When Armin found himself once more standing in front of the wooden gate to Bertholdt's makeshift cell, it was with a slouch in his posture and eyelids that were heavier than was ideal. The accompanying policeman looked equally as drained as Armin was to be out and about this early, if his slumped back and messy hair were anything to go off of. Or maybe he was just hopelessly unskilled in giving himself haircuts, leaving it uneven on all sides. With only the flame of a lantern to shine a light on his features, it was hard to tell. The policeman hung up his lantern and dug for his key, leaving Armin to stand behind him and wait, a bit dazed.

If it were up to Armin, he'd still be lying in bed right now and leave this meeting for the afternoon. He'd had a horrible night of tossing and turning tangled up in bed sheets that simultaneously felt too heavy and too light. Somewhere in the second half of the night, he'd accepted that he wasn't going to get much rest and had resorted to watching the snow fall outside his window instead. His mind was still buzzing with the events of the day, something he'd already noticed when he spent the rest of the evening around Hange and the other on-site surface policemen before retreating to his quarters late in the evening to begin his fruitless attempts at getting some sleep.

But he wanted to create regularity in his visits to the mines. A discernible pattern. To be on schedule, so that Bertholdt knew exactly when he was coming. It would work best to create a foundation of trust between the two of them instead of making Bertholdt feel like Armin could barge in to pester him at any given moment. When Armin had been woken up from his half-conscious drowse with a curt knock on his door, he'd briefly considered ignoring the world around him before he begrudgingly dragged himself out of bed. He'd then prepared for the day at his own pace, gone through his morning routine without too much haste behind it, joined the others for breakfast but kept to himself — the policemen and Hange alike had left him be when they saw the dark bags that without a doubt adorned his eyes — and finally spent some time in the supply room. As he'd left the building for his descent, he halted in his tracks and made a detour to his room to pick up one last item. He'd left behind the heavy folder in his room this time but still left for the depths with a full backpack.

"How long are you gonna be in there this time? Ten minutes?" the policeman asked him as he battled with his bad aim to insert his key into the only closed one sealing the middle of the gate.

"It depends on his mood. It might be ten minutes, it might be thirty, or it might be a couple of hours. We'll see."

Armin didn't receive an answer as the policeman finally lined up his key with the keyhole, and with a turn of his wrist and a hard pull, the gate was opened in front of him. The policeman gestured inside and Armin shone his lantern ahead of him first, seeing Bertholdt lying against that same wall once more, this time folded over on his side with the top of his head and the ends of his legs nearly pressed against it. It sent a shiver through Armin's spine to walk inside once again, to see that the shifter made his stance clear from the start this time.

Today wouldn't be the day. Disappointing but expected.

The policeman lingered by the gate with his arms crossed as Armin placed his backpack and his coat down on the crate opposite to Bertholdt. When Armin sat down, he shot a questioning glance the policeman's way. "Could I please talk to him alone?"

The policeman loosely pointed at the crate. "You should hang up your lantern. Get it out of the Colossal's reach in case things go wrong."

Armin nodded, taking a hold of the lantern and standing up. The policemen turned around and left through the corridor again. As soon as he was gone, Armin sat down and set down the lantern on the crate again, turning his attention to Bertholdt. The shifter's breathing was steady but superficial, unlike the slow deep breathing that characterised his sleep. With no windows to the soul to observe, it was all Armin could go off of, and upon closer inspection, he noticed that Bertholdt's breathing was slightly strained, more costal than it was abdominal.

"Good morning, Bertholdt," Armin greeted, and this time he didn't leave any awkward pauses between his sentences, knowing that it was highly unlikely he'd get any type of response today. "I hope you got more sleep tonight than you did yesterday. These aren't exactly the types of conversations I'd want to listen to while I was tired either." The irony of that statement didn't escape him.

Armin reached for his backpack, placing it in front of him to start undoing the straps. "I wish I got to greet you when I entered, but I didn't want the policeman to hear it. They all sound petty enough to use something as innocent as a greeting to pester you in the long run. I didn't want to add to the list of things that they might use against you."

