"I need you to go to Stohess."
Armin looked up from the book he'd been reading during lunch these past few days, a guide for the medicinal uses of herbs found around the island, to throw Hange a questioning look.
"Stohess?"
"Stohess," Hange repeated, making their way towards the table to sit across from him. "Once the worst of the winter is over, we will set out to explore Wall Maria territory again to clean up the final titans and reclaim the Wall. After that, we need to prepare to venture outside the Walls again. We're a little short-staffed right now, and with the arrangements for Wall Rose's titan guillotine repairs all in place, we finally have some time to do something about it. I need you to go recruit in the Military Police and the Garrison."
"Uh…" Why him, again? "With all due respect, Commander, I am in no state to travel on horseback. I'd have to travel by cart or carriage. Wouldn't it be swifter if someone else were sent?"
Hange grabbed a piece of bread from the tray in the middle of the table.
"You are not wrong. I would've sent someone else if we had more people available, but I need our physically capable scouts back with me as soon as possible so I can't afford to leave anyone on the sidelines. Connie and Jean," they gestured over to Connie at the other end of the table, who was failing to be inconspicuous about listening in on them, "are going to Ehrmich while Sasha and Mikasa are going to Yarckel and Krolva while I make arrangements here in Trost. I had to send Floch to Orvud, Utopia, and Karanes on his own due to understaffing, and I fear I may have to do something similar for you."
"What?" Armin said as Hange took a bite from their bread, unaffected by the resistance they had anticipated from him. "I don't believe it's a good idea to send me alone. I've never followed any official negotiations like this, let alone arranged them on my own."
"Oh, I agree it would be irresponsible to send you on your own without briefing," Hange admitted. "But you will not be alone. Levi will accompany you. This task will require you to do two things: first, to make arrangements for us to borrow soldiers from each department without having to make the full switch, and second, to speak to the respective local regiments and urge them to change departments. Levi will be there to support you in the last point."
Armin folded his hands in front of him, tapping his index finger on his knuckle. "It's the first one I would need guidance with."
"Armin." Hange put down the bread, looking at him seriously. "Do you know why I trust you to go alone? You stood your ground against three cooped-up irritated policemen just fine. Out of all of your peers, you're the most experienced in dealing with them."
They gave him a confident smile, one Armin found hard to spot any lies in.
So they'd heard about what had gone down on his last day in the mines, after all. He disjoined his hands and scratched his chin, looking down.
"I don't know… It sounds like there are a lot of obstacles to overcome. I might lose all the progress on my rehabilitation if I suspend my training now."
"I understand," Hange replied. "But there will be time to resume when you're back. You'll only be set back one week of training, and it's not like all of your work will vanish overnight since you'll be moving around a lot once you're there."
That was easy to say when they weren't in his shoes. It felt like they wanted to keep him busy longer now that he was physically unfit for any other missions. Just because he'd gotten his ass kicked by a policewoman, which apparently made him experienced enough to deal with them alone. He'd need to stand up for himself on this one, if he could.
"I'll… I'll consider it," he decided, admonishing himself for keeping his affairs open-ended once more.
"Great!" Hange stood up and winked at him, taking the bread with them as they left. "Get back to me by Wednesday with affirmation."
On Monday, he managed to avoid the issue for the rest of the day.
On Tuesday, his answer remained a resolute yet unspoken no.
On Wednesday, he'd been out all afternoon and evening to train, conveniently dodging Hange for the rest of the day.
On Thursday, he felt the effects of his decision as he roamed the empty headquarters in the morning, found out that no one had supplied breakfast to an empty building after having to light many of the candles by himself, and came back to a cold and near-deserted building in the evening, unlucky enough to have one-on-one dinner with Hange as his avoidance of more than one issue ate away at his nerves. With everyone else gone, it only stewed in his gut how much he was wasting his good image, both in his own eyes and in those of his peers and superiors while everyone else pulled their weight.
So on Friday, he rode out to Stohess, notably blanketless and shivering as it just had to start snowing fifteen minutes into his day-long cart ride.
Why had he said yes again?
Four stacks of paperwork surrounded Armin as he sat at his desk. Only one, the smallest, represented work he'd already finished. At this rate, he'd end up having to skip lunch if he wanted to finish his work and present it to the head of the Military Police in time. If these were the duties they'd relieved Erwin from, maybe they'd done him a favour.
His breath trapped in his throat and he broke out in coughs.
Don't go there, Armin, you're still guilty.
He drank from his glass of water to clear his throat, almost choking on it before recovering from the bout.
