Armin's stride was fuelled by an excess of energy and he needed to put everything into not storming through the mineshaft. Sure, he'd left Bertholdt with an aura of confidence after turning the tide against him, but in turn, his hurry to get out of there before he could inadvertently undo his work again left him surrounded by darkness because he'd forgotten to pick up the lantern by the gate. He sure as hell wasn't going to turn back for it. Bertholdt would hear and get ideas. Armin knew the layout of the mine decently by now anyway, he could solve the issue with a bit of care and a hand extended into the empty void ahead of him.

This unease that gradually twisted inside his mind as he removed himself further and further from that cell, though? He wasn't so sure how well he'd solve that issue in the long run. To feel so victorious and yet so utterly defeated at the same time, so fulfilled and so trivial at once — that couldn't possibly do him any good.

What was he thinking? There was no doubt that his steadfast refusal to give Bertholdt what he wanted had won Armin back all the ground Bertholdt had gained by claiming there was nothing Armin could say or do to convince him to work with him. By all accounts, he shouldn't feel this defeated. He hadn't lost. But good luck conveying that to his stubborn brain after it was allowed a full day and night to reflect on all the ways he'd fucked this up before getting a new chance. Bertholdt's tactics only preyed on an already weak mind, but ultimately, the blame was Armin's. The arguments hadn't yet been formulated and he already felt useless over allowing Bertholdt to get under his skin for even a second.

So that was how things got so bad down here. It was far too easy to blame Bertholdt for one's personal shortcomings, brand him as a pest with the sole goal of ruining anyone who came within the vicinity of him or his lair, when in reality, he was probably just doing what he needed to out of self-preservation. Of course the policemen would resort to violence on a bad day.

Armin promised himself he'd use these despicable conditions right back against Bertholdt if it meant bringing him even a step closer to earning his trust.

His boot caught onto a rise in the mine floor, and had his hand not been in front of him, Armin would have broken his nose as he stumbled forward and his forearm caught his fall against a wall, landing on one knee as the other barely still supported him. Muttering a silent curse under his breath as the sting of chafed skin spread through his arm and leg, he pushed himself upright and hoped that he hadn't made enough noise for Bertholdt to notice, but Armin had heard that low noise coming from the depths of the mineshaft that unmistakably belonged to that of a stifled laugh.

Great job. Any semblance of that confident image he saved by refusing to go back, he'd just shattered against a wall. Brilliant. He reached down to pick up the notebook he'd dropped before scrambling his way out of this hellhole.

"Heeey, look who it is. Back already?" the policeman with the unevenly cut hair greeted him, almost chanting at his defeat. Before Armin had the chance to respond, the policeman already continued his chortle in a way that was too calculated to be a natural response. "You know, at least it took your Commander nine days before the Colossal broke their spirit. Their chosen Colossal whisperer can't even spend two days with it without coming out scowling?"

If Armin hadn't realised just how tense his facial muscles were when he'd entered the main area, this jab made it nearly impossible for him to relax them again. Regardless, he gave it an attempt, but that didn't stop him from glaring daggers accompanying his response.

"I suppose that aside from playing dull cardgames and abusing your prisoner, you have nothing better to do down here than to rehearse lines to spit out at me."

He placed his notebook and his backpack down on an empty table, not bothering to perceive his hosts' reaction to his words. He didn't need to see them to hear their strangled silence. Maybe that'd help them feel some shame.

"Hey, at least we know how to do our job," retorted his brunette colleague finally, leaning her head on her hand. You've been lazing off since yesterday. You've been down there for, what, less than an hour in total? And you can't even tell anyone why you're leaving so early. What are you even doing there? You pretending to be hard at work to scam the taxpayers, kid?" Her tone made it abundantly clear he'd struck a nerve.

"Come on, cut him some slack. No one can get through to the Colossal," the blonde policewoman who'd accompanied Armin in the lift earlier this morning responded in his stead. "It's not his fault that it's so stubborn."

"Actually, I did get through to him. Bertholdt and I had a brief conversation today. I'm ahead of schedule the way things are going," Armin replied. Before the policemen were able to shoot him down for trying, he continued, working on undoing his backpack's straps as he spoke. "Oh, by the way, I gave him several items today. I'd like to urge you not to take them away from him or damage them, it's important that he has them. You will set me back and negatively impact humanity's chances of survival if you rob him of his possessions. It's your duty as Military Policemen to act in humanity's best interest."

The brunette got up at that, and the mood in the cavern noticeably changed. "Huh? Items? What did you bring down here!?"

Armin's eyes darted back towards her and they entered a hostile glaring match.

"A sleeping bag and a blanket. If you think he can do anything with those that compromises security down here, you should rethink your position and offer it up to someone more fit for it."

A sense of accomplishment emboldened Armin when the brunette got up during his explanation and grabbed a lantern before disappearing into the mineshaft. The scowl he got from the other brunet gave him the push he needed to continue.