Paying the shifter no mind, he flipped open the backpack's now loose flap. "Either way, before I left to come see you, I spent some time in the supply room to get you something," he said as he slid both hands inside, pulling a rolled-up sleeping bag out of it and looking over to Bertholdt to check if he'd turned his head yet. Still ignoring him, as he'd expected, but there was a slight dip of his head towards the cave wall.

Armin placed the sleeping bag on his lap, fingers tapping on the leather. He carefully considered his next words, but decided to go through with them.

"I know you turned 17 a few weeks back. I figured that giving you something late is better than never."

It was subtle, but it was there. The slightest shift towards more shallow breaths, Bertholdt's chest rising more than his abdomen compared to earlier. Armin didn't hesitate to continue. "When I was down here yesterday, half an hour of sitting still was enough to make me shiver, and that was with a sweater and a coat on top of my regular clothes to protect me. It's disconcerting to see they are making you sleep in these conditions on a cold, hard floor with just a shirt and shorts on. I raided the supplies to search for a sleeping bag you could use." He demonstratively tapped his fingers onto the leather again. "I know it's still not ideal, but it's the best I can offer you right now. If you're careful with the way you use it, you shouldn't track too much dirt inside it and you can keep it clean."

He placed the sleeping bag next to him on the crate, patting it a few times so that Bertholdt could hear proof behind his words. A faint smile appeared on Armin's face. "You know, I spent about ten minutes looking for differently sized ones, I didn't want to give you one that's too small, before I realised that wouldn't be necessary."

Bertholdt's next few breaths were all quick, drawn fully with his thorax, neck tensed as he turned his face towards the ground just a little more than it already was.

Armin slightly cringed at himself for the remark. On second thought, maybe they weren't on the basis where Armin could make leisurely small talk about Bertholdt's living conditions yet. Just because it was meant to sound like small talk to Bertholdt didn't mean Armin could approach it as simple small talk. He'd need to be more careful considering his words. Yesterday's misstep still hung in the back of his mind as a huge mistake on his part, and he still couldn't subdue that small voice that told him he already blew it and he might as well give up. He didn't want to repeat that today.

"… I'm sorry, that was inappropriate to comment on," he quickly apologised, voice dipping as he spoke those words. A longer drawn-out breath, a sigh Bertholdt wanted to deny was a sigh.

Armin didn't linger on it too much, moving on after that first exhale. "I initially thought a sleeping bag would suffice to help keep you a bit warmer and more comfortable, but then I got thinking: would I want to spend the whole day confined in a sleeping bag? It may be warm, but it's probably not enough, and it's not exactly comfortable to be forced to lie down in it for weeks on end if you want to avoid being cold. So I went to retrieve this too."

Reaching into his backpack again, he fished out his now dry wool blanket, neatly folded up earlier that morning. Placing it down on his lap, he looked over to Bertholdt to see if his curiosity had compelled him to turn his head yet, but he remained turned away.

Armin folded his hands over the blanket, its fabric pleasant on his hands now that they had started to cool down in the mine's frigid air.

"I searched the supplies for a decent blanket, but all I could find were flimsy bed linens that wouldn't keep anyone very warm. They wouldn't like it if I dragged a bedsheet in here and it would be a hassle to wrap around yourself with one arm. Luckily, I travelled here with a blanket over my shoulders, so I decided to just give you that one instead. It kept me warm even when I got snowed on on my way here, so I think it'll keep you warm in these dry temperatures just fine."

Armin moved a hand up to scratch the scarring under his chin — a bad habit from back when his wounds still used to itch that he should probably get rid of again as soon as he could.

He considered his next words before putting his hand down in his lap again. "I… do want to ask you to be careful with it. I bought it four years ago, during that harsh winter where us refugees were sent to work out in the fields. It cost me a lot of money back then, and it's kept me warm for so many years while remaining unscathed. It would be nice if you kept it intact. Okay?"