It was no wonder Hange would offload this onto him as well. Preparations had to be made, but not for him, so it seemed. He'd be lucky if he managed to rehabilitate enough to make it to the day they planned to head for the harbour Marley built upon Paradis' shore. So instead of letting him train as much as he could so that he could earn himself the right to be among the first within the Walls to ever lay eyes on the ocean, he had to sit here and comb through paperwork?
No, this wasn't about him. He needed to be useful to the Survey Corps in any way he could, and if the Commander decided this was where he shone, then he couldn't complain. He didn't know what was best anymore.
Armin sighed heavily, signing off on another form before turning it over and looking at the next one. Rinse and repeat until he was through with every single one of these, then appeal them to the local police. Now that the guillotines were functional again and the Garrison could operate them on their own, this was apparently the Survey Corps dream for the foreseeable future.
Something tousled his hair back to front and startled him out of his thoughts so strongly that he audibly yelped, grabbed for his head, and looked behind him only to see a familiar face cheekily smiling at him as she retracted the offending hand.
"Well, well. Armin Arlert. I didn't think I'd find you here in our stuffy headquarters! You've seen way better days," Hitch quipped as she strolled closer, leaning down onto the table with her elbows over the stack Armin had finished. "You skipped your own ceremony so I didn't think we'd see each other again anytime soon. Did they break your ass down in that city or something?" she asked as she pointed down at Armin's chair, his winter coat folded up thickly across the seat for support.
Armin didn't return the sunshine on Hitch's face, busy fixing his hair with his free hand. "Hitch… I was going in and out of a coma when the memorial took place. I would've attended if I'd had the chance." He didn't answer the second part of her comment, finding it obvious enough by sight that the battle had left him skin to bones with all of its consequences. He had to fight hard not to show his mortification, now that Hitch had pointed out the one thing he hoped any passerby would just ignore.
The warm smile on her face dissolved into one that could only be called solemn and pensive. She understood the gravity of the situation. Armin figured she'd had time to process Annie's betrayal, not to mention the loss she had suffered herself in Shiganshina. Not many would just smile and laugh through the pain, and apparently, despite her easygoing demeanour, Hitch was no different.
"At least you got your due honours eventually," she said, far more level-headed as she palmed the medal of honour fastened around Armin's neck before getting up from her slanted position.
Before Armin could get a word in, Hitch spoke up again, though her voice lacked its characteristic volume. "What are you doing here? Change your mind on your regiment? I can't imagine there's any job worse than our paperwork," she said, slapping her hand on one of the stacks of forms a couple of times.
"Unfortunately, that's Survey Corps paperwork," Armin responded with a chuckle, leaning back into his chair. "We need more manpower and resources, so the Commander sent us to negotiate. I just hadn't thought it would take this much bureaucracy before I'd even get a proper talk."
"Sending Shiganshina's heroes out to fill out forms sounds like the type of punishment the Military Police would dish out. Are you sure your regiment is in good hands after– you know…" She paused for a moment, sensing the sensitivity of the topic. "The change in leadership."
At that, Armin smiled mildly.
"The Survey Corps is always more inactive during the winter months. It's not exactly the type of work that's advertised, but it needs to be done. I'm glad to help out wherever I can, even if it's tedious."
He stretched his arms above his head and straightened his spine with a nasty crack that made Hitch wince and jump away from the table.
"Commander Hange Zoë is doing everything they can to prepare us for the recapture of Shiganshina and our first expedition outside the Walls. Considering this is the first time the Survey Corps has been so small in numbers, it hasn't been easy to plan around that."
Hitch clapped her hands together. "That's good! Leave it to the regiment that out drove our enemies and gave us the truth of the world to keep itself free from falling to corruption. Keep up the good work!" She patted Armin on the shoulder hard several times.
The compliment skewered his chest like spiked ice. As if he deserved such praise, when he didn't exactly contribute much to their victory; when he still hadn't talked to anyone that he knew about his legacy in Shiganshina in the weeks since he'd returned from Tourze. When he'd abandoned a mission that could decide the fate of a million as soon as a flimsy reason came up to run away — and he then proceeded to skimp on said obligations as well.
"Thank you, we will," he said with a smile as earnest as he could muster, and he wasn't sure if Hitch would notice or if she'd look straight through his awkwardness.
"I got somewhere to be, but we've gotta catch up now that you're here. I'm off later tonight, how about we meet at sundown by the front doors of the headquarters and we go out into the city for the evening?" Hitch suggested as she made her way back to the door she entered from, lingering by it to await an answer.
Armin wanted to protest, unsure if he'd make it to his deadline today. But then again… When was the last time he'd taken the evening off, that he'd had the energy to go for a stroll with someone? In honesty, Armin had been rather reclusive the past few weeks. It couldn't hurt to take it easy for once.