"Oh, and might I remind you that your superiors set in place rules down here. Please follow them, I will have to report to them if there is evidence you misuse your authority. The more often you use violence against him, the smaller the chance that he will cooperate with us." He narrowed his eyes. "I can't imagine how far behind the rest of the world we are in terms of technological advancement. Doing anything to him would only seal our fate."

He stored his notebook into his backpack, eyes briefly trailing over the two policemen who were having a damned hard time responding, then went back to closing the straps. He couldn't stifle the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips.

"Yeesh, kid, you're a real brat. Were you raised by snakes or did you come out of the womb spitting venom?" the brunet finally responded, forcing his voice to sound unimpressed by the retort.

"Ah, let it go, Trav, he's clearly tired. Got a shadow under his eyes and all," the short blonde came to his defence. Armin subconsciously ran one hand over his lower eyelid to find it even more swollen than it was this morning. In hindsight, he was glad Bertholdt didn't see him in this state. "Must be those rotten beds up in the barracks, it took me weeks before I stopped waking up with a sore back every morning."

"I ain't letting him yip at us if he's coming down here every day, Romi," Trav snarked, and Romi put up her hands in a placating manner, dipping her head forward and averting her wide eyes in lack of impression. "If he's gonna be childish because he can't handle a bad bed, he should get himself a sleeping bag and sleep down here."

Armin looked back down upon his backpack. He wondered how close the policemen down here were to tearing each other apart on a daily basis. Maybe it was the lack of sunlight, maybe this was just how policemen were when unsupervised. Things had to get tense around here, so following that advice and staying down here for entire days together with them without seeing the open sky sounded like hell. Armin definitely wasn't going to drive things that far, even if his bed was indeed of low quality and its worn wooden frame was a factor in keeping him up all night as he tossed and turned.

"That would be detrimental for my recovery. I need the support that the beds on the surface offer."

Trav looked at Armin like he'd just entered the room unannounced. "Who asked you for your life story?"

"Your colleague brought it up, I'm only responding," Armin said, his annoyance shining through in tone.

"Hey, hey, it's not all that serious. Relax." Trav stretched his arms above him before slouching back down lazily, leaning his stubbled chin on his hand. "Just admit that you can't fully dedicate yourself to helping humanity and your loved ones and all of that, will ya? You're not any better than your Commander. Oh, and you ain't better than us either."

How underhanded. Armin wanted to defend himself, but he forced himself to stay calm instead. This wasn't a storm he'd let himself get swept up by. He'd rationally won the argument and now that they couldn't retort, they were reaching for ways to anger him.

To think that these MPs were even more venomous than Bertholdt was. At least he just wanted to get Armin to leave with his difficult propositions. The MPs' display was just there to taunt him, lower him to their level and get him caught up in the excitement of pointless back-and-forth when everything else bored them.

He shouldn't be this angry that they were trying. It came with the environment, they would have talked trash to anyone who came down here to try. That's how policemen were when they got stuffed away in a dark crevice of the earth with no supervision.

But maybe this was a good thing. Maybe this would prove useful to him. If the policemen were just a little more callous towards Bertholdt in response to Armin challenging their authority, how would Armin's own small gestures of comfort look in comparison?

"Hey, why was the Colossal smiling when I went to check up? What did you do?" the brunette interrupted his thoughts as she entered the cavern again.

So Bertholdt had heard him, even had a long-lasting reaction to it. Armin didn't turn his head towards the woman — with the heat that was flushing into his cheeks, he was better off keeping his eyes on his backpack, where they'd been pinned most of the conversation prior despite being long done with the straps, hands now clinging to the leather.

"It surprises you that he's in a good mood after talking to a friendly face? I gave him an alternative to boredom. Is that suspicious to you?"

"Okay," the woman mumbled, tone strict. "What do you think you're doing talking like that?"

When Armin looked her way, she was already fast approaching. She had to be aware of how she was using her height to intimidate him, standing more than a head taller than him, and he fought the urge to flinch.

"Oi! Answer me!" A shove landed against his shoulder, and she halted in her pace far too close inside Armin's bubble. Failing to balance his weight on the foot he put behind himself to catch the push, he went tumbling to the floor with a crack that he hoped wasn't one of his wrists.

Armin saw black for a moment as the fall reverberated through his head and kickstarted another migraine. Crawling backwards a bit and propping himself up on his elbows, he gritted his teeth, then looked up through eyes that wouldn't see, to shoot a defiant look at her.

"It is my job to–"

"No, it is my job to keep order down in this place, and you barge in here messing with the system we've set up and making yourself at home. What, you think that because you crippled yourself in some important battle that you can do whatever you want?"

She was almost shouting, and through the void that clouded Armin's vision, he saw she stood over him in a way that would make kicking him effortless. For a moment, he recoiled.

"What? No, that's not–"

"Don't think I didn't hear you preach about rules when I went to check up on the Colossal, like you own the place. Think you're special because you signed up for the Survey Corps and you went on your honourable little suicide missions because you had something to prove? The hundreds who did die are below you because you were lucky? Give me a break, you're all the same."