Not that he expected a response, so he softly repeated an "Okay…" to himself after a very brief wait. "I'm leaving both here on the crate. You can come pick them up when I've left again later. I'll instruct the police to let you hold onto these, too, so you won't have to worry they'll be confiscated. If they do, I'll confront them and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Armin wasn't sure if he had the authority to harass the policemen into letting Bertholdt keep his belongings, but it was worth trying. Sure, he could tell them that these objects were part of his process, but would they listen despite Hange's reassurance the day before? If nothing else, the promise could prove to put Bertholdt at ease.

The shifter remained lying on his side, and Armin couldn't help but wonder what he thought of these gifts of comfort. If he'd see through his intentions straight away or if he'd appreciate them. It was unlikely that he would trust Armin just like that, but he wondered if he would decline their usage altogether out of spite and wariness. It was something to take note of the next day.

Armin was quiet for a few minutes, taking out his notebook and a pencil in the meantime. He'd already done most of what he came here to do today, but that didn't mean he'd just leave it at supplying some basic comforts. He'd already ruled out what he had learned the afternoon before as a viable topic to talk about during this session, but that left him with a difficult task: repetition of his offer to the point where it didn't annoy Bertholdt, without seeming transparently shallow about just giving him these basic comforts as a means to convince him to cooperate.

If he were honest with himself, it wasn't just for leverage's sake that he brought along these items. Had they not been useful in winning Bertholdt's trust, he might've still brought them down here. The Military Police barely took care of their prisoner, he'd expected that much, but it was repulsive to see how bad their neglect truly was in person. It had taken Armin until long after he'd left to understand why he felt so uncomfortable with it all. At the very least, Bertholdt should be treated with some decency.

But if they had done that, none of the things Armin was doing right now would have had as strong an effect as they did now. He had to count his blessings and make use of the situation at hand.

"I wanted to talk about my proposition again," he changed the topic, more for his own sake than for Bertholdt's. "You weren't fully awake when I did so yesterday, so I left. The policemen thought you'd slept well, but I wouldn't trust them to correctly assess whether you were dead or alive."

Armin flipped open his notebook again, taking a quick glance at his notes from his first visit out of force of habit. He still had a good idea of exactly what he had and hadn't said.

"Of course, my offer still stands. I'm not sure if I should read your silence as a consideration or as a decline of it, but it doesn't matter. The offer remains open regardless. I still wish to grant you a position as a diplomat up on the surface. Working on the surface means living on the surface, and it also means mediating a difficult conflict."

He wasn't sure why he was now leaving short pauses in the hopes he'd get anything in return. In the brief moment of silence, he took note of how Bertholdt's breathing had steadied again. Back to deep but shallower-than-usual breaths drawn by the lower half of his torso, the most relaxed they had been during the entirety of Armin's visit.

If he was at ease, now was the best time to help him find his peace. "I realised yesterday after I had left that I wasn't very clear on some of the details I gave you. I just told you there could be peace if you were to offer us your assistance, but I never got around to explaining exactly what I wanted from you and how that could contribute to lives being saved."

If he wanted results, he'd need to be transparent. He'd long considered exactly what he could say, what he should keep to himself, and what he could lie about, but anything he kept hidden from Bertholdt he would eventually find out if he agreed. That could drive him to rescind his help or start scheming against them instead.

"The Survey Corps," Armin started, "was left in shambles after the battle of Shiganshina. Out of the two hundred scouts that joined the survey, only nine returned. Those of us who came back have taken on a role as elite scouts. Although I haven't gotten a lot of work done in the past months when I was recovering, I've been working on getting up to date with everything that's been going on in my absence, and us survivors have taken on a far more important administrative role among the scouts' ranks than we had prior. This means that we have leverage. That I have leverage."

Softly, he started fiddling with the fabric of the blanket still resting on his lap, the worn-down but still soft texture apparent even through his bandages. "I'm no longer titan fodder who can't make any changes. We have been asked to attend several meetings to discuss the future of Paradis, including the decision on whether or not to share the knowledge of Doctor Yeager's journals with the public. I was in a coma, so I didn't attend, but I would've if I were conscious at the time. But that's beside the point."

Armin looked away from Bertholdt, letting his eyes wander to the ground before locking onto a small spider crawling over the floor, coming to a halt not far away from his boots. A slight shiver ran across his spine and feet to think of all the creepy crawlies that could be found in this mine, possibly even behind him or on the crate he was seated on.

