Sorry for the late chapter, I was really busy over break! I promise, last slow-moving chapter. Because of the whole 'finals' vibe, I couldn't get a light tone. But next week they're all done, so more music stuffs and fluffs.

On that note, good luck to all those college students with finals coming up!

"Armin."

That tone expressed Annie's unadulterated rage more clearly than anything she could have said. Cold and deadly, an icicle impaling me straight through the heart.

"I lost count and came in late! I'm so, so, sorry," I squeaked. In this situation, it was best to beg and grovel at her feet. That way, I might not die today.

"Why haven't you marked in your beats yet?" she demanded. "Do you have a pencil?"

"Yes..."

"Then mark in your goddamn beats before I count to twenty!" she roared (or as close to roaring as someone as soft-spoken as Annie could get, anyway.)

I scribbled away as fast as I could, but I got stuck somewhere in the fifth measure and tuned out until Annie's threatening "twenty" invaded my hearing.

No, no, no. Twenty seconds already? This was a trick. She had jumped from one to twenty, hadn't she? But she was glaring at me with a look that was far from joking.

"I-I'm not done," I whispered, shielding my face in case she threw a stand at me like she had two weeks ago.

"Ten more," she said, narrowing her eyes. "One, two, three…"

I was done before she got to four.

"Alright, shall we pick it up from there?" Annie said to Bertholdt and Reiner. Her voice had changed completely, with all the menace replaced by her normal low, lilting tone.

We started again and I thankfully made my entrance. I began to relax, going so far as to lose myself in the music for a few moments before I almost messed up and snapped back to reality. It was the fifth day we'd playing the piece, and I really should have sat down and learned my part, but I'd been swamped with homework. Of course, Annie and the rest wouldn't take that for an answer, so I just had to grin and bear their disapproval until I got a few hours.

Bertholdt stumbled on a note and the music halted abruptly. This time it was Reiner who took on the scolding, and I got to sit and watch like the two guys must have when Annie had been grilling me. Although their method was certainly brutal, it worked well. When one messed up, one or more members would give them a micro-lesson with all the brutality of a masters-level class until they learned the section. At least we knew each other well even now. Yelling does a lot to improve friendship bonds.

"We've been here for two hours, and I have class," Annie said suddenly, standing up. "We'll meet on Thursday, have your parts for Haydn learned and at least familiarize yourself with Dvorak. Armin, we need to chat, so hurry up."

"Right," I said, my heart sinking. I was in for a lecture about my supposedly lacking practice habits.

"Annie, I promise I'll practice tomorrow," I said in a desperate attempt to appease her as I zipped up my violin case and followed her outside. "So please-"

"It's not that," she interrupted. "It's about management."

"What?"

"It's mid-December," she said with a frown. "We have finals coming up, but afterwards there's going to be a lot of music festivals and such for Christmas. None of us are well connected, so I'm going to entrust you with getting us at least three performances by the end of January."

"Right, I think you have something wrong. I'm not popular by any means," I said. "I could ask Eren, but…"

"That's what I mean," she said. "Your friends are really well-connected. Especially the managers of Eren's band - what were their names?"

"Ymir and Krista," I supplied. "And gee, thanks for that boost to my self-esteem."

She gave me a blank look, void of its usual subtle glimmer. "Let it go for once, Armin. Just because you're some kind of genius doesn't mean the rest of us don't have to study for."

And with that, she marched off in true Annie fashion, except for the fact that she whipped out a fat textbook as she stepped out into the cold winter air.

I frowned after her, feeling an odd kind of knot tightening in my chest. Not the fluttery feeling I felt when she called my name, nor the gradual pressure of finals bearing down on me slowly but surely. No, it was something much closer to anger.

"The only reason you call me a genius is because I don't have a life outside of studying," I whispered at Annie's fading silhouette as I stepped onto the hard, cold ground. "So don't you act like this is a gift."

I was ready to scream when I walked in to find all of Eren's band sitting in our dorm room.

"What the hell, Eren?" I cried, gesturing frantically at the mass of people gathered on the floor.