She kicked him in the ribs and his vision blacked out again, leaving him coughing up saliva and crawling away on his side until he hit a wall. The policewoman turned around, creating some distance between them. For once, he was left bewildered, unsure whether he should follow that bubbling desire to talk back to her or if he wanted to keep quiet in order to avoid getting assaulted again. If he could speak through his coughing in the first place.

Her eyes fell on him once more before he could decide, over her shoulder, and he froze.

"Listen," she sighed as her shoulders lowered, like she was ready to cut him some slack. "I don't give a damn about what you've been through to make you this entitled, you don't know shit about how things work down here. Anything you wanna do, you do by the books and you pass by me. Don't come dragging in your garbage, keep your mouth shut around us, and don't even pretend you're anyone's boss down here. Do your job, which is talking to the Colossal, and then leave again. Know your place."

Armin fought his hardest to suppress his anger from spilling out of him in the form of tears and sharp retorts, but it was hard when his nerves were pounding through his entire body. What did he do before the military, when he was getting thrown around and beaten up by his bullies?

Right, Eren and Mikasa would step in and rescue him. He really wished that they were there for him this time, but he'd declined any offers to come support him. Dammit.

The policewoman finally shut up and walked away from him again after staring him down one last time, shallow judgement in her eyes. Trav had his eyes glued on him, still seated at a table, as Romi had gotten up somewhere along the altercation but hadn't interfered, now looking down on him from afar with pity.

"The hell, Sve, did you really have to throw the kid?" Trav asked her, clearly struggling to suppress a grin.

"Shut the fuck up," she responded, shoving him as she walked past, a move he couldn't return because she'd already left his range when he swung for her, having foreseen he'd retaliate. "If you're too incompetent to muzzle him, I will."

She walked over to a table and sat down, and with the dust of the scuttle settling, Armin had the space of mind to take note of how badly that fall had hurt. Pain from being punched, kicked, and landing on his tailbone radiated all the way through his spine, his ribs, his shoulders, and his legs, and his palms ached from catching his fall against the rough cavern floor. On top of that, his forearm and knee still ached from his fall earlier down in the mineshaft. At least it didn't feel like he'd broken anything, if there was anything positive to be said about what had just happened, but who knew when the adrenaline settled and the pain of a potential broken bone was no longer suppressed by the heat of the moment.

Gods, he wanted to retort so badly. He would've, if he didn't need his body to be in perfect shape to come back down here to negotiate with Bertholdt every day. He couldn't risk getting beaten again and having to leave Tourze due to excessive injury, if that weren't the case already. That talk he'd had with Bertholdt just minutes ago already felt weeks removed from where he was now and Armin could already tell he wasn't getting much sleep that night after so much had happened in so little time.

He pushed up on his elbow, pivoting his upper body and pulling his legs closer until he hunched over them. With a few pushes on his wrists and feet, he stood up again, ignored by Sve but still stared down by a smug Trav as Romi, who had now also sat down again, averted her eyes. The damage became real clear now that he stood again — searing through his back, mostly, but also putting strain on his knees and ankles for some reason.

A few steps and he was by the table to grab his backpack. For once today, the universe spared him, because Romi stood up from her seat when she saw him on the move. "I'll escort you back, Armin."

At least he wouldn't have to worry about having to ask the people who'd just assaulted him to take him back. Armin was already on his way out, so Romi got out from behind the table, grabbed a pair of lanterns, and ran after him. "Thank you," Armin said when she caught up, but he didn't watch to see if she reacted to that.

"Here." She offered him one of her lanterns. Armin didn't respond, only taking it from her. His head was still pounding and he wasn't so sure how well he'd do in a conversation right now.

Neither said anything for a while. Armin knew he'd sound agitated if he spoke up now, and that could end up antagonising the only policeman who'd supported him so far down here.

Romi was the first to break the silence. "I think we're out of earshot, so… You should probably really keep quiet in the future. It's not really Svea's fault, it's just that we can't have just about anything fly, you know? And I'm saying that now because she would get mad if she heard me saying this."

To push back now was not a good idea, so he decided he'd let her talk to herself, but she was done after that. In the silence, he could almost hear his body tremble, and he was too upset to think of everything that had just gone down when he was still in the vicinity of someone who might see him scowl or hear him growl.

"It was Armin, right?" she asked after a few minutes of walking, looking sideways to make eye contact.

Armin decided he shouldn't be as rude as to not return it, so he looked back at her and briefly nodded before looking ahead of himself to avoid stumbling onto the mine floor again. Knowing his luck, he'd fall on top of his lantern and set himself on fire. The lack of funding to import Reiss cavern rocks for lights could prove against his favour and he wasn't risking it.

"Right. Armin," she reiterated. "Not that many people cycle through here, so I always have a hard time remembering new names and faces. But yours is memorable, I don't think I will forget anytime soon."

Okay, good for you, Armin thought. He walked on, as fast as his legs allowed him to, and she must've finally caught on to his aversion to a conversation because the rest of the walk back was spent in silence.