"That sounds good to me, I'll meet you there at around six," he said, leaning his arm over the back of his chair to smile at her.
Hitch shot him a brazen smirk before she turned on her heel, chanting "A date it is, then!" She didn't stay around to witness how she'd left Armin flustered and hot in the face.
Stohess offered an interesting assortment of foods and flavours not found in any other cities. According to a book Armin had once read about the walled cities, it was known for its bakeries and local culinary wonders, luring in people from all over the Walls. He'd always been curious to discover it himself from the written descriptions of some sugary dishes alone. The last time Armin had been here, he'd been too preoccupied with other matters to stop and try any of it. Now, he was in the right place with free time to spare, which meant he had the opportunity to explore one of the many sights he would have loved to see growing up, in a time long past, before he'd learned just how dangerous the world could be.
He savoured the final bite of the pastry he'd gotten — a buttery roll covered in glazed sugar and filled with some type of cream that melted on his tongue. An éclair, Hitch had called it before eagerly pushing one into Armin's hands and insisting he'd try it right away. She'd taken them to a bakery to get a bag of said sweet pastries as soon as they met up at the Military Police headquarters, rushing to make it before stores closed their doors for the evening. Because who was out so late on a cold February evening?
As it turned out, they were.
While Hitch talked his ears off about the latest drama in her department, Armin noted he didn't have to be as mindful as he usually would be of ice and snow coating the streets they walked through. He'd been holed up in the headquarters for days, so he hadn't yet gotten to enjoy much of the warm weather of the past days that made everything thaw and melt away.
Although he had only resumed training for just over a week, he could already feel that his stamina and balance had improved and his legs didn't hurt quite as badly as he had expected they would from walking such distance in the cold. He'd spent the time since his return either training, resting, or joining Survey Corps meetings, so he hadn't gotten to test his recovery curve just yet. At this pace, maybe he wasn't condemned to spend years to get back to where he was before the Battle for Shiganshina.
They turned a corner into one of the side streets, quite far removed from the city centre by now, and Armin's eyes immediately fell onto the large textile sheets that covered many of the buildings there. He knew that the area felt familiar, but this confirmed it.
The city still showed plenty of signs from the struggle with the Female Titan. A good deal of buildings had burnt down, had been slammed into, or were straight-up crushed to rubble.
"You're still thinking about it too, aren't you?"
Armin came to a halt, looking at Hitch questioningly. He hadn't been paying much attention to what she'd been saying, too lost in thought to reply with more than the occasional verbal response to show he was still listening.
"Sorry, what did you say?" he sheepishly asked.
Hitch stopped too, looking behind her and wearing a serious look on her face. An angry one, if he looked closer.
"Y'know. Everything that went down here half a year ago." She gestured over to the buildings that had stolen Armin's attention. "They started repairs right away, but winter came along soon this year so they stopped. The farther away from the promenade, the less damage is taken care of. Stohess has its image to worry about and its administration doesn't shy away from prioritising the richest neighbourhoods to maintain it. There may have been a change in management, but these sorts of things take time to change."
"I see," Armin replied, taking in the sights around him. "How was it, to live here with the damage after it was done?"
"It still lives in the city. People aren't at ease with the fact that Annie sleeps under them. I mean, can anyone blame 'em? She could awaken at any time and do it all again…"
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and walked on, head bowed. Armin followed.
To say he was still thinking about it was an understatement. Days spent pondering made way for nights of lying awake, questioning many aspects of the past half year and wondering if there was anything he could've done differently that wouldn't have led to Paradis' assets being crystallised or going nonverbal on them.
"How do you do it?" Hitch asked earnestly, looking back at Armin and wearing a frankly tired look on her face. "I just lost a grumpy roommate who never talked to me, but for you, it was three friends you trained together with who turned out to want us all dead. I wouldn't know how to deal with myself if that happened to me."
"How do I do it?" Armin echoed, pondering the question.
He didn't.
He wasn't going to say that.
"It's not that black-and-white, and that helped me deal with it. 'Friends' is a loaded word," he started, getting a wide-eyed look in return. "You probably knew Annie better than I did. She was reclusive, only associating with a few close girlfriends and sometimes Eren. Most of us didn't interact with her outside of sparring or group assignments, and even then, she rarely said much."
"Heh. Classic Annie," Hitch responded with a solemn smile.
"I suppose it's how you knew her as well, then."
"I did everything I could to get that girl to come outta her shell, but she always seemed right outside my grasp. In hindsight, I'm pretty proud of how much I accomplished." She cleared her throat. "What about the Armoured Titan — whatshisname — he distant too?"
