'Do you promise?'

'I promise.'

When it dawned on him that he was never going to see her again, Bertholdt broke down. Not only was he never to see Sasha again, she was going to spend the rest of her life hating him. It was a horrible feeling, and he hoped to god that she survived. She hadn't been with them when they transformed, but it was the mere thought of what she would do if she had seen him in his titan form.

He had seen her face that day before, terrified and he wanted to die simply for making her feel that way.

"Bertholdt, what's up?"

He looked up at Ymir, who was now leaning against the tree as they waited for night to approach so the titans would leave them alone. "N-Nothing, I-I was just thinking."

"About Potato girl?"

"She's so much more than that," Bertholdt snapped slightly, "she's so much more than 'Potato girl'."

Ymir chuckled darkly, "Of course she is."

"Stop it you two," Reiner muttered, "Bertholdt-if you want to we can try to sneak back into the barracks and retrieve Sasha."

He shook his head, "She deserves to be with her friends at this time, I don't want to risk being caught either."

I can't face her just yet.

The next couple of days have been nothing but hard training for those who were uninjured from the fight. They needed to be ready at any given moment, though Sasha was not in the mental state for such heavy work. He was still on her mind every minute of the day, and she couldn't handle the looks Mikasa threw her way though she tried to understand her feelings concerning Eren's safety.

She loved Eren as a friend, he was always making elaborate speeches of why they were soldiers and what they should do. She looked up to him somewhat, but she didn't really understand his role about being 'the new hope for humanity'. If they got Ymir to be on their side, could she also be the new hope for humanity?

Most of the time however she was training under Hanji Zoe, who day by day she started to look up to as some sort of mentor. And Jean, Conny, and Christa were always by her side, Jean particularly paying more attention to her aside from Christa as of late. Was it because he felt bad about Bertholdt and her relationship falling to pieces?

She supposed that was it, since he had never given any female as much attention as he had Mikasa-who as always was just as cold to him. Again she didn't blame the other girl, she obviously had her sights on Eren.

"Braus, Kirchstein, Springer, and Lenz." Hanji started out, "Today you four will be training under Commander Erwin, I have business to attend to and since he can't really do any brute force since his injury-he will be overseeing your progress."

"Commander Erwin?" Conny asked, nervous; "Today is going to be hard."

Like Levi Rivialle, Sasha hadn't had a chance to really interact with Erwin. She stood for his speech when she first became a scout, and she looked up to him greatly-however she was intimidated by him that she never really talked to him. The only one out of her group that really did have any type of interaction with him was probably Jean...

It was even more intimidating given the circumstance. If she had found out that Bertholdt was the Colossal titan sooner, could she have warned them and he wouldn't be missing an arm right now? Possibly. Sasha shrank when the Commander approached them, giving them a briefing of what kind of training they would be expected to go under.

It didn't really bother her, the training. She was used to being put under great physical stress and it was one of the main reasons why she was so good at what she did. However, she was still afraid they pinpointed her as a traitor-and because of that she was even more nervous than usual.

Bertholdt was always the one who gave her confidence, but he wasn't here now and she didn't wish him to be. What type of punishment will her loved one recieve when or if he is captured? She wondered idly what they were even doing to Annie. She couldn't seperate them as just friends or loved ones from being coldhearted murderers as they were now accustomed to calling them.

"Are you okay, Braus?"

Sasha nearly fell over when she felt Erwin's hand touch her shoulder, glancing over she looked up into the gentle blue eyes of her Commander. "Y-Yes, I-I am s-sir, t-thank you." She stuttered a little, tensing up a little; "I-I'm sorry..."

She couldn't keep her eyes off where his right arm should be, and her heart dropped again when she realized it happened because of what Bertholdt and Reiner had done. "Training ended a while ago," He continued, "you've been running around blindly for the past hour."

She laughed nervously, "I-I have? I-I'm sorry...I-I didn't realize it was time to stop..."

Jean was standing nearby, who for the past hour has been trying to get Sasha to stop running-only to be unsuccessful in his plight. Finally he had alarmed the Commander about it and that was when he stopped the young girl from running herself into the ground. Was Bertholdt really bothering her that much?

"Get some rest," Erwin said softly, "we don't want you to overexert yourself."