He moved his legs back only slightly, wanting to deter the critter from feeling too enticed to crawl up his leg, before he shifted his attention back to the conversation — the monologue — at hand.

"Because you were in the Survey Corps' regiment when you deserted, disciplinary measures should've been left in our hands. However, with our dwindling numbers, the Military Police was the regiment that ended up with custody over you. It's why you never see any Survey Corps around here."

Would things have been any different if it had been them guarding Bertholdt? The implications of the thought quickly deterred Armin from thinking any further on in.

"Still, with the Survey Corps having the most knowledge about your titan powers, Commander Hange Zoë was brought on-board to decide how you would be detained with an eye on safety. With their expertise on interrogation and their insight in your file, they ended up staying. As such, you already are under partial custody of the Survey Corps by a technical detail."

The spider started crawling again, away from Armin and towards Bertholdt. Part of him wondered if Bertholdt sometimes resorted to picking what crawled around this mine to fill his deficits, and he wasn't sure where the thought came from. Might be the way lying on his side exaggerated Bertholdt's shoulder, ribs, and hip poking out of his skin.

Maybe he should bring something to eat along with him next time he visited.

"It's exploitable. Especially if you make a list of conditions to follow in exchange for your cooperation. You can include the demand for them to hand you over to us. That way, I'm in a position where I have a good amount of jurisdiction over you and I can use that to help you. I can make sure that, legally, Paradis is obliged to follow your demands, and you won't fall into the hands of a regiment as corrupt as the Military Police. You won't have to worry that you'll be stabbed in the back after lending us your help, because the conditions will last until the end of your life or until you agree to amending them, which is all on your own terms."

Armin folded his hands over the blanket, looking back up at Bertholdt, whose breathing had become awfully careful again. Slow, but not like it would be during his deep breaths. Rather, he was delaying inhaling and exhaling after each very careful breath. "That's how I can assure you that we will keep our part of the deal. It will become my job to ensure you remain protected, and as my authority grows in the regiment, I may be able to eventually negotiate a pardon for you. After cooperating with us, it is not unrealistic that such a request would be considered by the higher-ups. If you prove yourself beneficial to Paradis and unwilling to kill more of us, you might even be exonerated and you'll spend your final years outside of a prison."

Bertholdt didn't need to talk for Armin to know exactly what he was thinking of. He needed to finish this whole talk strong.

"… It's likely you'll even get to go back home. Back to Marley. To see Reiner again, to reunite with your family and friends there. Exoneration means Paradis can no longer restrict your movements, so you can finally go back."

The expected deeper breath before he returned to normal. Armin had planted the seed, now it was just a matter of waiting until his influence bloomed.

In most cases, it was better to be honest. In this case, he couldn't afford to. The topic of going home had been far too important to Bertholdt, so much so that he would kill old friends to do it. Armin would be idiotic not to home in on it. He had to use it. Tell him an auspicious story now, assure him that his exoneration was realistic, lead him by that promise. Let it fade over the months. When the time was there, tell him he'd done everything he could but that Paradis' leadership just wouldn't budge. That he miscalculated. That he was sorry.

It wasn't that Armin wanted to prevent Bertholdt from seeing his loved ones again, but he needed Bertholdt to learn certain things about Paradis if he was going to cooperate. Bertholdt's possession of more knowledge about Paradis wouldn't help Marley only if Bertholdt remained incarcerated with no way to convey all this intel to the mainland, so he couldn't return under any circumstances. The only factor at play here was to think about how this knowledge could contribute to his cooperation in the long run — if Armin was giving him anything to use against the island, if what he told him would help Marley even if he couldn't contact the nation. He was well-aware that Bertholdt could very well lie about helping them but work against them behind the scenes.

All the more of a reason for Armin to learn to read and understand the shifter's body language.

