Ymir spent perhaps a few minutes too long dawdling in the back hallway where she knew that she wouldn't be bothered. Her nerves were steaming for Annie and Sasha, but she had absolutely no intention of seeing them off while Mikasa was there. With any luck, Zeke would keep his word, and Ymir would have the first moment of her life where she would be thankful for him. Grunting, she made a fist and drove it against the wall behind her, slowly pushing until her knuckles yelled with strain.

I could never really be thankful for him, I don't think.

She had thought so many times to the moments where they had made singular, fleeting eye contact, and still couldn't fully come to grips with the fact that he hadn't recognized her. Could he not, really, even after all the years she hadn't been in his life, not recognize her by name or face after all the comfort and eventual hell he had provided her? He had been there when she had visited his office whenever she needed him, she had cried, confessed to him while he looked on quietly, eventually offering words that ultimately couldn't stem her emotions in the slightest, but had been the only thing she had. Then, that day, and the last bit of her innocence was dragged away helplessly. Whatever he did for her now would never be enough for her to put behind the ultimate betrayal he had rested upon her.

Maybe it's better just… to just…

The door at one end of the hallway swung open and Ymir stepped away from the wall, adopting a neutral stance. Though she had spent limited time in the compound, this area of the building had always seemed to be the emptiest. The person who was invading her privacy stepped through, eyes down and clearly not immediately noticing her.

Ha.

Joe froze then as he saw who he was now sharing a hallway with and whatever he was holding in his left hand drifted far too casually behind his back for Ymir not to take notice. She was surprised to see him there, she was sure he would have gone down to the garage to see off Mikasa and the rest, but here he was, staring at her with clearly the most stony face he could manage.

"Not bothering to say goodbye? Might be awhile before you see her again."

Her voice was forcibly light and airy, and she felt furious satisfaction at the color his face took as his lips tightened.

"We already saw each other."

"Who, Mikasa or Sasha?"

She had said it more as a jab than anything, but after what Sasha had managed to sputter to her, she couldn't help but throw it at him. He didn't frown or force on a façade as she had expected though; his eyes grew wide and panic flitted across his face, before he reined in his feelings and took a deep breath.

"What are you talking about?"

But Ymir had seen it, she had seen the trepidation in his eyes, the disbelief that she may know something she shouldn't have. Rolling her shoulder in what she hoped was equal casualness to his hiding of whatever package he had concealed, she tilted her head back at him.

"Sasha seemed to think that something happened between you and her last night. I get the feeling Mikasa was a part of it too."

It was almost worth it just to watch his face flip expressions in a barely controlled frenzy, but Ymir could feel anger bubbling as she realized that something serious had indeed transpired between the three of them.

Did they pull her aside, threaten her with something? I can't see Joe doing something like that, but if Mikasa roped him into it…

Joe seemed to realize that his best course of action was to simply leave the situation as it was, since there really wasn't any way he was going to be able to remedy it. Drawing himself up in an almost cartoonish way, he shrugged.

"Not sure exactly what you're on about, but I really don't have time to… "

Ymir was no prepared to let him escape that easily.

"What happened, huh? Something you don't want the rest of us knowing about? Did you put Sash up to something she's not for?"

He swallowed and shook his head almost robotically.

"I… no. I don't know what the hell you're on about."

Ymir was suddenly pulled back to a memory from what seemed like so long ago, when she and Joe had taken a walk in a hallway very much like this one. Her discussion she had started with him, she had found out afterwards, took place only minutes before Joe found out that Kenny had requested his murder. Ymir had been trying to rationalize in her head if killing him would be worth what the consequences would amount to if they were just able to use it to get on Kenny's good side.

If only I had shot you then and there…

He began walking again and she considered stopping him and forcing an answer out of him, but her body remained still as he pushed past her and out the other doorway, leaving her along again. Grunting again, Ymir kicked the wall, knowing full well that killing him at the time wouldn't have solved a damn thing.

Shoulda done it anyway.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Florian walked slowly across the brief outing of pavement that stood between the two buildings; the residence that she and her sister's family were taking up was far smaller than the compound they had been staying in, but was much more welcoming by comparison. It could have been a single apartment for all it looked, and it appeared very out of place next to the windowless, towering building next to it. Florian wondered what the purpose of it was as she pushed the door open.

The insides were better lit than where they had stayed the night before, and were almost reminiscent of the house that she and Frieda had shared for the better part of…

Frieda.

She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes, demanding all her willpower to keep from letting tears spring up. She couldn't think about that the same way she knew the others couldn't think about Ilse. Healing wouldn't come now, it may never come, but regardless, there was nothing she could do about the pain now. She had to focus on something else.