Armin shook his head. "Reiner. No, he wasn't. The opposite, in fact. He was like a big brother to us and got along well with… probably everyone, if I think about it. He was kind and supportive and we were friends, but I never got nearly as close to him as Eren did."
"Eren again?" Hitch asked. "Yeesh, sounds like I should talk to him instead. Let me guess, he was close with the Colossal Titan — namesatthetipofmytongue — too while you didn't know him?"
"Bertholdt," Armin flatly responded. "No, actually. Bertholdt's the only one of them that Eren didn't get along with at all. But that's not on Eren. Bertholdt was even more reclusive than Annie was. Annie at least had a couple of friends in our training regiment, but Bertholdt only clung to Reiner or was on his own most of the time when Reiner got closer to us. He was still present, but he was in the background at all times and laid too low to get very close. I think he was just avoiding drawing suspicion to himself." Considering Eren's distrust of him based on his taciturn nature, that seemed to have backfired on him spectacularly.
"What's the difference, I wonder…" Hitch asked, fingers on her chin as she looked at the dark sky.
"Between Bertholdt and Annie?"
"Yeah. Annie put up some solid walls but she still made a couple of friends who managed to get through. For Bertholdt to have made no friends at all, he's gotta be pretty lame, if not a mean cunt."
"Not lame as much as he put more effort into fleeing," Armin explained. "I think Annie ran from people, but if they got close and she liked them, she let them stay. Bertholdt pushed away even the people who liked him and did everything to get as far away from them as possible. Eventually, those who were interested in him just gave up. I think that's the difference."
A shudder ran through Armin's body and he hoped Hitch hadn't noticed, but she was still eyeing the sky in her exaggerated pose.
"You know an awful lot about him for someone who wasn't friends with him, gotta say," Hitch said, now looking back at Armin with a knowing smirk. No, an assuming smirk was more like it. A rude one, at that.
"What?" Armin quickly responded.
"You seem very interested in his mannerisms, is all I'm saying," Hitch teased.
Armin was glad that the cold had coloured his cheeks red, because he didn't want her to see his reaction to that comment. She was just joking around, he knew that, but it still felt almost sickening to think about what she'd just implied.
He breathed in deep to keep the contents of his stomach down, not caring about how that made Hitch widen her eyes and deepen her unbelieving smile. "I didn't say he knew no one at all."
"You were friends!" Hitch shouted, and it made Armin straighten his back.
"I didn't say that either! We weren't close friends at all. We liked to read together in the library but he pushed me away like he did everyone else so I know he didn't like it as much as I thought," he pleaded, looking away from Hitch's amused eyes.
"Oh, but you liked it! You considered him your friend too, didn't you, Armin?" She poked a sharp finger into Armin's pec. For how well Hitch had sensed the mood earlier, none of that was present right now, and Armin wished that she'd understand that he didn't want to talk about this at all.
"Hitch, can we not…" his words trailed off, hoping she'd let it go, but something told him that he was locked in an uneasy conversation. Never expected that it would be her he'd talk to about this.
"No, I gotta know! I told you about my disappointing as-good-as-dead buddy, you gotta tell me about your dead one now. Fair's fair!" She stopped walking and grabbed his wrist with both hands, pulling it to her chest. "Was he not nice and caring, like Reiner? If you consider Reiner a friend for those reasons, that's gotta be why you don't like Bertholdt, right?"
Armin looked at the hand she'd taken, stunned. She was holding the argument right between her palms. He didn't feel like lying but he didn't want to explain the nuances of the situation to her. No offence, but she was far too removed from the entire situation to understand.
A voice in the back of his head told him that Hitch obviously still cared for her former friend despite the betrayal, admonishing him for what he couldn't.
"No," he gave in, choosing for the uneasy truth over a quick resolving lie. He pulled his hand free from her grasp, gently, and returned it to his side. "He was also nice and caring. But I can't tell if that's who he was, or if he was just pretending to be better than he was." Something hot began to simmer in his chest, making him want to shout until all that was left of him was ice.
Hitch rolled her eyes at that. "Yeah, sure, sure. But if you don't know who Bertholdt was anymore, how can you know who Reiner was either? It feels like you just got personally hurt by Bertholdt's betrayal because you were close and you wanna run away from him now."
What was different?
The image of Reiner only evoked pity and nostalgia while the image of Bertholdt evoked blazing bitterness he'd been wise to suppress for diplomacy's sake.
"Because Reiner seemed himself even after revealing himself while Bertholdt withdrew and looked like a different person altogether. He was cold and heartless. I couldn't recognise him as the person I've trained with all those years."