Armin wasn't sure how much the revelation that he'd be unable to return home would hurt the shifter, but it would hurt less than the untimely death of a million people, be they from Paradis or from Marley. In the long run, Bertholdt might even agree with the decision. Maybe he'd understand that sending the cataclysmic weapon his body housed back to a military state Paradis was at war with was out of the question, that it was never personal, and he wasn't going to ask in the first place. It didn't need to be all bad.

To let it sink in, Armin waited a slight bit before continuing again. His eyes found their way to that spider again, now nestled between the ground and Bertholdt's back, just barely visible under his shirt. Vision now adjusted to the scarcely-lit cavern, the back of his shirt showed similar flecking with blood that, as he noted, could be found on the front. He jotted down something about how the absence of violence under the control of the Survey Corps could serve as another draw he absolutely would have to stress.

Believing he'd given Bertholdt enough time to think, Armin decided to resume.

"Once you have accepted, you will most likely be taken to a hearing where you'll be asked to answer questions the upper brass has for you. If the terms of your cooperation include your right to refuse any questions that you believe will lead to Paradis' military action over diplomatic action, you are exempt from answering those. Since your and the Survey Corps' goal to achieve peace through negotiation align, we will back you up on this. This way, you can inform us about Marley's modern-day attitude and what we can bring to the table to talk to them. All without being forced to divulge… for example, military bases and information on troops."

He stopped fidgeting with his pencil, moving one hand over to the lantern he'd put down next to his leg when lifting it earlier — a little too close for comfort — and moving it away a bit, leaving his hand to rest on the metal handle to thumb at that instead. In his head, he followed the steps he had planned out in his explanation to their next point: response.

"Our big advantage here is that we can communicate with you. Any strategy we devise to approach Marley based on the information you give us, we can pass by you. You're the only person on Paradis with any expertise in what Marley would and would not be responsive to. It is this service that makes me believe that you are the key to a conflict without bloodshed."

His hand's grip on the lantern tightened, slightly nervous about the impact of what he wanted to talk about. "There's no one else who can do this. You're the only person with a link to Marley, with experience living there. Without you, we need to go to war blind, and with what we know, that means we'll have to kill. Soldiers and civilians alike."

Armin softly sighed, his eyes looking down into his lap instead. "You're just one person, but you could become our most valuable asset. With how exclusive your information is, you can make so many demands and we'd have to give in to them if it means we get your cooperation. With that amount of power… " He tapped his pencil in his left hand down on the notebook a few times, knuckles almost white from his grip on the lantern in his right.

"… Well, they don't want me to reveal this information to you, but right now, we are pretty much at your mercy. You're not our prisoner… We are yours."

Armin looked up again and carefully observed for any movement that was out of the ordinary, watched as Bertholdt's chest gently rose and fell with the subtlest shudder under each breath, as the occasional shiver shook his body before he went artificially still again, the muscles of his shoulders shifting ever so slightly to hint that he held his arm coiled, perhaps close against his body.

No reaction. No response. Nothing. Armin's hand dug into the wool of the blanket, unsure why this projected apathy was frustrating him once more. A one-sided conversation cost him far more energy than a regular one would, and his fatigue was catching up to him, making him moodier than he should be at Bertholdt's taciturn defiance.

He felt the urge to leave but decided against it. Finish his story now, redirect his frustrations later, when he wasn't in hearing range anymore. Not that it'd come to anger, but he'd been discouraged yet again.

"About those conditions I keep mentioning," he continued after leaving a moment of silence for Bertholdt to process his last words, "those might not be entirely clear to you either. They're not something we negotiate during your hearing. They'll be a document we compose together way ahead of time, where we go over everything you demand. This is where things like your living conditions go. Getting a bed, getting enough food, being treated like a person by the ones who take care of you and by the nation, things like that."

Bertholdt's breathing stilled momentarily, and Armin's voice reactively went a degree lower in volume as he unclenched his grip on the blanket and the lantern and retracted his other hand back to his lap, happy with a tangible response at last. "We can go into great detail on it, and as I said before, once you have given us the signal that you want to talk to us, the upper brass will be prepared to listen to what you ask for. Of course, some things like your absolute freedom or the removal of your safety gear, you won't get right away, but being so close to finally having an enemy who's prepared to speak, Paradis' safety concerns them far more than getting offended because you asked for an extra meal. They'll just approve anything that's about your quality of life, they get no value out of subjecting you to subhuman conditions like these MPs do. They just want answers."