"It's a study session," he said casually. "Sit down, and we'll get started."

"None of you are in the same classes! How is this helping?"

"We're all studying our subjects individually," said Connie like it was the brightest idea in the world.

I gaped at them for a few seconds, trying to process the fact that four uninvited people were sitting in my extremely tiny room for apparently no reason.

"I'm going to the library," I said finally, picking up my laptop and notebooks. "Have fun 'studying'."

"Armin, wait." Jean spoke up, and I turned around resignedly.

"What?"

He tossed a folder at me. "Give this to Annie, will you? I'm in her Business Statistics class and I heard she was having some trouble. These are extra notes."

"Having some trouble?" I echoed.

"Yeah, it's pretty common knowledge she hates business. She should've stuck to music, but I guess stubborn fathers are stubborn."

It all made sense - Annie's worse-than-usual moods, her uncharacteristic studying and badly placed insults. I'd known she hated her major, but in the face of my own finals, I'd completely forgotten. Suddenly I felt more than a prick of guilt for my frustration towards her.

I shut the door without saying anything and took off.

I hurried more than I should have to Annie's dorm (I only knew its location because of Mikasa, I swear!), clutching the folder tightly to my chest with my head bowed to the icy wind.

I knocked kind of nervously on her door, and almost screamed when Annie flung the door open holding a textbook like it was a club.

"I was studying," she snarled. "Get. Out."

"Um, J-J-Jean wanted t-to give these to y-you," I stammered, shoving the folder in her arms.

Her face softened slightly. "Oh. Okay."

I hadn't died yet, thank God. "I-I'll leave, if you want to get back to studies…"

She inhaled sharply, as if she needed to say something, but shook her head slightly. "Good luck, then."

I stared at her, trying to comprehend what her problem was. "Do you need anything…?"

"Not at all," she said without a moment's hesitation. "I'm perfectly fine."

Well, there was no point pressing her for something she wouldn't reveal - it was a waste of study time. "Bye, then."

I turned to leave, but before I knew it my feet had come out from under me and I was suspended in midair. The world spun upside down and - big surprise - my head collided with the ground.

There I go again. Mr. Clumsy Extraordinaire. I vaguely registered Annie's slightly panicked voice hovering above me, and I wanted to tell her that I was fine, but my head was still throbbing and I was feeling kind of numb.

"Ughhh… gwuhhh…" I mumbled, which was basically my failed attempt to speak.

Suddenly the floor was scraping against my face and my limp corpse (sorry, am I being too dramatic?) was being dragged through a doorway. It was, as you can imagine, not the most pleasant feeling in the world.

"Annie!" I whimpered, trying to struggle to my feet. If she hadn't been hauling me inside like a hostage, I'd probably be perfectly fine by now.

"It's okay, you're going to live," was her totally uncalled for response.

"I know that!" I shrieked.

"You sound like a little girl."

"Then stop dragging me across your dorm floor!"

She abruptly let go of me and I crashed to the floor. Restraining the urge to whine in pain, I staggered to a standing position and promptly fell as my knees buckled.

Annie frowned at me. "Are you sure you don't have motor control issues?"

"Yeah," I gasped as I tried to regain my balance. "I just… fall down a lot, and it's usually not pretty."

"So the mud incident happens a lot?"

"What?"

"You know, when I first met you. The day you fell in the mud."

"Oh," I said, remembering all of a sudden and flushing bright red at the mere thought. "Yeah. That's pretty much a description of my life."

"Hm," she responded distantly, now flipping through Jean's notes. "Damn it, I'm going to fail. Stupid statistics."

"Is it just stats that's bothering you?" I asked.

"It's basically math, and I'm no good at that stuff," she sighed. "I mean, I'll survive, but…"

"But business is a lot of statistics," I said, growing increasingly worried. "If you're not good at math, then are you sure you'll be okay?"

"There's just as much management and economics, which I'm okay at," she said defensively. "I tell you, I'll be fine."

"You'd be so much happier in a music major," I mumbled.

It was like a siren had gone off in her head. "What was that?!"

