped she was not going to die of breathless at the age of 24.

Or perhaps that wasn't a bad thing after all?

Ha! she was out of her mind again.

Hanji looked up to Audrey and found that the other woman was facing her completely, paying attention to every word she said. Her eyes filled with sorrow, curiosity, and understanding, an understanding that Hanji hoped no usual citizen would ever wear in their eyes. Hanji gave out an exhale as she leaned on the wall behind her, staring up into the light blue sky.

"Alive or death, I am not sure which one is more disastrous. But since you are alive, you have to move on."

To move on while you are alive is the only way to honor those who had died before you. This is what Hanji's squad leader told her on the first time she came back from scouting trip. This belief had rooted in her heart for years and gave her strength to move on when everything fell apart.

"Everyone is more or less clueless about what they should do to their life, it didn't matter if the wall falls or not, so you're not really alone on that."

As if agreeing with her, the baby sleeping behind Audrey made a sound. Audrey untied Victoria and held the baby in her arms, the young girl was awakened and was now looking around with her large curious eyes. Audrey gently smiled at the baby and told her that the one she was looking at was Hanji. Audrey then starting to talk about other random stuff and asked the baby if she was hungry. Audrey looked so in peace when she was talking to the little girl, although still tired, the worries and sorrows were nowhere in sign.

"You still have your daughter. That's another big reason for you to move on."

For some reason, her smile suddenly vanished, the hand which was smoothing the baby's hair froze on the spot. Hanji frowned slightly at her sudden change and tried to figure out which part of her previous sentence might have offended the young mother. After a long silence, Audrey resumed smoothing the baby's hair, but her eyes told Hanji that there was something going on in her mind.

"My daughter..."

Audrey's looked away from the baby, eyes moving from side to side. It seemed like she was coming up with something, something Hanji couldn't quite understand. But Hanji had seen those eyes before, it was what people showed when they were trying to come up with a strategy.

Or a lie.

"You are right, Hanji."

Her moving eyes suddenly stopped and they landed on the baby in her hands. She looked like she had made a decision, a decision which content unknown to Hanji.

"I have my daughter."

Audrey looked up to the sky, deep blue eyes showed some sort of determination.

For some reason, Hanji didn't like the look on her face.


A/N:

Happy belated New Year! I hope that everyone has been doing well!

Writing Hanji is HARD, even harder than Levi if you ask me. Her unique personality and swing of moods are really hard to capture.

I wonder if anyone thinks that Levi got too little screen time in my story so far? I promise that he will be more active from the next chapter onwards. I tried to begin the story by building the OC and establishing her background. She and Levi had nothing in common in the beginning, but as the story goes on their interaction will sure increase.

Originally, I wanted to write 3-4 chapters during my winter break, but it seemed that I could only come out with 2 chapters (or 1.5, seeing how short the previous one was). School will be starting in a few days, so there will be no updates in the near future. I hope I can be more productive in 2017.

Until next time, take care!