Someone else, something else, some other problem… Joe said that he…

Letting out a very shaky sigh, she made a fist and pounded the wall, as the tears came much faster than she had been ready for. Since the day Frieda had died, Florian had done everything in her power to try and force herself to blame Joe for everything that had happened, but as much as she tried, as much as she cried at night, cursing him, she knew that it wasn't fair. She and Frieda had told him everything, had led him to reveal what he had to them about Kenny, had led him to offer his help. That had been her and Frieda's goal, hadn't it? To hunt down Kenny, and then their father, for what the two of them had done to Abel and Historia? The latter had been found, granted, and Florian had cornered her sister over that at the second cabin; a teary confession revealed that the gunshots were warnings, and then their father had left her in foster care until he found her before she started high school and forced her into a town further away. That had been where she met the other girls, Ymir included.

At least something good came of it.

But that was why they had come to this damn city in the first place. To find Kenny Ackerman, and now, Frieda was dead and Florian had Joe taken from her.

Would I even want him? DO I?

It may not all have been his fault, but she would never forget the bare few seconds when Frieda had met his eyes.

"Kill him."

"Alright."

And then he had rushed, and she had died, and… his laugh. Of everything, she would never forget his laugh. He had said later that it was someone else, a second personality or something of the like, but it didn't matter to Florian. His actions had issued from him and him alone. She had run over again and again in her mind, of confronting him and demanding a true explanation. But she knew deep down that she still had feelings for him, and her line of vigorous questioning wouldn't get far. That, and there wasn't a moment she had been able to find where she could find him outside the company of Mikasa.

Mikasa…

Not ever in her life had she met a person who had so quickly put her on edge. Her hawk-eyes and sharp stature, and the sheer amount of hostility she exuded just by standing near Florian had been enough for her to weakly relinquish her relationship with Joe if only because she hoped that he would be able to come to a decision about who he wanted to be with. The hug she and Mikasa had shared afterwards had been so forced, yet there hadn't seemed to be any other option. And every day since then, she had seen the two of them seeming almost always to be together. The initial sightings had been painful, but as she had watched them from a distance, she noticed something.

Joe and Mikasa shared plenty of moments that exuded the affection a couple ought to; they kissed, held each other, smiled and talked quietly and privately, and Florian was no stranger having to listen to them attempting to procreate within the small space they had been granted. But as she continued to watch them out of the corner of her eye, she could see something other than love in Joe's eyes; when his gaze wasn't on Mikasa, when she would guide him to their room in the few evenings they had spent, he had seemed to have had real fear in his eyes. That would have been curious enough if not for the last day before they had left, and Florian had come to a singularly, grim conclusion. Joe had returned to his room to go to sleep early and Mikasa had watched him go. Her eyes hadn't burned then of the love Florian had seen, nor the fear that she had caught in Joe's. Obsession was all she saw, and it frightened her.

She's head over heels for him… or worse. What is he to her? She seems to love him, but… there's something so much more than that. Does she think… he belongs to her?

And then Florian realized that had been it. Mikasa looked at Joe the way a stingy collector eyed their most prized piece; obsessive and desperate over what was surely their greatest personal accomplishment. He existed alongside her as such, but behind his gaze, he was scared of her. His brief and almost panicked confession that morning had confirmed Florian's theory. She hadn't a clue how to respond to it, though, and it was all she could do to keep from going to confronting Mikasa before her departure not minutes before. But now that she was finally gone, Florian had decided this was her chance to track down Joe and find out as much as she could from him. Maybe then, she could finally…

"Nice place we got."

She turned, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve to see Ymir standing a few paces behind her, eying their temporary home. Clearing her throat to make sure it didn't break, Florian made a movement that was half a shrug and half a nod.

"It'll do."

Ymir seemed to notice that something was the matter and lowered her head, making to walk by. When she was about to round a corner that likely led to the bedrooms, Florian called after her.

"Hey, have you seen Joe? He wasn't in his room."

It was as though she had jammed a Taser into Ymir's spine; the taller girl straightened and twitched her neck almost spastically as she opened and closed her mouth. Her fingers clenched and unclenched, before she turned her head without looking back.

"No."

And she was off behind the corner. Florian swallowed and closed the door behind her, cutting the stream of sunlight from outside; she wondered what had happened now, that had caused Ymir to lie to her about having seen him.