A long and noiseless sigh through his nose as he pressed all the air out of his lungs, then a few deep inhales. Anxious taps of Armin's fingers over the blanket, hardly audible over the mine's natural low rumbling sounds, the thumping of his heartbeat caught in his ears. He wanted a verbal reaction so bad despite knowing it wouldn't happen today. Something to break up this difficult monologue. Armin found himself mirroring Bertholdt's silent sigh.

"I think that details my proposal to be more coherent and clear-cut than I managed to do yesterday. It's hard to know if I'm making myself clear when you don't give me feedback, Bertholdt. If you have any questions or anything is ambiguous and you want to know more, you can ask me now. I'll gladly answer anything you need to know to make a decision. If there's any uncertainty at all that is keeping you from accepting this offer, you'll prefer asking me for clarification over declining based on an unknown."

Silence. Armin was done playing this game for today. He'd already started clasping his backpack's straps closed again during his explanation, opting to carry his notebook by hand after he'd placed his blanket on the sleeping bag sitting next to him on the crate. He stood up and put on his coat again. "That's, again, a lot of information to drop onto your shoulders all at once. How does an hour to sort out your thoughts sound?"

More silence as Armin hung up the lantern, offering the shifter the luxury of sight while he left him time to think. He'd pick up the lantern the policeman left hanging outside the gate to find his way back to the main area. "Or you can tell me now, if you've already made up your mind and you want to accept. Or, I guess, if you want to decline. That's fine too. That way I won't waste your time and you won't waste mine, and I don't have to come back to bother you in an hour."

He looked over to Bertholdt, still, and Armin wondered for a moment if he was breathing at all. Staying down in the mines and coming back to this cell later would be fruitless, it took Armin only one look at the lifeless shifter to understand that. He wanted to rescind his offer and just retreat to his quarters for some rest so badly, but he couldn't just take it back after already offering it. He turned on his heel, mind flooded with doubt as he walked out the gate.

"You shouldn't trust me."

Small and hoarse, monotone, barely audible as the shaky hum caught in his throat, but Armin had definitely heard. He stopped dead in his tracks, his heartbeat pulsing through his spine, and the potential of this renewed hope washed over him, pulling him out of his fatigued daze and filling him to the brim with energy.

This one-way conversation just became a proper conversation. No matter what it was Bertholdt said now, it was infinitely better than nothing. Armin turned his head, body soon following, to find the shifter still in his spot, head bowed towards the wall slightly further.

"What?" Armin asked in return, the bewildered thrill of his high voice starkly contrasted against Bertholdt's low one. He came a step closer before halting again, not wanting to move too close too fast.

Bertholdt very carefully bowed his head further until his forehead made contact with the wall, the movement more visible through the gradual strain of his neck against his shirt collar than through his head obscured by a bony shoulder. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts. Or he'd gone silent again. Armin would have to adjust to this quickly if he wanted to—

"You can't trust me, Armin." His deep voice made it hard to tell whether he was speaking or whispering, the words coming out just as softly as they did the first time. The muscles of his back strained harder, legs pulled closer to the wall and chin now making contact with his chest, leaving his voice muffled and even harder to understand. But Armin trained his ears, intent on hearing every single word Bertholdt mumbled.

"You can't trust me to choose what's best for Paradis if there's any chance it will negatively impact Marley."

What was Armin's whole explanation for, if not to illustrate that Bertholdt didn't need to lie to protect Marley? That he could choose what to say? That ultimately, he didn't have the power to betray Paradis again the way he had once before? Armin opened his mouth to speak, to bring an instant retort to his worries, sucking in frigid air to start arguing his points in great detail, but Bertholdt beat him to speaking.

"If your plan relies on trust… it will fail. I have to betray you again if you give me the chance. I don't have a choice. You don't want that." He paused, voice now shaky and insecure, barely anything more than a shuddering whisper, and Armin could just about make out the words, "I don't want that."