"Y-Yes sir, t-thank you...sir..."

Sasha saluted him, though a bit weakly-and moved aside to go to her bunk. Christa must be worried about her, she was always worrying the young girl when it was Sasha who should be worried about her. Behind her she felt a presence, Jean's presence to be exact and for once she didn't mind him accompanying her to her room. [She usually liked to go alone to gather her thoughts.]

"If that's how you train under that kind of pressure, I wonder how you'll be when we're being supervised by Corporal Levi tomorrow." Jean mused, trying to bring her spirits up but to no avail.

"I lost track of time, that's all." She retorted softly, "I didn't even realize anyone had stopped training."

"For a whole hour? Are you that upset by Bertholdt?"

She stopped walking, "What kind of dumb question is that?"

"Hey, it was an honest question." He defended himself, "I just thought you'd be over it by now."

"I'm not over it," She said angrily, "he meant a lot to me-more than anything...but I guess that doesn't matter to you guys."

"We're just as upset about it as you are..."

Sasha sighed quietly, of course they were. She didn't hear the word's 'murderer' and 'traitor' slip out of Jean's mouth since she found out, but it didn't mean he wasn't thinking it. "Our relationship was a lot closer than people thought, I loved him."

And I thought he loved me too.

"I'm tired, can we talk about this another time?"

Jean nodded, giving her a pat on the shoulder; "I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Jean..."

"'night Sasha."

He watched quietly as she turned around and went into her room-the sound of muffled voices behind closed doors soon reached his ears. Sasha loved Bertholdt, more than anything in the world and he left. Not only had he betrayed them and humanity, he broke someone's heart-someone he truly cared about.

He would make him pay for that.

The next few days Corporal Levi had watched them, with a little appearances by Erwin occasionally to see how they were doing. Sasha had been doing exactly what she had been doing the last few training sessions-getting into a trance like state and overexerting her to the point of near exhaustion. They had been able to calm her down, but as of late not even the squad leaders could do anything about the cadet's strange habits.

Sometimes even Jean would be able to get her out, and he would pull the girl aside and shove food in her mouth because she has hardly eaten her rations. In the middle of training Hanji returned, asking about her squad member's progress. "They seem to be doing fine," Levi said coolly, "however Braus doesn't listen to us when we tell her it's time to stop."

"Really?" Hanji asked, rubbing her head; "She did that the first day, I wonder if she's still got that Bertholdt on her mind."

"I don't see why it would drive her mad to the point where she almost destroys her body."

The female squad leader exhaled a breathe, "Perhaps we should exclude her from further training, at least until she can get herself together mentally. We can't have her out there killing titans and then not listening to us when we need to retreat. That alone can get her killed."

"What do you want me to do? Kick her in the face?"

"Please don't do that, I doubt it'd work like it did with Eren." She watched the girl run and train with her comrades, "She does have durability unlike any other, however she herself must have her limits..."

"Maybe it's all that food she scarves down her throat." He muttered, before ordering the squad to stop for the day and to get themselves cleaned up. Like before Sasha didn't listen, just kept on going like he hadn't even said a word; "Oi, brat! I said stop!"

Sasha hadn't seen it coming, but she recieved a boot to the face and was sent to the ground pretty quickly. Jean watched with his wide eyes as his fellow comrade tried to wipe the blood off her nose, shocked out of her trance-like state. It was only a matter of time before Corporal Levi had lost his patience with her, but he wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do.

"You're going to kill yourself," Levi scolded the girl as she got back up, "I don't need any soldiers dead, now go clean yourself up."

"Yes sir." The girl spoke quietly, leaving with Conny as he helped her along.

Hanji let out a sigh again, "I told you not to kick her."

"Do you want to try to get her out of that state without force? At least it worked."

"What's wrong, Sasha? Are you still thinking about him?"

Christa stared at her friend as they sat down to eat their rations for dinner, she wasn't sure if bringing up Berholdt was the best idea but something had to be done. Seeing her run herself to the ground and barely eating was painful, for everyone around her. If Bertholdt had seen her now...would he feel bad? The petite girl was certain that he would.

Ymir would also tell Sasha to buck up and cheer her up in her own way, however she wasn't here either. It was hopeless. "No, well...I try not to..."

