Disclaimer: SnK/AoT belong to their rightful creators. I own nothing. This is purely for my own sick enjoyment.
Author's Note: Not going to lie... This was actually titled "Project: Redemption" in my AOT/SNK writing folder. If you don't like this or if it's too OOC, I'm sorry. Just pretend this chapter doesn't exist and go back to the first epilogue. It's just that I felt compelled to write this after receiving more than two threats and apparently sending several of you into massive tear floods.
Despite the loud, vocal pleadings of a certain suicidal bastard and the silent wishing of another human-shifter, the blond tactician was not offered a separate, more intimate burial ceremony. When hearing the request, Commander Erwin hesitated and turned away, leaving Humanity's Strongest to be the one to emotionlessly state that giving Armin his own ceremony would only further demoralize the soldiers. However, the blond commander did not forbid a private observance and graciously gave the tattered, broken remnants of the 104th recruitment unit the night off from duty to grieve their losses properly before the cremation of the casualties the next day.
It was only fair to allow Annie to participate. Even Eren and Mikasa, who had been the most outspoken against the girl's transfer to the Survey Corps after her official pardon, willingly agreed to let the blonde say goodbye to her princess. The latter merely exchanged an impassive nod with the blonde while the former squeezed the girl's hand sympathetically in an awkward, painful handshake.
Annie stood the closest to the boy's prone body, which was still resting peacefully on the stained, recycled stretcher. She stared down at his pale, taunt corpse with wide eyes, though she wasn't crying. She had already shed her tears for the boy. She doubted she could muster up any more emotion to combat this emptiness in her gut. Even anguish or rage would be preferable to nothing.
The two remaining members of the Shiganshina trio stood on the other side of Armin's body, though neither looked at the distant, slight girl in front of them. The rest of the former 104th regiment gathered around Armin's body at a respectful distance, allowing the three who held a closer bond to the blond to get out their silent goodbyes first.
Eren was the first to break his stare with Armin's peaceful, clean face. He glanced to the side at his former rival and nodded once. He took a step back, which was mirrored by the expressionless Mikasa to his side. Jean filled the spot the two had just vacated and slowly dropped his gaze to the cold boy at their feet. There had been so much the brunet had wanted to whisper to him, but at the sight of the boy's corpse, all of Jean's snarky comments and wistful thanks died on his lips. It had reminded him too much of Marco. The brunet uttered a small "thank you" and quickly retreated from his position by the boy.
Seeing their brilliant friend so small and still affected each of the team members harsher than they had imagined, and soon only Connie and Annie remained by the boy's side. The latter hadn't moved an inch, keeping her solemn, blank gaze firmly on the boy. The former watched Annie's face carefully, noting with a wince each flicker of the girl's uncertainty when she thought no one was looking. He wasn't sure if any of the others had thought back to that night and that infernal play, but he remembered it as if it were yesterday.
"Annie," he started slowly. He wasn't sure if the girl had heard him. Apart from their one-sided whispered exchange earlier, this was the first time Connie had spoken to the blonde since she joined the Military Police all those years ago.
"Yes," she responded. Her voice was automatic and toneless, as if another part of her brain was responsible for speech while her emotions were compromised.
"I—" Connie hesitated. He never knew how to act around the enigma of a girl. Even before she was revealed to be the Female Titan, he never understood her and rarely spoke with her, since she always intimidated him. He sighed and peeked nervously at her blank face again. "I just wish it had all been true, you know?" Annie tore her gaze from Armin and blinked confusedly at the young man across from her. Connie shoved his numb hands in his pockets and stared up at the cold, distant stars to avoid her curious gaze. It was late and even the scant warmth of the lanterns surrounding them was not enough to keep the mist from rising with each breath.
"I just really wanted to believe in happily ever afters," Connie stated with another dejected sigh and excused himself with a polite nod of his head.