"And you were all warm and fuzzy next time you saw him?"
"Hitch–"
"Hey, look. I know it's none of my business and I'm sticking my nose places I shouldn't," Hitch placated, "but are you really happy lying to yourself like that and treating him so differently? You two were trying to kill each other in Shiganshina, right? Not exactly the most amicable place for a reunion. Of course he was cold, and of course you were."
Armin froze. That simmering feeling roiled inside him, bubbling over the edge and drenching his ribs and his stomach in something white-hot. He was back in that mine, back to asking Bertholdt from the depth of his heart whether he truly rejected the idea of peace and instead coveted war. Back to seeing him nod, affirm that he didn't have good intentions for any of them.
She couldn't understand without knowing any of this.
"It's not just that."
"There's more?" she screamed.
He pressed his mouth into a thin line, biting into his lips. Hitch sceptically raised an eyebrow, urging him to go on.
So he relented. "He's not exactly as… you know, dead as people say."
"What, really!?" Hitch exclaimed, her nosy smile replaced with a look of genuine surprise, and Armin only nodded in response when Hitch shut up to let him speak. "What happened to him? Is he with you guys in Trost? Is he inside a crystal too? And weren't you supposed to give the world the truth? You can't just tell me that and spare the details, Armin!"
"Well, it's not like we kept it quiet as a detriment to the people…" Armin advocated. "If he's dead to the world, no one will come looking to steal or kill him. It's a matter of safety. And one of a high military order, so from one soldier to another, I urge you to respect the wishes of our superiors and to keep this a secret. We really can't risk anyone knowing."
Hitch brushed her fingers over her lips in a closing motion, then burst her fingers backwards as if the words evaporated out of her palm. "My lips remain sealed. On one condition. You tell me everything."
"He initially died," Armin admitted. "But he came back to life. Somehow. No one has managed to figure out why he survived the particular wounds that killed him, but we managed to take him back with us and put him in a prison whose location I can't disclose to you."
"Wow," Hitch hummed. "That's insane. That's actually insane. Everyone considered him dead… The festivities lasted for days when the news broke. The public really wouldn't like it if it turns out they were lied to."
And there was another obstacle in Armin's plan.
How were they going to break the news that Bertholdt had been alive all this time after all? It wouldn't inspire confidence in the Survey Corps. They couldn't just hide him away either. On the surface, someone would find out eventually.
Stuffing him underground had more purposes than to just put him somewhere he couldn't escape.
"Say, why didn't you feed him to one of the pure titans outside the walls?" Hitch continued. "With that curse and all, isn't it better to have someone on our side who can be the new Colossal Titan?"
"It's not a risk we can take," Armin answered. "We don't know how the process of passing on such a dangerous titan goes. What if the person detonates during the process? And what if they don't agree with our goals and they kill us all and take the Colossal Titan back home? Not all those who were sent here as pure titans were insurgents, some were simply falsely accused and sent over anyway."
"Ah."
"But most importantly, we need Bertholdt's lived experiences. Memories may not be enough, we need him to talk to us and advise us on how to engage Marley."
"Ah! So that's why you brought him up. You're still interacting with him to do that."
The corners of Armin's mouth strained. "Well… We haven't been successful. I've been visiting him in prison. He doesn't talk to me and he just glares at me whenever I go. Last time we spoke, he asked me to leave and never come back. He affirmed that he thinks we are children of the devil. At the time, I reasoned that he was lying, but lately it's been adding up. And now, I just don't know what to think anymore."
Hitch whistled at that, impressed. "Heavy stuff. So, my earlier question remains. Were you as warm and fuzzy as you were before he revealed who he was, or were you just as unrecognisable to him as he was to you?"
In other words, Hitch was asking him if he'd also just been pretending to be nice and caring all along when he wasn't. As he'd thought, she didn't understand the nuance of the situation at all. He was there as a representative of the Survey Corps, not as Bertholdt's friend, of course he'd look professional in front of him. That didn't make any of it less of a façade when he spoke to him as an authority.
Fuck, did it make his head hurt to think about. That bomb inside him finally exploded and he turned heel, walking onward. Hitch followed behind directly.
"There is a lot of evidence that the Bertholdt I met in Shiganshina and down in his prison was the real Bertholdt, and everything else was just a role he was playing. Reiner never revealed a different side to himself," he spat out. Then, deciding that was a little too venomous, he sighed. "Sorry, but it's more complex than that. I don't wanna get into it here," he added a little less forcefully.
"Okay, okay, sorry," Hitch apologised, hands upturned.
The two walked on in silence, through that street left in ruin with a particularly cold breeze blowing in their faces. It helped Armin cool down when he was starting to feel ashamed for blowing off Hitch like that and he didn't know how to fix this.