"I know how that is, I try not to think about Ymir and what could be happening to her but it's hard..."

Sasha sighed, "I'm sorry, I haven't been such a good friend. I'm being selfish being all mopey and obnoxious about my obsession with Bertholdt being gone."

"It's understandable, you two were close."

"It's ruining my friendships," She said quietly, "Mikasa and I never talk anymore and Jean always exerts himself worrying about me and Armin always tells me how much he feels bad about everything. And Conny and I don't even talk as much as we used to though he tries so hard to bring this back to the way they were."

"I suppose in the end they don't understand," Christa said, taking a bite out of her dinner; "Ymir and I were so close, it was a little scary how much she would do for me. Even now I don't even know what her intentions were, or are should I say...I miss her still."

"I miss her too," Sasha admitted, "even if she was always yelling at me, she still was a good friend to us. To everyone."

Christa nodded, "Mikasa said she would kill me too if I got in the way."

"I don't think she likes me anymore."

"She just doesn't understand," The blonde replied, "I don't think she really likes anyone other than Eren and Armin to be honest."

Sasha nodded, "I wonder if Eren hates me too..."

"You loved Bertholdt, and no one knew how close you two were until now." Christa put her hand on the brunette's, "And I can tell that inside, you don't want to believe Bertholdt or even Reiner and Ymir could be capable of such deeds. And I can tell that you want to still love him despite it all, and that you think you're a bad person because of it."

"My last memory of him is when he looked at me and gave me a look as if telling me everything was going to be okay..."

"Don't let that be your last memory, because I will be damned if my last memory of Ymir is of her diving into a huddle of Titans and possibly being eaten by them."

By then Sasha was in tears, and she was so emotionally run down she couldn't eat her food once more.

Across the mess hall Jean watched the other two converse. As of late the two only sat by each other, whether it was because they were in the same boat as each other or not he wasn't sure of. Sasha however was not eating, again-and it bothered him deeply. And when he saw her burst into tears he felt something deep inside him tighten with sadness, and anger.

Their once cheerful dorky little comrade was now a bawling mess, all because she loved someone who could never be with her forever like he seemingly promised. He was still unsure of their relationship and how it had even progressed to be that deep, but it bothered him greatly. Perhaps he should have been the better friend and in Bertholdt's stead he should have been Sasha's rock.

"Sasha is still not eating," Armin observed sadly, "I wonder if she'll ever be okay again."

"She doesn't eat, she trains to the point where she's in a trance and doesn't stop when she's supposed to." Jean muttered, "She's falling apart, she's going to kill herself if she doesn't stop this."

"She's doing this to herself," Mikasa said coldy, making sure Eren was eating his share of the ration; "worrying herself about those three is getting her nowhere."

"That's not fair Mikasa," He countered, "you should know how hard it is to have someone who was close to you be ripped away-no matter the circumstance."

"Do you want to try me?"

"Stop." Eren muttered, "What's wrong with Sasha?"

"Bertholdt's her boyfriend and she's mad because he's a traitor. Nothing important."

Armin sighed, knowing Mikasa was just angry and upset still; "She's running herself down, Jean said Corporal Levi kicked her in the face because she wouldn't stop training even though he told her to stop..."

"As I said, she does that a lot. She goes into a trance-like state and doesn't stop even when she's told to."

Eren frowned. Sasha was that upset over Bertholdt and Reiner's betrayel? He was angry like Mikasa, however he understood her pain. She was always good at cheering him up, whether it was intentional or not. And now she was depressed? That didn't sound like the Sasha he knew, not at all.

"Maybe I should talk to her."

"You could try, but it's just like talking to a brick wall. She won't talk to anyone but Christa nowadays, rumors have it that even Hanji can sometimes get a few words out of her."

"Well it won't hurt to try..."

Eren was sick of losing friends left and right. He had already lost so many, he couldn't bear it if Sasha was lost to him as well. If it got to the point where she's running herself down then it must be bad, they may be already losing her. She was durable, he could tell by all the times she had to run because of her eating habits.

And poor Christa had to deal with the brunt of her depression, though others tried-Sasha leaned more towards her than others. Maybe because they understood each other, there was no doubt Christa loved Ymir as much as the other girl did her. Bertholdt and Sasha had been a little more subtle, though Eren knew the two were close.