Annie watched him leave for a second before glancing back down to her icy hands, stained red by Armin's blood and the blistering cold; the girl swallowed a rising lump in her throat. Her fingertips traced hesitantly around the small circlet of silver on her numb, slight pinky. She was afraid to touch it, fearing if she placed one trembling finger on the ring, it would disappear just as Armin did. Annie cursed her irrationality and twisted the smooth, cool metal around her finger. It wouldn't matter if it disappeared, since Armin—the only one who knew the importance of the ring—was gone already. The others thought he had returned her infamous ring to her as a sign of good faith, but there was a secret meaning between the exchange that was meant only for the two of them. A promise the boy had meant to make good on when he returned.
Annie dropped her hands and sighed. It was no use thinking of it now, as nothing would ever come of it. She closed her eyes—
—and upon opening them, resisted the urge to roll them once again. She watched with narrowed eyes as Dr. Ackerman, the most skilled and precise surgeon on their entire staff, fretted like a mother hen over her adoptive brother. The "Suicidal Master" was what the others had dubbed the male emergency responder, as he was the one responsible for saving a remarkable number of victims after charging into dangerous and unstable situations. Annie didn't know why the boy was so obsessed with saving people. She supposed it might have been something to do with her past, but she didn't know the boy very well, other than he had a dangerous temper at times. What Annie did know was that Eren's heroic actions often angered the driver of the ambulance, Jean Kirschtein. He boasted that his superior driving was what enabled the brunet to reach the harmed and injured so quickly, though very few ever paid attention to the older man's exhausted claims.
"You're twisting that ring again, Annie," an amused voice sounded behind the blonde. The girl started and turned around to see who was speaking. Mina Carolina, one of Annie's friendliest patients, who was admitted to Survey General after a serious head injury, smiled up at the girl from her hospital bed. "You always do it when you're angry or anxious," she added.
Annie looked down at the tiny silver ring around her pinky. She hadn't realized she had been twisting it until she noticed the red, raw marks encircling her thin finger. It was a useless habit she had picked up, though Annie never knew where or when. As for the ring, it was an equally useless item she had slipped on one day without knowing why and she hadn't removed it since. Connie Springer, who worked at the gift shop on the main floor, was an obnoxious fan of the supernatural and claimed that the ring must've have been something important in a past life. Annie regarded the young man's mad ranting with poorly veiled skepticism.
"It's nothing, Mina," Annie answered after a long pause. Mina Carolina nodded patiently. She knew the blonde nurse was a private person who rarely shared her thoughts.
Reiner Braun, the newest intern to the nursing staff, on the other hand, did not mind intruding on Annie's personal thoughts. "She's just upset that they're taking that blond guy in a coma off of life support." Annie gritted her teeth and turned away, resisting the urge to bury a fist into the muscular blond's gut.
Mina blinked once, not sure if she knew who they were talking about. "Who?"
Another male nurse glanced over at the frowning girl and bit his lip. A small bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face, though it was relatively cold in the sterile room. "No one knows who he is," he answered nervously, watching Annie's face darken considerably. "Because no next of kin ever found us, we can't keep him on the machine anymore," he added sadly. "We've hit the maximum time allowed to keep him alive without consent."
"Oh," Mina murmured. She was sorry she asked.
"It's fine," Annie muttered, regretting how harsh and insincere her voice sounded. She lowered her gaze and backed out from the room.
It was true that no next of kin had ever claimed the young blond man lying in the bed. It was true that he was nameless and remained a mystery for as long as Annie or any of the others had been working at Survey General. The only person who had been present when the infamous coma patient was admitted was a particularly short and snappy head janitor, who no one wanted to involve themselves with.
However, the comatose young man was not nameless nor was he without a family. The small group of young and talented workers at Survey General had tentatively adopted the blond, often checking up on the patient several times a week each. The only indication of his identity had been a faded letter folded in his pocket that had since gone missing in an unknown storage locker on the third or fourth floor. The only visible words had been "Dear Armin" in a dark, pressed cursive that reminded Annie slightly of her own messy print.
So the boy was dubbed with the name "Armin" and became the favorite patient of those working at Survey General. The comatose young man soon transformed from a patient to a silent receiver of deep confessions and earnest wishes alike.
Of all the people who were a part of Armin's surrogate family, Annie Leonhardt was the most frequent visitor. Sometimes she came to vent when her day was stressful or when the others made stupid, offensive snarks. Sometimes she came to recount the little miracles in her day that made life seem bright and happy again. Sometimes Annie only came to watch the young man sleep, trapped in her own curious thoughts instead of voicing them out loud.