A numb silence fell over Bertholdt, hunching his shoulders in a tense movement as his tied hand covered his face, breathing happening in sharp shocks rather than a continuous flow.

The excitement still flowed through Armin's veins, threatening to make him blurt out the first thing that came to mind several times, but now more than ever he needed to thoroughly think about the impact of every single word that fell off his tongue, calculate the effect that every syllable, every letter would have on the shifter now that he finally spoke up.

This was information he could work with. He wasn't backed into a corner anymore, and he finally had something to use to his advantage. This was good. This was perfect. He had practically won already, if he could just use this to its fullest extent.

In the back of his mind, the ghost of an old question lit up, one he couldn't let go of in so long.

"Is that… because you made that decision? Or because Marley did?"

Silence. No change in posture, shoulders still tensed, breathing slowly starting to settle back into its same old steady rhythm as Armin had observed over the past fifteen minutes but now entirely perpetuated by his chest. Maybe it was enough to answer his question. He'd long wondered how much of this Bertholdt really wanted and how much was Marley, and he couldn't believe that much of his choice had ever been his own.

Another step forward, as light on his feet as he could muster.

"Bertholdt?"

Silence. He waited a few seconds, hoping to get an answer, anything to show him that Bertholdt hadn't just shut down again entirely, but a pit formed in his stomach and Armin feared that it was all over again.

"Bertholdt, I've explained it to you, haven't I? Marley has no more control over you here. They don't even know you're here, they might just assume that we have killed you. No one will harm you or any of your family for your decision to help us, it's all up to you right now. You don't have to worry about any of this. And even if you did… Anything you tell us will benefit Marley as well. How is peace bad for the Marleyan Eldians? How is that a betrayal to any nation?"

He couldn't stop the barrage of words from spilling out of his mouth until he'd said it all, a bit dumbfounded at himself and at the disjointed waterfall of arguments and pleas. He composed himself, straightening his back and shifting his notebook so that he now held it in both hands.

"If you have any doubts, we can go over them. I'll know exactly if you have any reason to fear or if it's something that can be solved, Bertholdt. That's what I'm here for, isn't it?" Another small step closer, but a jolt through Bertholdt's body made him recoil. "If it turns out you really can't help us, you really have no choice but to betray us, I won't drag you out of these mines and force you. I have no reason to waste time here if it turns out to be pointless. But we don't know if it's pointless yet! How can you possibly know that when you still know so little?"

Silence. Armin's grip on his notebook tightened, and his voice grew just a degree more desperate.

"Okay, I… Let's start at the basics. Why do you think that anything you do is automatically going to lead to you betraying us?"

Silence.

"Because… Because there are ways. There are so many ways for us — for you — to solve this conflict without shedding any blood, Bertholdt. The military is willing to listen. The only reason they weren't prepared to do so before was because Hange confirmed to them that you weren't budging and you wouldn't give them information. But we're willing to listen if you are willing to speak. Even if it's barely anything you're saying, we're prepared to listen. If needed, you can tell us only Marley's demands so that we at least understand more about what it expects of us. But anything you say will lead to a higher chance that we can make peace."

Silence. He was scrambling for arguments here, and he was well-aware of it. This wasn't working. He needed to try something else, something a little more drastic.

"Don't you want there to be peace?"

Silence, but a small shiver ran across his back at the confrontational nature of his jab. The pause hung heavy between them, and the fear that he might be right suddenly struck Armin. He waited just a short bit before softening his voice as much as he was capable of, tone tinged with genuine disappointment.

"… Is that the issue, Bertholdt? You don't believe that peace is the right option? You really do think that we are all children of the devil, after all?"

He'd considered the option before. That the Bertholdt they'd known for three years was a façade, a lie, someone he had constructed and presented to them all this time, but that that kindness was all just a tactic to fit in with them better, to avoid suspicion. To evoke sympathy when he was confronted and begged them for understanding. To get them to maybe spare him in a next battle, to hesitate just long enough for him to cut them down in their indecision. That the confrontational, cold, careless Bertholdt that Armin had encountered in that decisive battle in Shiganshina was the real Bertholdt, that everything else was just there because it benefitted him.