I need to find him, this might be my only chance. I can talk to him, I can try to understand him and maybe then we can run away and…

Really? Run away? With him? What sort of stupid idea was that? But as she walked into the small kitchen they had been provided with and sat down, letting her mind work on where he could be, she couldn't help but feel elated at the idea of being able to escape this mad world, just the two of them.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Mikasa had her hands on her knees, driving her nails through her pants and causing them to bite against her skin. Kenny and Zeke were talking now, and it had become very clear to her that they were both playing a façade of pretending not to know what the other had done, or knew. But as much as she wanted to pay attention to this exchange, she couldn't help but let her eyes track their way over to her father, who she knew had only watched her since they had entered.

His eyes were narrowed and very slightly unfocused, and Mikasa wondered if he had been drinking. His meaty fingers were entwined in a rare show of restraint and calm, but his breathing had increased since she had sat down, reluctantly, across from him. As she stared back at him across the rich, wooden table, he spoke, jerking his chin.

"What happened to your face?"

Kenny and Zeke both cut off, turning to look at him, the former looking bothered that they had been interrupted. The mayor, who had been sweating profusely and hadn't said a word, snapped his head around as though he had been stung, and the other portly man, moved his eyes as well, though with a much more curious reserve. Mikasa tightened her grip even further, feeling a stinging pain in her knees, before Annie reached under the table and took her wrist and giving it a brief squeeze. Her pulse slowed slightly and she looked over to Zeke; he gave the barest shrug, and she took that as a go-ahead.

"I was in a fight."

Kenny gave a nod as though this settled the matter and turned back to Zeke, but Mikasa's father continued before he could utter so much as a syllable.

"Who with?"

She looked back at him, rerunning all the times they had spoken like this over dinner, while she and her mother waited for him to explode on either of them.

"Someone whom I disagreed with."

Again, Kenny made to speak and again, was unable.

"So, as I was about to ask… "

"You win the fight, then? Seeing as you're here?"

She wanted desperately to keep from getting smart, but he made it so easy, and antagonizing him was the only relief Mikasa had ever found in their relatively one-sided abusive relationship.

"Well, sometimes you can get in a fight and not die, you see."

The matter-of-fact in her voice was painfully obvious, and Annie's grip on her wrist multiplied tenfold while Eren and Jean both winced, and Armin made a jerking movement as though he had stopped himself from clapping a hand over his mouth. The only person who seemed not bothered by her lip looked to be the man whom the comment had been directed at. His fingers rubbed against each other slowly, and Mikasa remembered the black handle of the whip he had nearly killed her with, sitting tightly between the digits.

"I suppose."

Kenny shifted a little in his seat, eyebrows raised. Mikasa realized then that he looked rather tense, and it didn't seem to be because one of his competitors had walked in surrounded by several people who had pained him immensely in the past and vice versa.

"AS I WAS ABOUT TO ASK… "

He looked to Jean slowly.

"You have footholds in some several of the smaller communities, ones that larger businesses like myself aren't good at slipping into. Now that would provide both myself and… "

His words droned off to Mikasa losing their meaning; the business meant nothing to her anymore. She doubted it did to many of them, and at that moment, all she wanted was to ensure her own survival.

I have to get back to him.

Eren and Armin kept stealing looks at her across the table, and while she wanted to meet their eyes and give them perhaps a reassuring look, she knew her father was still watching her as well; any sign that the both of them meant something to her was more ammunition he could use against her in the future. She chose instead to look over at Zeke, who miraculously looked back to her. His expression was clear: "don't start shit."

Kenny had finished addressing Jean about something, and had turned back forward.

"… and while that is all very good… "

His expression, which had already been nothing pleasant, darkened.

"I think we ought to briefly talk about why you are trying fairly desperately to screw me over."

To Zeke's credit, he reacted just as a person who was completely innocent of the crime ought to.

"Beg pardon?"

Kenny didn't blink.

"These three young women. Have you any idea what they've done?"

Zeke opened his mouth, but as he made to reply, Reiner's deep voice rolled across the table.

"I'm not sure what you're insinuating; we found them only a couple nights ago, they actually saved myself and my associate here."

He gestured to Bertholdt. Mikasa refused to look to anyone but who was speaking, worried that something in her face would reveal the lie that they had clearly stepped into.

"They said they were passing through and were looking for a place to settle. After talking, we found they had been in the business a while back, and so we offered them positions, since they're far more competent than most people we've come across."

Not a stutter was detectable in his story, and while there wasn't anything on Sasha's worried face that reflected she would be a competent worker, Mikasa thought that Reiner's tale was at least marginally believable. Kenny's eyes had widened significantly and it was impossible to tell if he had bought it; he was only trying to clear the names of himself, Zeke and Bertholdt, but whether or not Kenny would buy it…

"You're shitting me."