But sometimes Annie would tell Armin about her dreams. Dreams that found her no matter where she went or what drug she took. Dreams about horrific, bloodthirsty monsters with gaping grins and abnormally proportioned lumps for bodies. Dreams that sometimes included her coworkers and sometimes dreams just about she and Armin. In her dreams, he had a sparkling personality with a brilliance so bright it almost hurt to stare at him for long. He would laugh and he would cry and seem so human and real that Annie wasn't sure which hurt more. Seeing him alive in a world where nothing was real or lying almost dead in a world that was.
Often she would wake herself in a fit of terror when one of the monsters killed one of her coworkers—or worse, him. Even when she was able to suffer through one of the nightmares, it always ended with a flash of light and then nothing. She didn't understand what any of it meant and the indifferent uncertainty frightened her more than the boy's agonizing death in her dreams.
Even though she knew the young man's personality was merely a figment of her imagination, Annie knew she was slowly slipping into love with him. Every patient smile in her dreams or every steady rise and fall of his chest made the girl love him more and more, as if she had loved him deeply in a past life. Annie would never announce this to anyone (as only Connie would believe her), but she allowed the feeling to fester in her chest, nurturing the fire with light, hesitant touches and soft smiles as tinder.
It was the last moment before they had to official take Armin off of life support. Everyone had crowded around the young man's bed and each held an appendage or scrap of fabric as they waited for the inevitable last pulse of life. Even Connie Springer from the gift shop and Sasha from the dining hall were present, as was Mikasa Ackerman, who had managed to swap shifts with another surgeon. Even Jean and Eren were waiting, hoping desperately that emergency calls wouldn't force them away from the blond patient's bedside.
Although no one knew if Armin was religious or not, Reverend Smith was invited to perform some sort of final rites for the boy. The tall, muscular blond man entered the room, donned in dark clothes and a somber expression. His murmured words to the comatose young man were so faint that Annie could barely make out anything apart from a whispered "miracle." He glanced towards Dr. Hanji, the head doctor at Survey General, and shook his head sadly.
The equally solemn woman frowned and reached for the machine that was softly pumping air into Armin's lungs with a faint wheezing.
"Remo—"
"Wait!" Annie made her decision. It was crazy; it was impulsive; it was so incredibly not Annie Leonhardt. She was cold, calculated, and emotionless.
Hanji blinked at the young woman. "Wha—Miss Leonhardt? Do you want to say something?"
She had fallen in love with him. Both the impossible, warm Armin in her mind and the cold Armin lying motionless on the sterile, stark hospital bed. She couldn't imagine spending a moment without having his patient ear to confide in or his cool hand to hold. But somehow she couldn't vocalize any of this without making it sound like mad rambling.
"I—I want to marry Armin!" she blurted, cursing how stupid and juvenile she sounded. She half-expected Hanji to call security to remove her. "If I become this next official kin, then we can't take him off life support," she continued. The plan had seemed so unrealistic and impossible in her head, and she had never believed she would have the courage to say these words out loud.
There was silence in the room apart from the pitiful wheeze of the machine keeping Armin alive.
"I know this is difficu—"
"Can I do it?"
All eyes swiveled from Hanji to Annie to Reverend Smith. The holy man opened and closed his mouth before speaking. "I—I don't know how ethical this is…" he hesitated.
Annie narrowed her eyes at the man. Jean frowned and shrugged. "I don't see how it would bother Armin. I mean, he's in a coma."
"But is it right to keep him barely alive just so you could be happy? Doesn't it seem a bit selfish?"
The blonde froze and looked down at the sleeping young man. She had been so consumed by her desire to keep him alive that she had forgotten about what would have been best for Armin. She wanted the boy to be at peace, but keeping him alive by a machine wouldn't grant him his rest. Annie observed every sunken in facial feature and every pale patch of skin stretched over the young man's gaunt frame. For so long she had concealed his true appearance with the glamour of her dreams. He was dying; he was suffering.