Why couldn't he be angry at Bertholdt? Who'd decided he didn't have that right anymore? He had done plenty to earn the average person's hatred and scorn; the fact that Armin didn't hate him and was bothering with him at all was an outlier that went against all norms. It showed that Armin would do anything to communicate with the enemy instead of just leaving him to rot.
Then again, he wasn't exactly bothering with Bertholdt these days, was he?
He'd rather not think about it.
"So," Hitch said, fishing another two éclairs out of her pocket before unwrapping one and extending the other Armin's way. "Seems you and I were given about the same job then."
"We were?" Armin asked, politely declining the pastry with a hand gesture. His stomach was still cooling from earlier, throwing heavy food on top now wasn't a good idea.
"Your loss." Hitch pocketed the one meant for Armin while she took a bite out of hers, speaking as she chewed. "I suppose that I could let you in on the fact that I'm posted in the underground ruins where they're keeping Annie. Just regular old guard duty, nothing fancy. She could easily knock out the gate that would keep her in while in titan form and they've been promising to place new gates further down the passages, but you know how infrastructural maintenance goes. Someone's gotta be there in case she ever wakes up, but that means we're both getting paid to go down dark places and hang out with our traitor friends, huh?"
Armin laughed at that. The way it just had to be Hitch, of all people.
"It's a small world."
"It is!" Hitch laughed back, taking another bite. "What are you supposed to be doing there, anyway?"
"Oh, it's nothing, really. I've been going down there to talk to him and try to convince him to assist us in the peace efforts, but you've heard how that ended. I gotta say that, for now, I followed his request and I haven't been down there for longer than I care to admit, hence why I'm here now."
He wondered how well Hitch would fare down there. Whether her infectious enthusiasm would do anything at all to lower Bertholdt's guard into casual conversation. He didn't need to speak up and say something meaningful, he just needed to feel safe enough to speak, that was the greatest hindrance to earning his cooperation. A strange noisy girl who didn't know when to stop talking could just be what he needed.
Oh how he'd love to request that Hitch take over from him. But this was his job, he'd said that he'd do it. If it were someone else, he'd lament it for the rest of his life. It wouldn't be so easy.
"Your job's a little different from mine, I suppose. I just gotta watch a crystal, you go visit someone who can talk and move and respond to you. It's super boring and a little creepy to be down there alone when she's just standing there, so sometimes, to fill the silence, I talk to her to try to demand she leave the crystal and give me answers for what she has done and– what am I saying, how embarrassing!"
Hitch's face contorted into an exaggerated grin, flustered as she threw her hair back and averted her eyes. "Who talks to rocks, right? That's such a silly thing to do…" She laughed distantly.
Armin simply gave her a compassionate smile in return, choosing to keep his commentary to himself.
Hitch looked back at Armin, a little more collected. "What I'm trying to say is… Being in those dark and creepy places really does crazy things to normal people. I totally get why you stopped going. Annie doesn't speak to me because she can't, but if she could and she still stood there like a corpse staring me down instead, that would give me goosebumps too. I'd just bolt and never come back, fuck that!"
That should've made Armin feel better, but it didn't.
Even Hitch, who had known Annie for only a month, was passionate in demanding answers from her, and it was clearly due to personal attachment. She was pressing on, moving ahead with her life and answering some questions by herself despite that gigantic barricade that stood in the middle of her life's path.
Meanwhile, here Armin was. Mission as good as abandoned with no plans in the near future to resume it. Eren and Mikasa still in the dark about his discovery from weeks earlier, Armin pretending that he didn't have anything to say to them under the guise of needing more inspiration on what to say to them, on how to solve this unknown of whether he should be thankful for their actions or if he should condemn them. Not a word to the Captain about it. Not even a peep to the Commander.
At first, after Armin had returned from Tourze back at the Survey Corps headquarters of Trost, the evenings had been pleasant. It had been almost too easy to forget why he came back from the mine prematurely in the first place, like he could just silently let the people around him forget as well and that meant it hadn't actually happened.
But that couldn't last. He couldn't remain so dishonest and take advantage of the kindness of those around him to shelter him. He knew that eventually, they would find out that he had found out. Maybe Jean, Connie, and Sasha would be able to wait for a little bit, but he owed it to at least Eren and Mikasa, and eventually, when he'd feel brave enough, to Commander Hange and Captain Levi… But nothing was changing. Nothing set him in motion, there was no great epiphany that told him exactly what to do and how to do it.
He'd left because he didn't know what he was doing down in those mines, but in all honesty, the surface wasn't any different.