"Never mind," I said hurriedly and tried to change the subject before the volatile blonde blew a fuse. "Hey, you know, I'll help you with your stats, if you'd like."

She stopped short. "Really?"

"Sure."

"Uh, okay," she said, gathering her books off her desk and suddenly seeming a lot friendlier. "There's no room here, so why don't we go to the library?"

We set off across the campus together, both of us almost swaying under the weight of our textbooks. The cold air was refreshing, bringing clarity to my brain that was stuffed with definitions and piles of notes. If only it could blow away my finals, too.

"How's your studying going?" Annie asked quietly as the library came into sight. "I don't know how you handle physics."

"I like math, so I suppose it's okay," I said. "But I'm still stressed. Today, I walked in, and Eren's whole band was sitting there…"

Before I knew it, everything was spilling out - my problems with Eren and his inconsideration, my juggling act of violin and grades, why I hadn't been able to practice - everything.

"I'm here on scholarship," I nearly sobbed. "If I fail, I'm outta here."

Annie's face, pale at best, was practically sheet-white and seemed to glow against the night sky. "Holy shit," she breathed. "I wonder how you haven't snapped yet."

"It's hard," I said with a weak attempt at at a laugh. "Sometimes, I want to just shout at people - who piss me off, I mean."

"That's the thing about you," Annie pointed out as we entered the library. "You don't get pissed. Today, I was yelling at you for not practicing with absolutely no thought to the fact that you were studying desperately to keep a scholarship. And you just sat there and took it."

"I just don't like saying to the whole world, 'I hate this, stop.' What good would that do?"

She glanced over at me, like this was surprising to her (though it's really just common sense). "That's surprisingly true. If only all the whiners in the world thought like you."

I sat down at an empty table. "Never mind that. How about those statistics?"

We spent the next hour-and-a-half working through pages of business stats, but this girl was hardly the strong woman I knew. She was fragile, laid bare, with all her weaknesses exposed as she asked me over and over again to explain. The desperation in her eyes, the humiliation that seemed to permanently carve itself into her face - it made teaching her utter torture.

"Annie," I said finally, putting down my pencil. "You're not dumb, so stop acting like you are."

"I'll get it somehow," she muttered furiously. "If I practice enough, I've gotta…"

"Annie," I repeated, gentler this time. "Annie."

She looked up at me, eyes cold and dead like a winter sky.

"You need to relax. The more you work yourself up, the less you're going to learn." I spoke slowly, softly, never breaking eye contact. "You are most certainly going to learn these statistics concepts. If I have to sit here all night and teach you, I will. And don't get embarrassed over it - I know it's hard. It took a lot for me to play in front of you without feeling humiliated."

"But you're decent at violin."

"I'm nothing compared to you! Nobody is anything compared to you. Nobody is as kind, as strong, as determined, as breathtaking as you. So I'll be damned if some stats course is what brings you down."

"You don't have to spout bullshit just to make me feel better," she said stiffly, although her face was already brightening. "Let's just keep going."

I must be an okay talker, because Annie was considerably more relaxed after that. She worked with renewed force, and when she cracked one of the most difficult problems on the page, I saw the briefest of smile flit across her face before she moved on.

Later that night, we were studying our respective subjects silently when a completely unprecedented wave of warmth washed over me. Classical music playing through shared earbuds, a silent bond of friendship, a stats problem worked methodically until the last step - it was moments like these that I lived for.

"Annie," I said without really thinking, pulling out the earbuds. "Annie, I-"

She looked at me, and I looked at her, and I realized that anything I said now wouldn't be worth it. Even if she was my everything, I was still a nothing. And I'd rather keep my everything than lose it over some hurried words.

"Nothing. Good luck on your finals."

She nodded absently. "You too."

I aced, and I hope she did too.

WOAH LOOK AT ALL THE CHEESE WANNA HAVE SOME MACARONI WITH THAT

In other news, I was at Boston University on a college tour for my older sister and I memorized every bit of it. Like this one guy nervously approaching a girl (I seriously expected somebody to be filming, it was so much like a TV show) and a couple sharing earbuds while studying in silence at the library.