But if he dies, will I still dream about him? I don't want to lose him again.
Again?
Why again?
Annie twisted the silver ring around her sweaty pinky with a partly gapping mouth. Again, she echoed in her head, wondering why that particular word seemed to affect her so strongly.
Once upon a time. The voice in her head sounded vaguely like Connie, though the girl hadn't spoken to him in long time.
"Annie?" The voice jarred her from her thoughts.
"I—" Annie's shoulder's sunk in acceptance. "I'm sorry. I was being selfish. He deserves to be free."
I will be brave.
Annie watched as Hanji again prepared to remove the tube from the young man's slightly parted mouth. Two twitching, tan fingers contrasted sharply as they pressed against the patient's withered, still, and pale wrist.
I will be kind.
It seemed as if everything was moving in excruciatingly slow motion as Hanji gently pulled the ventilation tube from Armin's mouth and wordlessly unplugged the faintly wheezing machine. The loss of the mechanical whirl made the room deathly silent as everyone held their breath for the boy who had yet to take his own. The beeping on the heart rate monitor slowly lost its once rhythmic pulse and began to beat in a slower, weaker tempo. The boy's chest had yet to rise with his own breath, as he was still barely surviving off of the left over oxygen from the ventilator.
—in the highest tower of all the lands—
The beeping of the heart monitor had slowed to a weak pulse.
—to break the spell with true love's kiss—
"Pulse is steadily dropping."
Annie didn't know what she was doing. Connie's voice in her head was urging her to do something childish and ridiculous, but she couldn't stop herself from wishing for a miracle. One moment she was standing by his bed, and the next she was hovering over his pale, serene face. Annie took a deep breath and pressed her mouth against the boy's icy lips. Hushed whispers arose from the gathered crowd, but Annie preferred the disjointed noise to the deathly silent. She didn't know what she was hoping for, but the girl pulled slightly way from the young man's face to gaze at his calm features under her fluttering eyelashes. She felt the fine, dark hairs of her eyelashes sweep gently across the boy's cool skin. Butterfly kisses, she thought wearily, remembering the childhood games she had played so many years ago.
Once upon a t—
"—ime of death," Hanji murmured, "4—"
—ever and ever. The brave and kind knight and his princess.
Annie froze and suddenly pulled away from the boy's face with wide eyes and a slowly shaking head. The others averted their gazes, thinking this was merely Annie's final revelation.
"4:2—"
"Wait!" The breath against Annie's cheek had been so faint that she had almost believed it was her own.
Hanji glanced at the girl and her frown faded into a confused blink. Slowly the young man's chest struggled to lift itself to its maximum height and collapsed with a hoarse wheeze of breath. Again, his chest ballooned with air and released another breath with a gentler, less strained gasp.
He didn't wake up, but he was breathing on his own and that was enough of a miracle for Annie.
The next few days were stressful for everyone, though things were particularly bad for anyone who attempted to separate Annie from her blond patient. Armin had yet to wake up, but once he had squeezed Annie's hand in the middle of the night and when Annie woke up from her dream, the boy's serene face had flickered into a weak smile.
Annie still had difficulty believing this wasn't simply some horrible, twisted nightmare. The incredulous reactions from her coworkers only made the incidence seem more impossible. In fact, only a smug salesman in the gift shop seemed particularly unfazed by the event.
However, the afterglow of the miracle was starting to wear off on several of the blonde's coworkers and her cold, distant attitude was starting to become a bit grating. At the request of several others and a thinly veiled threat by Hanji, Annie reluctantly took two weeks off with the promise that should anything happen to Armin, they would contact her immediately.
When Annie returned after the thirteenth day (as she was unable to wait a full two weeks), the first place she went was where Armin had been resting for the past several years. The girl froze at the sight of an empty bed. She rounded on the nearest person, who unfortunately happened to be Bertholdt.
"Where is he?"
The taller man swallowed nervously, terrified by the slight girl who was nearly half his height. "I—"
"He's gone," Reiner announced, crossing over to the two nurses to aide his sweating friend.
"Gone?" Annie echoed, uncertain if she had heard him right.
Sasha and Connie suddenly appeared at the end of the hallway. What are they doing here?