He had achieved nothing.
Armin watched Hitch take another bite from her pastry and now wished he'd accepted her offer. Something to wash away the dry guilt and shame of his stark avoidance that was trapped in his oesophagus would be nice.
He cleared his throat. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Hitch said with a wink, swallowing down her final bite. "How about we start heading back? You're eating at our headquarters too so long as you're staying here, right?"
"I am."
"We can grab dinner together! It's getting cold as balls out here anyway," she said, hugging herself tightly and rubbing her shoulders. "I'd rather go inside before it starts to freeze."
"Sure. I'm starting to get pretty hungry." Which was a good sign. As expected, he had to skip lunch today, as he tended to more and more often these days, and he was getting concerned that he hadn't been hungry at all the whole day long.
"If we follow the road to the right at the end of this street, we'll eventually join the promenade again. It's the fastest way back."
They were nearing the end of the street that had the worst damage overdue for repair, and indeed, the promenade lay in the far distance at the end of the right turn. He could get used to having Hitch as a guide in this city.
An idea entered his head — one that had been floating in the back of his mind ever since Hitch told him about her assignment but that wouldn't articulate itself properly until now. He needed to start somewhere. Anywhere else was better than where he stood now, so it was worth a shot, even if it inevitably led to failure.
"Say, Hitch, can I ask for a favour?"
"What is it?" Hitch asked in that nosy tone of hers that showed she knew what was up without even knowing anything yet. Was she going to make this awkward too?
Armin cleared his throat again, unaware he was doing it. "Is there any chance I can join you on the job for a brief period of time?"
"Whydoyouwannagotherewithme?" Hitch buzzed, mouth curled up into a bemused smile and eyes squinted at Armin's expense.
"I need inspiration!" Armin placated, and under Hitch's mischievous cackling, he grabbed her upper arm and shook it. "Hitch, I'm serious! I'm at a dead end, anything that can give me ideas is an asset right now. I want to know if I can learn something, maybe even find any information I can use against Bertholdt as leverage!"
"Hmm, hmm, sure," Hitch laughed as she patted Armin's hand on her shoulder. "You can just ask me next time you want another date with me down in a spooky, remote tomb. Who knows what might happen down there?"
Hitch was just about losing it now from how hard she was laughing, arms wrapped around her sides as she buckled over, and Armin had a hard time keeping his face straight when his blush was spreading to his ears. Maybe he should try to recruit her anyway, regardless of whose job it was to turn Bertholdt into an asset; her incessant tentative flirting could do wonders making Bertholdt uneasy enough to make him speak up just to make it stop. Armin certainly knew he'd feel humiliated about this dreadful interaction for days to come.
"Hitch, please…" Armin begged, covering his face with his hands.
"Okay, okay," Hitch said, catching her breath and wiping away a few tears. "If you wanna come visit, I am posted there Mondays through Thursdays from eight to noon and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from one to five in the afternoon. Let me know beforehand so I know to meet up at headquarters."
That left Armin with either tomorrow or the day after, as he would likely be gone from the city again by next week.
"How about tomorrow morning? That way, I can come in before I start on my own shift."
"Mhm!" Hitch approved. "Come meet me half past seven by the front door, I'll be your escort."
That night, he dreamt about Bertholdt.
They spoke, actually spoke, and from that alone, he should've inferred that this was nothing more than a manifestation of his wishful thinking. That it wouldn't last.
He would help, he said, he promised, and next thing he knew, Armin found his bones crushed under the collapsing ceiling of the mineshaft. He startled awake, damp with cold sweat and a burning fever. It didn't take long to note his surroundings and remember he was somewhere safe, and once he did, he sunk into his bed again, disappointed.
These days he didn't take as long to recover as he had when they first resurfaced, and once his mind had calmed itself, it was the same routine as always: grab his journal, write down the gist of his nightmare, then flip through the dozens of similar entries detailing the unconsented use of syringes, plummets down into titans' open mouths, the lifelike pain of being braised alive, and tunnels collapsing into his dreams.
He only skimmed, never went back to reread his old entries in detail as he should. Historia had once, long ago, told him that keeping a journal and reading about her dreams helped her deal with nightmares, and maybe it would've him too. But he simply wasn't in the mood to relive these fever dreams right now.
He returned his journal to his nightstand, lying back down in wait for a morning he knew would take far too long to come.