Mikasa bit the inside of her mouth. Kenny had slowly got to his feet and beside him, Carven looked of half a mind to do the same.

"And you believed them?"

Her heart caught in her throat. Zeke shrugged, again an incredibly innocent gesture.

"We had no reason to doubt them. They helped my guys out of a sticky spot and they showed us no ill will. In fact, they seemed quite grateful to have been offered a job… "

Kenny exploded.

"OF COURSE THEY DID! THEY'RE ON THE RUN FROM ME, THEY'VE BEEN FUCKING ME OVER AT EVERY TURN, I'VE BEEN… "

"Kenny."

The shorter, unknown man had spoken for the first time. Next to Kenny, he looked so tremendously inconsequential that Mikasa was surprised he didn't whirl on the shorter man and blow him away. But as it was, Kenny seemed to choke on something; his body heaved, but he stopped talking and seemed to deflate slightly; turning, he looked attentively to the man who had spoken his name.

"Yes?"

The man got up slowly and almost painfully. He may have had some kind of condition. Ignoring Kenny, he looked across the table directly at Mikasa; she turned to meet his gaze, not able to shake from her mind that her father had just sat back with a very satisfied look on his face.

"Do any of you know who I am?

Not Mikasa, Annie or Sasha answered, but instead, the shaky voice of Armin came from across the table.

"You're… Rod Reiss."

The man turned to look at him calmly.

"Interesting. I prefer to be relatively unknown."

Armin looked suddenly twice as terrified.

"I didn't mean… I just… I saw your name in the paper a few years back."

Rod gave a slow nod.

"Yes, that case will haunt me till the day I die, I fear."

He regarded Armin.

"You'll be the up and coming mayor, yes."

Ignoring the sputtering from the present mayor, Armin nodded modestly.

"That's the hope."

Silence fell briefly before Rod turned back to them. He was not by any means an imposing man, even after he had so quickly silenced Kenny. While he clearly had some level of great power or influence, Mikasa could tell that his small and quiet stature was how he liked to appear. And she hadn't let his name go amiss either.

Reiss… Florian's last name. Historia's last name.

It was immediately very difficult to assume that this man could have a relation to either of them, but Mikasa was done taking things at face value.

Maybe he thought they would be here…

Rod had cleared his throat, an almost pitiful sound when compared to the furious bellowing Kenny had been releasing moments ago, but the room remained silent for him.

"I am not a man of outward imposition as you likely can tell."

His eyes only moved between Mikasa, Sasha and Annie, the latter had taken an even tighter grip on Mikasa's wrist.

"I prefer to have the power at my disposal move between other men and women before it reaches its intended target. I hate having to dirty my hands and will only do it if it is absolutely necessary."

His small hands rested on the table as he leaned over it, looking almost sad. His large belly nearly bumped over the table as he moved.

"That being said, the necessity of the men I surround myself is an important one. These men wield the power I have given them, and unless they do it well, they are replaced."

Zeke seemed to be listening to the man with rapt curiosity, but Mikasa could practically hear his mind racing from there.

"That's how I like to see men of power in this city and the neighboring towns. They work for me, and thus we share each other's power. Others who rise with power who do NOT work alongside me are a constant threat."

For the first time, a flash of menace crossed his face as he shook his head with his eyes closed.

"And if there's one thing I hate… it's being threatened."

In an efficient, yet almost casual pace, he pulled a gun from behind him and shot Armin in the side of the head. The resounding report from the gun sent everyone jerking instinctively as Eren vaulted to his feet, roaring.

"YOU SON OF A… "

He didn't finish his curse as Rod's gun moved up and fired. Blood spurted from Eren's throat as he collapsed back onto his chair; gurgling, his eyes fished frantically around the room and came to rest on Mikasa before another shot sounded and he slumped over, blood dripping down from between his eyes.

As though nothing had happened, Rod turned the gun over in his hands, examining it carefully. His gaze flicked up briefly.

"Sit down, please."

It wasn't until Annie mechanically tugged at her sleeve before Mikasa realized that he had been talking to her. She had no memory of standing and she had no memory of biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood. She obeyed Annie's pull and sat, but she couldn't even feel her own movements. What had just happened couldn't have happened. She refused to pretend it could have.