"Good!" The former smiled with a loud clap of her hands. "I had a feeling you would come a day early. You're just in time!"
"Just in ti—where's Armin?"
No one answered the blonde's question as she was swept away by the excited chattering of Sasha and Connie. At some point, Connie's snickering laugh disappeared and was replaced by the soft, twinkling giggle of Krista, who worked with helping patients and loved ones adjust to change. Ymir, the hospital's head of security, followed at a close distance, watching Annie with narrowed eyes and crossed arms.
What's going on?!
Before Annie knew what was going on, the two more excited girls had pulled Annie's faded white sweatshirt over her head and replaced it with a gown made of crudely stitched bed sheets. Annie looked down at the white garment, opening and closing her mouth in shock. Part of her wanted to rip the sheets off in anger, but another part of her was unable to move.
A forceful shove from Ymir sent the girl stumbling towards the nearest door. However, before the girl could make her escape through the cracked door, Connie appeared holding something behind his back with a mischievous grin. Annie eyed him warily, but froze when the young man revealed what he had been hiding.
An obnoxiously shiny tiara fashioned together out of keychain fragments and cubic zirconium from the gift shop sat perched in the young man's hands. Annie tilted her head and studied the tiara with a confused expression. Something about it seemed familiar, although she was positive that Connie had just thrown together the ostentatious pieces within the past five minutes.
"It's lovely, it's it?" Connie asked, believing himself to be a far better jeweler than his talents seemed to suggest. "Almost like it's from a fairytale…" He watched her with his light bronze eyes and a faded smile on his lips.
Annie nodded slowly, thinking back to a particular dream with a wide eyed princess, a cackling wizard, and a bickering dragon. Once upon a time…
Connie slowly lifted the tiara and fixed it on the girl's head. Although the tiny metal fasteners bit into her scalp and tore at her hair, she did not fight the young man's actions. Instead, she stood completely still, fighting wave after wave of nostalgia and familiarity with a forced expression of blankness.
"You certainly look the part of the princess," Connie murmured, stepping back to admire his handiwork.
Annie's gaze snapped up and searched his face, but the boy gave away nothing with his slight smile. Instead he wordlessly gestured for her to follow him. Annie sluggishly followed the boy, each step bringing back deep-seated memories she had thought were only dreams.
When he opened the door, she was assaulted by a bright light, followed by awed gasping. Her eyes gradually adjusted and she realized with a start that she was surrounded by all of her coworkers—no…friends? Their pleasant faces smiled at her encouragingly as the sudden revelation struck her.
She was standing on a makeshift aisle. She had to still be dreami—she slowly turned her gaze towards what awaited her at the end of the aisle. The young man's general appearance was gaunt and weak, but he smiled at her with the same, beautiful smile from her dreams. He was leaning heavily against Eren and his pinstripe pajamas hung loose on his thin frame, but he looked happy. She walked slowly towards him, deciding that maybe her decision all those weeks ago to marry him wasn't built solely on impulse, but also on something that had been burning in her soul for decades.
His eyes caught on the gaudy, flashy tiara perched on her head and in that instant, she realized it was never a dream. His bright eyes widened and his mouth fell into a shocked slack before he righted it into an even more radiant grin. He knew. She remembered. He took her hand in his own thin grasp and ran a warm finger over her ring and their promise.
Reverend Smith didn't even manage to finish the ceremony. He merely stepped back with a bemused smile as the two young lovers finally found each other after years apart with true love's kiss.
Maybe Connie was right. Maybe happily ever afters do exist.
So, we all know who the real star of this fic was. E'rybody give it up for Connie "The Wizard" Springer!
Yes, it was beyond cheesy. Yes, it was dorky. Yes, it was probably technically/legally/medically impossible. BUT ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this fic. I'm sorry if I caused you mental or physical anguish. But not really.
(Technically, I've done my good deed with the AruAni fluff, so expect more angsty fics in the future...heh heh...)
((Also, I may or may not continue this Survey General AU in the future. Maybe keep a look out for a new fic focusing solely on the others maybe sometime in the future...? I have big plans! Any of you JeanMarco shippers? }:] ))