Armin threw the door to his room closed behind him. For once, he couldn't care less that Hange or any of the police in the building would perceive his presence so strongly. Their colleagues would just love to gossip about how he'd gotten his ass kicked by Svea, how he'd left the mine in a bad mood, how he'd parted from Romi with just a "goodbye" and nothing else after she had been kind enough to offer to escort him back. For a moment, it didn't matter to him.

It was to be expected the police would be condescending and Bertholdt's reaction was one of his most likely outcomes, yet the anger he directed at himself only fuelled his frustration. He'd been caught off-guard by Bertholdt's words. Armin hadn't known him to try to manipulate anyone like that before, and it still was hard to accept him this way after trying to give him the benefit of the doubt for so long.

He would definitely need to do better if he wanted to make a difference. Maybe that was why there was that tightness in his chest that urged him to punch the nearest wall.

Sure, break your hand while you're at it, like that fall in the mine didn't do a number on it already. Idiot.

He needed to rest his back after the damage his two falls had done on him, he needed to get a break from the demons in the recesses of his mind reminding him of what a horrible failure he was for messing things up so badly, he needed shut-eye. He needed so much, but most of all, he needed distraction.

Letting his body fall into the bed, he immediately rolled onto his front and grabbed his pillow, pressing his face deep into it before shouting his lungs out in one long breath, his entire body tense as every single muscle coiled up in frustration and finally unwound when he really had exhausted all he had and he needed to gasp for air.

Was visiting daily really that good of an idea if he was going to come back in such a bad mood every time? After yesterday, he could barely close an eye at night. Today, he came out more disillusioned than anything and felt like he was just wasting his time. It was bad enough that he came within an inch of throwing the towel and going home again.

That didn't sound healthy. He needed to protect himself. A week of this could easily destroy him entirely if he didn't protect himself. From Bertholdt, from his constant refusal to cooperate, from the Military Police, from his body's risk of renewed deterioration if he kept pushing it, from himself. From those thoughts that told him he hadn't a clue what the hell he was doing, from that voice that told him that it would never work, from the look on his friends' faces as they patronisingly comforted him for something they saw coming the moment he'd suggested his plan.

What a farce.

He wasn't sure exactly when he'd run out of steam, but it was still light out when he woke up again with a dry mouth, a migraine splitting his head open, and muscle aches so bad it felt like he'd broken his back and arms. Rolling from his front to his side with a loud creak from the bed, he ran his hands over his waist between his ribs and his hips, massaging the soreness out of his flesh. He wasn't quite as mad now that the wounds weren't so fresh anymore.

First things first. He got out of bed and made his way over to the lavatory quarters in search of a mirror. Pulling his shirt over his head and holding it against his stomach, he surveyed the damage. Both elbows scraped, his right sporting a crust of blood that had seeped and dried into the fabric of his shirt. Purple bruises around his shoulder and across his ribs. The scarred ridges adorning his neck, chin, and shoulders looked more raw than they usually would; maybe a side effect of the moisture down in the mines? His burnt arms had a gross pink in colour. His emaciated build only added to their grotesque appearance.

Putting down his shirt and removing his bandages, his wrists and palms were in equally bad shape after catching his fall twice, painted with bruises and scrapes but still too relatively painlessly flexible to suggest a fracture when he bent them. He didn't have the heart to dwell on his face for too long, not liking what he saw in the brief moments there was eye contact.

"Keep going… Don't give up. Don't run away. You've done this before, you'll do it again," he whispered to the cold glass, and when he stared into those blue eyes in front of him once again, he found them tinged with worn tenacity.

It would have to do.

He brought his newly-fetched cup to his lips to check if the tea inside wasn't too hot, taking a careful few sips when he found its temperature to his liking. Curled into bed once more with his back supported by the headboard padded by his pillow, he found that the hot liquid soothed both his throbbing headache and his bad mood.

He leisurely flicked through the pages of the binder on his lap, more invested in his thoughts than in the words before him. Maybe thirst was why he'd been put into such a bad mood. Had he drunk enough in the morning? It was uncharacteristic for him to worry about these things so much, yet he was on edge every time he went down into that mine; even if there was nothing there that could harm Armin, the cold and dark environment did unsettle him. Something about going underground always gnawed at him ever since he almost got buried alive back in Stohess. It went back to that ominous feeling he'd had in the back of his mind the evening before.

Fingers tapped onto the final page of the schematics detailing the equipment that enveloped Bertholdt's limbs and prevented him from fully regenerating. Textile under metal under leather, woven beneath his regenerated skin so that it could only be taken off under the payment of blood and pulled taut over his body with the use of hundreds of metal-reinforced leather straps and a harness that limited Bertholdt's movements.

Perhaps it wasn't quite as captivating on his third read as it was on his first, but that didn't pull him out of its orbit.