He didn't want to give any credibility to these thoughts, reasoning that it would be too hard to keep up such a misleading façade for so long and show such competence in his deception, and yet book no results in their secret mission to find Eren. They'd spent a lot of time together where Armin discovered the deeper characteristics of the shifter, and to think that he was just pretending all this time seemed impossible.

Now, he wasn't so sure, and he had betted everything on it not being true. It could be enough to discourage him from trying again, because this heartless Bertholdt would under no circumstances want to cooperate with him.

If Bertholdt were any different from this image of him that suddenly haunted Armin, he'd speak up.

"Tell me that I'm wrong, Bertholdt," he pleaded. "Is what I said true?"

One of the perks of standing only a couple of paces away from him — compared to the view of his back he got from over at the crate — was the ability to see Bertholdt's face. So when he reluctantly, tentatively nodded his head, Armin could see every detail of his expression; the way his eyes were squeezed shut, how his face scrunched up as he finished the gesture, the trembling of the muscles over his cheekbones and around his mouth.

Armin's heart sank. He watched with wide eyes, looked down on Bertholdt as the shifter struggled to keep his breathing as neutral as he could, but the shivering and occasional shock of his torso gave him away. Was that really what he'd thought the whole time? That they were evil and they didn't deserve peace?

Or was he lying?

Armin narrowed his eyes, reminding himself to think before ever feeling. What good would lying do Bertholdt?

For one, it'd get Armin to leave him alone.

That made a lot of sense, come to think of it. Say and do anything to get Armin to leave — decline his offer with his lack of communication, tell him that he would inevitably betray them without ever specifying how, even going as far as claiming that he truly was some sort of killer who happily wanted them all dead, who believed them to be devils, when back in Shiganshina he had taken the time to explain to him the opposite, how he fully believed that those he was about to kill at least should get to hear that that they were not devils, that they had done no wrong.

That was definitely a version of Bertholdt that Armin had come to know. The one who'd demean himself, ruin his image in the eyes of the only person on the island who saw him as a person just to get him to leave again for good when he was making things difficult for Bertholdt.

Maybe he should. Maybe everyone was right, maybe this was indeed a bad idea from the start. Why had he fooled himself into thinking he could get someone so dedicated to his cause that he didn't budge even as he was being tortured to be cooperative when he was offered a softer alternative?

This whole mission was doomed from the start. Maybe he really should give it up and go back to the surface for good.

"I see," Armin answered after an uncomfortably long pause. Aware of how he was almost crushing the notebook under his fingertips, he let everything relax, from his strained fingers to his lifted shoulders to the tension that ran through his back muscles and legs. He looked upon the side of the shifter's face again, his expression unwavering, and wondered what he would see in his eyes had they been open right now.

Maybe they would tell him what he was supposed to do, what would bring him closer to understanding the shifter enough to know what would make him yield.

He shouldn't stay around today. He could always come back at a later moment, but right now, he was far too tired and overwhelmed to think about how to tackle this tricky situation and bring it to a good end nonetheless. He might mess things up beyond repair if he went in without giving his next course of action a long think.

The consideration to leave without saying a word crossed his mind, but he knew he'd only do it for the emotional satisfaction of it, to hell with the bridges he burnt if he did it. Something inside him was so tempted to let his emotions guide him out of these mines. He couldn't allow himself to listen to it. It was giving up and running away. Since when did he run away?

"I don't think we're getting far if I continue to talk to you under these circumstances, then, Bertholdt," he calmly informed the shifter. He turned his back on him again, now more aware than ever that he could get attacked if he let down his guard, and walked towards the gate again.

"It's better if I return another day. How about tomorrow, same time?"

He could almost feel the shifter seethe at the knowledge that his plan to get rid of Armin had failed. It came across to Armin as a very small victory, and he felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He looked over his shoulder a final time, seeing no movement, no nods or shaking of his head, and decided that he was satisfied with that.

"See you tomorrow, then."

A/N: More author's notes and artwork over on the AO3 upload - /works/26989504/chapters/72772263