Rod placed the gun on the table with a loud clank of metal on wood. Sasha jumped and let out a whimper as Jean closed his eyes. Reiner, Zeke and Bertholdt and remained somehow stalwart, though Bertholdt looked noticeably paler than he had moments before. The guards who surrounded the other side of the table seemed perplexed and on edge as though they hadn't expected shooting to be possible from anyone other than them. They looked about, concern obvious, towards Kenny and Carven, but both of them had adopted impossibly calm expressions. How could anyone be calm after what had just happened? It wasn't until Mikasa heard her father chuckling appreciatively that she felt herself speak; the rage that spurred her was far away and cold. She wanted to scream and rage, to leap across the table and murder everyone sitting across from her with her bare hands, but all she could really think of was the smile Eren had given her on that playground so many years ago.

"They were a threat, were they?"

Her voice too, sounded distant, and not clear at all. Rod shrugged.

"I've been keeping up with him. His plan to run for mayor was going swimmingly, and he was gathering a lot of public support… "

It was Armin's face now, nodding encouragingly as they helped her up.

"… and he may very well have won the damn thing. But I like my mayor right where he is."

The mayor he spoke of did not look as though he appreciated this sentiment: he rather looked as though he was going to vomit all across the table. Rod gestured regretfully towards Armin.

"He was a bold soul, a noble one even. But I have no place for that, and I sure as hell wouldn't have been able to have him turn a leaf in my favor. And besides… "

His gaze returned to the three women across from him.

"I may not even have come to do this at all if it wasn't for you."

Mikasa wanted to howl at him and ask him how he could possibly figure that, but he spoke before she could get her ravaged conscious to draw the words up.

"One of my daughters worked for several years with you and knew you for longer. I would like very much to know where she has gone."

Shaking her head in disbelief, Mikasa couldn't even begin to summon words before Rod continued.

"I don't truly care for Kenny's war with you. He is overreacting as always, but as long as he keeps it between himself and you lot, I don't particularly mind. I cared nothing for my daughter's involvement either, but that changed when I was informed that she had borne a child."

He looked over them in turn.

"Where is she?"

Mikasa couldn't have given him an answer if she had one; her mouth had ceased functioning and judging by Sasha's second whimper, neither did she. It was all going wrong, so horribly wrong, Mikasa had wanted no one other than herself to be sacrificed to finish what she had assumed this was, but this was so much more than she had expected, than any of them had. Zeke looked helpless for the first time she had seen him and she couldn't blame him for looking at the three of them, just as expectant as Rod and the rest of the room. This was going to be it, they would deny him and would be killed, there was no other option, what could they say to…

"I killed her."

Annie's voice was a shard of ice through the palpable fog that was swirling through Mikasa's mind; snapping free of her internal despair, she looked over. The blonde's face was set, even a faint sneer was present.

"The father, Joe, had been getting a lot of shit from her and her girlfriend, so much so that one night when we were leaving the woods, Historia tried to kill him."

Her voice didn't shake until then, and Mikasa could feel the forced acting; it was very convincing.

"I… killed her and the baby, but I couldn't stop Joe's bleeding from where she had stabbed him. The three of them died before we made it back to civilization."

Rod was regarding her with unblinking eyes.

"And her girlfriend? She didn't object to this?"

Annie nodded, just barely.

"She hightailed it after fighting with Mikasa."

She gestured unnecessarily at Mikasa's face.

"I dealt with it, and she hightailed it. We haven't seen her since she ran away once we hit the road."

No one seemed daring to breath on their side of the table; Zeke had lowered his head as though respecting the falsified tragedy that had passed between them and Sasha and Jean followed suit. Mikasa realized that this was dependent on her as well, and she tightened her lips and looked at her knees. It was all she could manage; Eren and Armin's faces were still flashing in her head.

It was impossible to tell if Rod believed it. He now looked between all of them as though waiting for some kind of confirmation or something that would tell him Annie was lying. When he received nothing of the sort, he very gently lowered his head into his hands to massage his temples.

"I see."

Despite her pain, despite her agony, Mikasa felt an insignificant wave of something that might have been hope; could Annie's story have actually worked? She looked over towards her friend to exchange a brief meaningful look as Rod continued to have his head lowered.

The gunshot that sounded didn't seem to sound until well after the bullet had met its mark. Annie hadn't seen it coming as she too had been turning to face Mikasa. Her head jerked like a puppet, body loosely following suit; the whole of her rocked and then snapped pathetically forward as though she had braked very swiftly in a car. Mikasa remembered when she had needed to brake to keep from hitting Sasha and Ilse.

Like a marionette, Annie toppled against the table, head bouncing once. Mikasa couldn't even comprehend Sasha's scream as it echoed around the room in the wake of the gunshot, she could only stare into the eyes of a person who had done more for her than she could ever repay, as the lights in the cold, blue spheres faded into nothing.