Not yet, he thought. There's always time later, take it easy first. He'd thought it when he grabbed the binder off of his desk as a distraction but decided that he needed lighter reading material after he'd opened it at the printed section detailing the Battle for Shiganshina, he'd thought it when he'd reached the end of the schematics, and he'd thought it when he'd gone for a cup of tea between his second and third read.

Now that his mind was getting bored from the lack of new information and his cup was empty, he couldn't justify it any longer. This distraction no longer sufficed.

One of these days, he was going to have to read the battle report.

Was today going to be that day? Was today his last chance? After all that had happened earlier, he deserved some respite to answer what exactly had gone down that day.

Four months.

Four entire months where everyone had assumed that Armin was relatively up-to-date on the battle — he'd been a part of it, after all, and he didn't have the heart to remind them that he had fallen unconscious after being burned and woke up only days later.

Some details reached him, scattered in conversations he pieced together. Bertholdt had attempted to kidnap Eren, failed, and ended up getting cut down and falling to his death, spending several hours declared deceased before his eyes locked onto one of them. The serum Captain Levi carried on him was never mentioned again by anyone. He couldn't get himself to ask why. It made most sense that after so much combat, the serum's vial might have broken long before they even had an enemy shifter to strip of their power. Something caused Eren and Mikasa to be jailed for a day, but neither of them had filled him in on what it was for and Armin chose not to press the issue after they kept avoiding it.

A fog hung over the battle, like it was nothing more than a fever dream. He'd had a conversation with Bertholdt before negotiations failed. Scalding air rushed past his back as he failed to stop the Colossal Titan's transformation. There was a promise. Fear, pride, survival, all of them decayed into freedom as he accepted that his best friend would be the one to achieve their dream for them and he found his resolution that this was exactly what he wanted and he was ready to sacrifice his life to take down Bertholdt with him.

And yet, strung up in those jets of steam, all he could feel was the utter terror that his impending doom sent through every bloodied limb, every fibre of his body, every crevice of his soul when he understood he was going to die.

What did that amount to, in the end?

Everyone liked to praise him for helping in his defeat. In reality, Armin's questions about how much his actions truly contributed to the Colossal Titan's defeat and subsequent capture were always evaded with the reassurance that he was the biggest reason that they got him. If their constant coddling of him after his injuries were anything to go by, they very well wouldn't want him to think that his near-death and the painful disability that followed were all for nothing.

In all that rhetoric, they forgot to reason that the fact that they had captured Bertholdt alive without taking his titan itself meant that Armin had already failed. But when they went to such lengths to reassure Armin that he'd contributed meaningfully, it would simply be inappropriate for him to react with vitriol.

This situation was ideal. A battle report wasn't his friend. A battle report wouldn't attempt to spare his feelings, least of all a battle report that wasn't meant for his eyes.

Of course he was doing this for the greater good. That smidgeon of guilt in the back of his mind was lying; the personal satisfaction of sating his morbid curiosity was merely a side effect of what he had to do to save this island, what horrific accounts he'd have to revisit. Paradis benefited from him gaining this knowledge. It wasn't purely selfish.

He sighed softly through his nose, deciding to forego wondering how many layers of rhetoric he had wrapped himself up in. He put down his now empty cup back on his nightstand, next to the water pitcher and glass he'd fetched after cleaning his wounds, and turned the pages until he was at the Battle for Shiganshina's report.

They spared no details about the operation. Number of carts, number of horses down to their breeds, an overview of all the scouts who'd joined the mission, the cost of the whole thing (Armin suddenly understood the taxpayers' complaints just a little better), and the intricate details of their route. There was a description of the early battle, the projected strategy and how it had gone in reality, and the fight against the Armoured Titan and against the Colossal Titan's human form. Very few details on the conversation they'd had before Bertholdt transformed. Maybe Armin could assist in completing the report later, though if they wanted it this detailed, it was odd that they hadn't bothered to ask him about what he'd heard (but gods did he not care about that aspect right now). And finally, that failed plan of Armin's to take Bertholdt down that he dreaded to read again.

From this moment on, Armin had passed out and all he'd learned was by word of mouth. The grip of his fingers tightened onto the pages in anticipation.

Eren had been unable to carry out the plan after Bertholdt unexpectedly stopped his assault of steam and chose for smaller bursts, and he'd only been able to rescue Armin when Bertholdt was too distracted by the Beast Titan's human form. Zeke, as they'd learned was his name from interrogating Bertholdt. After that, Eren took Armin to the river to douse his burns. Bertholdt tried to attack Eren but was intercepted and defeated in his final flight.

These were the things Eren had told him. With more calm and composure and fewer death threats to Bertholdt than Armin was used to from his best friend, but it was how he'd approached anything in the past months and felt more like a growth spurt in maturity than anything to worry about.

What Eren hadn't detailed to him was Bertholdt's chase through the city following his retreating comrades, ending with him falling to his death when jumping off of the wall and trying to transform. He'd been stopped only by a lucky hit from Captain Levi's maneuvering gear anchor that cancelled his transformation. It was a detail that was heavily underlined as useful knowledge; Armin had come across the outcome of this new knowledge many times in the interrogation reports. Bertholdt lacked a pulse by the simple fact that his chest's contents had been pulverised and torn out of his chest when he'd fallen down, pierced by the anchor which ripped out again straight through his back when the wire ran out of length.