Exhaling a breath he stood from the table, ignoring Mikasa as she advised him to wait until later to pry into Sasha's personal business. Approaching the other two he sat next to Christa, giving Sasha a small smile and asked the petite girl if he could talk to the other alone for a moment.

The young blonde seemed reluctant at first, not willing to let Sasha alone with Eren seeing how his surrogate sister has treated her the last few days. However with much convincing she left, only to sit down a few tables away incase her other best friend needed her.

Sasha didn't look at him at first, she pretended to at least have an appetite and ate little of her food though the act didn't fool Eren. She had a lot on her mind, he knew that look too well and he wanted to try to help her the best way he knew how. He couldn't tell her that he hoped her and Bertholdt would get back together or tell her that Bertholdt loved her despite everything.

He didn't know what to believe anymore when it came to those two other than that they were murderers.

However, Sasha didn't want to hear that. She had heard it enough he assumed. And it was eating her on the inside. "Hey Sasha," He greeted nervously, "I see you haven't really eaten your meal..."

That was a horrible start.

"Uhm...I'm sorry I haven't really talked or even seen you the last few days, I mean things are crazy..." Eren gulped a little. Damn he was so used to giving pep talks about killing titans, not cheering people up. That was usually the other guy's job. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

This was going to be harder than he thought. "So you...heard about Bertholdt?"

"Hasn't everyone? I mean they're enemies to humanity."

Eren bit his lip, "Well, are you okay about that...?"

"Why would I be okay with that?"

It wasn't like Sasha to snap like that, it wasn't like her to be so sad and distant. It drove him mad, this was only giving him more fuel to take down Bertholdt and Reiner at all costs. He hated how it effected his friends. "I suppose no one would be okay with that..."

"Eren, I know what you're trying to do and I appreciate it-but I don't really want to talk about him right now." Sasha murmured softly, "I'm sure you have a lot on your plate too. You know with being Humanity's last hope and all."

When she said it, well it sounded like she was being sarcastic. But he decided not to comment on that, "You know, we're here if you need us."

She laughed softly, "Funny, Bertholdt said the same thing."

"What else did he tell you?"

She looked up at him, "He told me he wanted me to be his wife. He told me one day he was going to whisk me away to his hometown and that we would be happy and I could eat as much as my heart desired." She paused for a moment, "He also told me that he was scared that I would die, and he was scared what others would think all the time because we kept our relationship secret."

Eren stared at her silently, but didn't stop her.

"And he told me that he would stay by my side forever, and even if we were seperated for the briefest of moments-that I would be in his thoughts." Sasha was now looking at him, "But I guess all of that was a lie, everything he told me was a lie. The last five years I have grown to know him was all a lie, so I guess I don't know him at all."

Another moment of silence. It became awkward fast, that Eren wanted to migrate back to the table he was with.

"And despite it all Eren, I still want to see him. I still want him to hold me, and if he came back today and opened his arms...I would run into those arms and never look back." She cried quietly, "All the same I feel horrible feeling this way, because no matter what I can't get him out of my thoughts. I don't want him to die without a chance of us saying our final goodbyes, I don't and I'm so sorry for being selfish."

"Sorry...?"

"I'm so selfish! I'm so selfish that no matter what anyone does to cheer me up, I ignore them to delve myself into this despair. Usually I can cheer myself up, but I can't..." She sobbed, burying her face in her hands; "I put my own feelings over the safety of humanity and that makes me a horrible person!"

"You're not a horrible person, Sasha."

"I am, I am...poor Jean has been trying to bring me up...and the others..." She wiped at her eyes, "Eren, why is it so hard to forget him? Why can't I hate him and Reiner and Ymir for betraying us and leaving us behind?"

Eren looked over to his friends for help. He wasn't sure what to tell her, and he wasn't sure how to comfort her. Maybe Mikasa was right, perhaps he shouldn't have come over...but he couldn't just leave her. Not while she was pouring her heart out to him, and he genuinely felt sad for her.

"It's not going to be easy, but you have friends who can help you through this." Eren said finally, placing a hand on her back; "You got Christa, you got Jean, Conny, Armin and Mikasa and myself at your side. We have your back no matter what!"