Despite that, Levi still grabbed his broken corpse and rushed it back into the city. He wanted to try to feed Bertholdt to a survivor, hoping that his body still had the power to revive a titanised comrade even after it had become devoid of all life. By the river, the remaining survivors had gathered to plan. The barrage of boulders on the other side of the wall had only left two survivors: a new Survey Corps recruit — Floch, one of Armin's fellow 104th trainees that he didn't know so well and who'd survived miraculously unscathed — and the mortally wounded Commander Erwin Smith. The serum, still fully intact, was taken out of its case and a dispute broke out over its destination.

Armin's blood ran cold at the wording. Intact, not broken or lost. No one had mentioned a choice like this when recounting the events of the battle to him.

He uneasily pulled his knees closer to his body, repositioning his body slightly to get a better grip on the report.

Levi, Hange, and Floch wanted to inject the titan serum into Erwin to revive him and let him inherit the Colossal Titan. Eren argued that Armin was a dead man at this rate and demanded that the injection went to him instead. He'd claimed that Armin would be a far greater asset to the island than the Commander (in what world was that true?), that he'd be the one to save them (what could he even do to save anyone?), and that leaving Armin's life in the hands of fate was a mistake (just how lucky had he been to survive, let alone with this little scarring or disability?).

Using his veto over the serum's destination, Levi chose for the Commander's revival.

There was that nausea again, that anticipation that made his body break out in cold sweat and his eyes unfocus. Armin reached for the pitcher of water and filled himself a glass to wash down the anxiety but found his fingers trembling against it.

Who else would the Captain have chosen? There wasn't anything personal about this choice, it was all about Paradis, never about a random soldier among the Survey Corps' ranks.

So why did it make Armin nervous to think about this decision?

What happened to the serum between this decision and the injection?

His jaws clamped down hard as an answer formulated to the question, and the only reason his mind didn't float into terrifying depths was because he had the answer right in front of him. He set his glass aside and hunched over the file.

Levi had ordered everyone out of the area to inject Erwin. Hange had to coax the scouts into leaving this decision in Levi's hands. Most of them left, accepting the decision was beyond their control. Armin's eyes trailed over the next sentence, repeating every word in his head as he read over it again and again until its meaning truly sunk in.

'Unwilling to obey Captain Levi's command, Yeager attacked him. His reckless charge led to the loss of the serum, leaving the Survey Corps unable to reclaim the power of the Colossal Titan.'

His hands wouldn't move, not that he tried.

His mind was blank, overwhelmed by emotions that shook him to the core and left him unable to act.

His lips lay parted as strained breaths forced their way through.

Finally, with a soft push from his left hand, he closed the binder, staring out in front of him at nothing in particular as the world around him stood at a halt and all he felt was his frozen heart constricting his chest.

He was useless.

No, even less than useless.

His plan effectively hindered the capture of Bertholdt, of his powers, of the one hopeful light that could drag Paradis out of the dark. If his plan hadn't failed, there wouldn't be a second candidate for the serum and there wouldn't be a fight over who got the life-saving injection. They would have had the power of the Colossal Titan at their disposal right now. They would have stood a chance against Marley.

He was the reason Commander Erwin was dead. The reason humanity's hope had perished.

Nausea welled up inside him and he had to clasp his hand over his mouth not to throw up, too shocked to think about grabbing for his glass to swallow it all down. His heart was pounding in his neck, nails digging deep into the flesh of his thighs.

Why hadn't anyone told him? Why had they protected him from this information?

He'd been around Eren and Mikasa, around Levi and Hange, around military officials, shamelessly unaware that he was the cause for the loss of such a key player to Paradis' survival.

Why hadn't anyone told him?

The question repeated itself to him over and over again, but he couldn't find the answer. Not just why, but how? Not one spiteful official had snarked at him about it? Was this why they were extra venomous towards Armin down in the mine, or did no one but a handful of people know about this? Had it been covered up, just like Bertholdt's survival?

Why hadn't anyone told him?

This should've been the first thing they'd told him when he'd woken up back in September, not something he read in a report all the way in January. Why couldn't anyone have given him the courtesy to tell him? Why did they even welcome him back into the Survey Corps' ranks in the first place?

Why hadn't there been a single person who told him?

Was that why they were coddling him? Because they were afraid he'd find out the truth that he wasn't chosen, the truth that he was responsible for one of the steepest losses their island would ever have to suffer barring its destruction that his failure would lead to? Were they too kind to tell him that he was useless, that the Commander had been wrong to trust him, that he was ultimately a detriment to the Survey Corps' ranks? He'd noticed that the people around him treated him with exceptional delicateness, but he always thought that was because of his injuries. How was he ever supposed to grow and gain more experience if his flaws weren't pointed out to him, least of all a glaring flaw like costing them their Commander and the only serum they had? How could they expect him to learn like this? Why did they think silence was a good option?