"Eren..."

"You're a strong girl, one of the strongest girls I know." Eren gave her a smile, "We hate seeing you so depressed, we want to see you happy and back to your normal self."

'Normal self? What is my normal self? The only time I felt normal was whenever I was with Bertholdt...' Sasha thought quietly, 'But no, Conny...Jean...Christa and Ymir...and even Mikasa and the other two, they always made me feel welcome in their group. Am I that blinded by my love for Bertholdt that I can't see others who care about me too?'

"Sasha?"

She wiped her eyes, sniffling a little; "Thank you Eren, you know what to say. I suppose I'm surrounded by people who always know what to say." She laughed nervously, "You guys must think I'm stupid."

"That's not it, we understand." He chuckled a little, "Now eat, you're freak me out not shoveling food into your mouth."

She laughed again, "I am a little hungry..."

She had been on his mind all day, so much that they had to stop moving forward just so Reiner could demand what was wrong with him. Again his friend offered to go back, but once again Bertholdt refused. It wasn't fair to barge in on Sasha and demand that she go with them, and it wouldn't be fair to just kidnap her either for his own sake.

"She has no future in those walls, Bert." Reiner said, "We'll back you up if you need us."

Ymir scoffed, "And while we're at it, can we grab Christa too?"

"No, I can't bring her into this." Bertholdt said quietly, "I can't."

They formed the new squad after weeks of training. Sasha had been surprised when she was placed on Levi's squad, along with the others. It seemed to her to be a very big squad, and secretly she wished it had been Hanji-but she wouldn't say anything about it. Their objective was to protect Eren and Christa-who went by Historia now.

It was all moving so fast now.

She was trying to deal with letting Bertholdt go, and as they headed towards their new headquarters she couldn't help but wonder what he was up to. "Sasha," Historia spoke to her quietly, "are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry about me."

She listened idly to the chatter between Armin and Eren, something about Titans and their new discoveries about them. She didn't want to listen to it, so she distracted herself with even more thoughts of Bertholdt and what they used to have. "Sasha, we're at headquarters now."

It was Jean this time to bring her out of her thoughts, and for a moment she smiled. It had been nice of him to try and get along with her, though they still had their fair share of arguments. Most of the time it revolved around her eating habits, which were gradually coming back. And though she no longer blacked out-she wasn't the same and they understood.

Even Mikasa, who had been sort of cruel with her the last few weeks. "Do you need help carrying those?"

Sasha had grabbed hold of the box with the potatoes ironically, and she looked up to see Mikasa offering help. "No thank you," She said quietly, "I can handle this."

The dark haired girl nodded, "I wanted to apologize."

"Why?"

"I didn't consider your feelings."

Sasha blinked, "It's fine, I know you're just as upset as everyone else. We can move on from that now and make sure they're brought to justice, right?"

"Right..."

"And our job is to protect Eren and HIstoria now too." Sasha exhaled, walking with her now; "I don't want to hold onto these feelings anymore-they only get in the way."

"You love him."

"Thing is, I don't want to anymore. I'm mad at him more than anything for doing this to everyone...and for ruining our lives."

Mikasa felt her heart sting. Despite Bertholdt and Reiner's betrayel, she could feel still that Sasha wanted nothing more than for everything to be a lie. That they weren't traitors and she could be with him again, she didn't know what she would do given the chance that Eren would do the same thing.

"Let's get this place cleaned up," Levi ordered, "don't just laze around."

Before the other girl could head into the house to obey the order, Sasha grabbed hold of her wrist; "Hey Mikasa?"

"Yeah?"

"We're still friends, right?"

"Of course."

That made the other girl smile, and this time the smile was genuine. "Thanks."

Note: Sorry part 2 took so long, and I'm thinking of making this more of a chaptered series because I keep getting ideas as the story goes along.

And I know I made Mikasa a bit of a jerk, that's why I'm going to try and redeem her because I started to feel bad. I'm not a fan of her character, so that's kind of why I did what I did-but I won't do it anymore.

Also, I read the new chapter-so consider this AU? I will write a fic that's based on canon, but I started this before Chapter 51 came out.

And I promise more Bertholdt scenes. Just don't know where to go with them yet.