Why?

It was a kick to the face.

He didn't need to be protected like this.

If his mistakes had led to such a catastrophic outcome, he should've been told. Why wasn't he in jail when Eren and Mikasa had to spend a day in there before they'd been released? Wasn't he a much more important cause to their loss of the serum? Reckless action undertaken by someone whose confidence had gotten to his head… That type of insubordination sounded like something the military would definitely punish. If not with imprisonment, then with death.

Armin swallowed hard at the thought. If they were going to execute him, they would've done it already. Maybe punishment was yet to come when he was healthy enough to spend time in prison. He didn't want to think about it.

And after spending months by Armin's side, couldn't Eren and Mikasa have told him that this had happened? Who benefitted from his ignorance?

Turns out, he did. Like everything about this plan of his.

Eren would have suffered the loss of his best friend, not Armin. He'd be blissfully unaware in death.

Bertholdt would've died a terrified and panicked death he couldn't have prepared for, not Armin. He came fully prepared.

The others would have had to solve the conflict, not Armin. He'd be absolved, immortalised as what may be a hero.

Did any part of his plan even take into account the others?

No.

Never.

He put aside the binder and notebook, his intent to further extract useful details from this report long buried under disgust.

He was done.

Dropping limp against the pillow behind him, he tried to make sense of everything he'd just read, but inside his head raged a thunderstorm that obscured any rational thought.

Now that he knew, was he supposed to speak to Hange about it? Was there anything he could do to apologise for what had happened? He couldn't pretend he hadn't read the report. It would weigh down on his mind too much, it'd be obvious that he'd found out.

(What if they'd given him the report with this very intention and this was a test to see if he'd be honest and to decide which sentence he deserved?)

But what else was he supposed to say?

And what about Eren and Mikasa? Was it appropriate to thank Eren for fighting for him when it's exactly that what cost them the Commander? Was it appropriate to not thank Eren for going to such lengths to secure Armin's survival? Was it appropriate to scorn him for putting him in this position? Did he really deserve to put this blame on someone else?

What was he supposed to do?

The pain of his thighs and hands finally seeped through this thick fog of numb panic — fingernails digging into his skin through the fabric of his pants so intensely that he wasn't sure if he'd drawn blood, the strain on his joints and muscles slowly surfacing as his buzzing mind tried to cling onto anything external.

No. It wasn't going to be like this. He wasn't going to sit here beaten by a report.

He was out of bed before he knew it. His legs carried him to the common area thoughtlessly to go boil water, but he was lucid enough to understand that he'd rather lock himself into his room again than to risk encountering another living soul. Mind almost blank, he heated a kettle of water before retreating to his room without running into any other policemen.

Taking a seat at his desk, he let his hands soak in water that was too hot for comfort or good recovery, but he didn't retract them or get up to retrieve cold water to even it out. The thermal shock did him good. He repeated his usual motions over and over again: stretching his digits before balling his hands into fists, maneuvering each finger into circles and bending them in every way his rigid skin allowed, weaving his hands through the water in gentle motions to let the water filter between his fingers. Maybe a little too forcefully to be beneficial to his recovery, but it did his mind good to lose himself in the patterns: ball a fist, then relax, then stretch his fingers, then relax again, until he carried out the motion without even thinking about it anymore and he reached a sense of distracted peace.

By the time Hange knocked on his door to ask him if he wanted to join them for dinner, the water was barely even lukewarm anymore. He came up with a half-baked excuse on why he preferred to stay in his room, but agreed when they offered to bring him a portion. He honestly wasn't so sure how to respond when they eagerly dropped him a full plate — a larger portion than the day prior as they heard he'd been asleep when a policeman came in to ask him about having lunch — before they made some quick small talk about nothing important and Armin could feel himself sink into the floor in shame.

It was when he noted that ten minutes after Hange had left, he was still absentmindedly wading his hands through the water instead of changing his focus to getting some food inside his system that he considered that maybe, he wasn't alright. He'd been out of it many times before, but not like this. The disheartening conversation with Bertholdt in the mine, the fall in the mineshaft, the policemen's hostility, the gruelling reality of the Battle for Shiganshina, they all fried his brain.

What was he doing here?

The question stood out among all the others that burned in his mind. He had better places to be, honestly. People to talk to, connections to mend, amends to make.

Bertholdt had made it clear that he preferred to rot than to help them out? Have it, then. There was no way that any of this would work out. How could he be assured that his plan would bear fruit? That he wasn't wasting his time down here developing a severe case of heartburn and grey hair from the people that surrounded him? That he wasn't yet again making things worse for everyone by chasing a headstrong plan?

Did he really have the energy to sink so much time and care into this?

No. He didn't. Not when a new issue reared its head. Bertholdt could wait, regularity be damned. If he was going to play games anyway, he'd get games back. Good for him if he wasn't going to talk, good that he knew where he stood. He could savour the aftertaste of his victory alone in the dark.

Wiping his hands dry on a towel, Armin turned his attention to finishing his by now lukewarm dinner, gorging it down with so much haste it upset his stomach, but he had to talk to Hange now more than ever.

"You needed me?"

Hange stood in his door frame half an hour after Armin had gone to get them. When he'd first tried, they'd been explaining something to the policemen with grand gestures and great enthusiasm in the common hall and he had to wait until they noticed him standing there awkwardly when he didn't have the heart to interrupt them. They had a wide smile on their face and it heightened Armin's nerves. Fuck, did he feel two-faced talking to them so casually when he had just learned what happened.

He got up from his resting position, shifting so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed instead, feet touching the wooden floorboards, and didn't look like a complete slob despite his messy hair.

"Yes, actually. I was wondering when a cart will depart back to the city again."

"Ah," they answered, leaning against the frame slightly. "I am returning to the city on Thursday with a couple of others. If you're planning on leaving soon, you should come along with me so that we don't have to send an extra cart out."

Armin was so incredibly grateful that they tacked on that suggestion at the end. Gods knew how long he'd feel down over having to pose the question himself.

"Right. Thursday, then."

He hoped that Hange wouldn't push the issue, but then, they leaned a little further against the door frame, one hand by their head. They were staying to prod, and already Armin's mind was panicking on what he could answer.

"Is this about this morning? I heard some complaints from the policemen, but it's no different from their usual complaints. They'd nag me about how cold it is in the mines, as if it's my job to do something about it to save their spoiled asses from freezing," they chuckled. "You don't have to worry. They're not the ones who decide what you can do, I am. And I find everything that you've done acceptable so far, including bringing down items with you. I've warned them against threatening you again. They got the message."

"Ah, right…" Armin responded, the uneasiness in his voice barely disguised. Why did they trust him this much when he just read how unreliable he must've been in their eyes? He searched for an explanation, latching onto the first one he came up with. "Thank you, but it is not about that. I planned on staying longer, but after talking to Bertholdt, I believe that I will be more successful if I give him some time."

Brilliant, Arlert, now you've locked yourself into having to come back again at a later date. Think before you lie.

But in a way it was good to have some pressure that made him unable to back out so easily. He might curse himself for it later but it was probably a good matter altogether.

"Can I ask what you two talked about? Or are you still keen on keeping me in the dark?"

It couldn't hurt to throw them a bone, so he nodded. "I didn't yet manage to convince him to share information with me, but he did break his silence. I expected this would take me much longer after he didn't speak to me yesterday, so I consider this progress."

Armin twiddled his thumbs together, looking to the side of the door instead of at Hange.

"… He did… um, imply that he didn't want to talk to me, which is exactly why I need to give him some time to think about what I've said to him."

He looked back at Hange, who was listening intently.

"That's… why I was in a bad mood this morning. But now, I've had time to think about it and I am convinced this is actually a good thing. I can do plenty with this and it's better than silence. But it'll work best if I leave him alone for a bit instead of annoying him every day, which might just shut him down more." He tacked on a weak "You see?" at the end.

"I see," Hange responded, and their serious expression was replaced by a warm smile. "It sounds to me like you're doing well so far. I take it that the supplies you gave him are a part of earning his trust?"

How much of this praise was genuine and how much was an attempt to spare his feelings, Armin wondered.

"They are."

"Then I'll yet again remind the policemen that they shouldn't undermine anything you do. In fact, if there's anything you need from them, I'll tell them they should listen to you if they don't want to lose their job. It's better if you give them work or keep them in line than to let them slack off all day."

"Hah, right, imagine being paid to do nothing," Armin lightly laughed, the irony of the statement not lost on him.

"That's the Military Police for ya. I take it that you won't go down to the mines tomorrow, then?"

"That's right, I'm staying up on the surface until we leave again. If that's alright?" Armin finally smiled back at Hange, who nodded and pushed themselves off of the door frame again. He expected them to leave, but they lingered for a bit. When he shot them a questioning glance, they responded.

"Armin, how about you come join us in the common room? I promise you that the policemen are much more bearable when they're off the job." The offer went accompanied with a kind smile, one that Armin couldn't help but to return.

"Ah, I…"

No way, was his first instinct. He didn't want to socialise right now, but what else was he going to do when his lips still tingled from the shock of what he'd read hours ago? Reluctant as he was to show his face around other people right now, gods knew that he needed some time off from his thoughts now that he allowed himself to run away from his goal and they'd without a doubt barrage him with all sorts of insults and fitting criticism.

Anything was better than being alone, he supposed. He wouldn't be able to sleep tonight anyway, might as well reduce the amount of time he had to overthink things until he wore himself out enough to fall into a dreamless sleep.

"Give me a few minutes and I'll be there," he gave in.

Hange nodded at him. "Good, perfect! See you in a bit," they chanted before closing his door again, leaving him yet again all alone with his thoughts.