Two sets of footsteps endlessly echoed through the narrow geometric hallways that formed the complex network of tunnels and passageways of the once planned city underneath the streets of Stohess. The Military Police, much like the Survey Corps with Bertholdt, had chosen a secluded location to imprison Annie in, but unlike the mine of Tourze, these ruins consisted of multiple tunnels, many of them leading to this specific chamber's entrance. They were all locked at the entrance and inaccessible to the public, Hitch had assured Armin, but that didn't do anything to settle the voice in the back of his head screaming for him to get the hell out of these identical and repetitive corridors now that he still had the chance.
He swore he'd dreamt of this exact tunnel. Why these specific recurring nightmares of being buried alive only surfaced after Shiganshina and not after Stohess was beyond him.
They were too deep down within tunnels that had been constructed too carefully to realistically suffer any structural collapses, but to be sure, he chose to stay close to Hitch, putting on his bravest face as they made their descent.
"So you just walk through these alone whenever you go to and from your shift?"
"Mhm!" Hitch answered far too cheerfully for the subject matter, lifting her lantern ahead of her for better visibility. Unlike the previous tunnel, the one they were taking was decently-lit, so it was likely a habitual precaution. "Spooky as fuck, right? It's only a few minutes of walking to get there, but still, it's a maze down here. Used to get lost all the time so I hated this job the first few weeks. Dunno if you've looked into those rooms we keep passing, but if you haven't, then you really shouldn't start now."
Armin could never again complain about his own shifts. He had made the conscious choice not to look into the pitch-black tunnels that lay beyond those archways knowing full-well what they housed. It was enough already that these passages were so claustrophobic.
"Is that where the catacombs lie?"
"I see you did your research before coming here."
He shook his head. "Not exactly. When I was younger, I read a book about the cities found across the Walls, actually. The repurposed catacombs of Stohess struck me as morbid, that's why I remembered them."
"Not many people like to think of what lies beneath the cities they live in," Hitch said. "They weren't gonna continue the downward city expansions anyway, might as well use the free space. They stuck Annie into a chamber that was meant to be repurposed as a mass burial chamber, but I suppose they can't just start stockpiling dead bodies where we are posted daily. Glad for that." She shuddered.
"It would be horrific," Armin agreed.
Hitch came to a halt in front of an open gate to their left, the first they'd passed since the one by the entrance of this particular part of the ruins. "Well, we're here," she announced, gesturing for Armin to go on ahead.
Passing through, he found himself looking down into a chamber at least twice the size of their mess hall in the Trost Survey Corps headquarters, entirely vacant except for the familiar crystal at the far end, propped up by wooden stakes and lit ominously by the bundles of torches that stood on either side and the crystals behind it. The room was well-lit, but even so, that left plenty of dark corners.
Hitch stepped out onto the platform leading into the chamber to stand next to Armin. "Quite the looker, huh?"
"Morning, Hitch," came from their left, startling Armin enough to almost turn heel and make a run for it. A policewoman was looking back at them, seated on the stairs with a newspaper folded next to her lantern. "You've got company today?"
"Just someone the Survey Corps sent," Hitch responded, patting Armin on the shoulder a few times.
"Sleeping around isn't in the job description, but whatever. None of my business what you get up to down here," the policewoman nonchalantly said, with an offended glare from Hitch as a result. She stood up and stretched her arms above her head while swaying her hips side to side, then grabbed her lantern and her newspaper, holding up the latter. "Need this?"
"Sure… I didn't bring one of my own."
Armin ignored the unease the policewoman's admonishment evoked, instead studying the chamber below carefully and making himself familiar with every corner, every crevice, and every tile before he even considered going down there.
He finally steeled himself, walking down those dozen stairs to get a closer look and coming to a halt in the middle of the chamber, eyes not leaving the crystal by the far end wall. He'd only seen this sight once, after they'd defeated her up in the city, and Annie looked the exact same now as she did then. Eyes closed, like she was simply asleep, even if she could very well already be dead, eternally preserved by the impenetrable cocoon around her. Like she was stuck in a time capsule.
"So, got your epiphany yet?" came from behind him not even a minute in.
It clearly hadn't been enough time for that. He turned around, looking up at Hitch, who still stood on the plateau above. "Hitch, if Annie were awake right now, what would you say to her? What would you ask her?"
"Hmm…" Hitch rested her chin on top of the newspaper she'd rolled up. "I'd ask her to tell me why she did it. To, y'know. Justify herself to me."
"Even if you already know?"
Hitch wagged her finger. "Especially because I already know," she corrected, tapping the newspaper into the palm of her free hand a couple of times. "Yeah, I know her motivation with Marley and all, but I've read about that in the news. Not exactly the most personal way to break it to someone. I want her to look me in the eyes when she says it. I want to see what she thinks and feels when she does it, and know if she feels remorse. No account from anyone else in the world can substitute hearing it straight out of her mouth, addressed to me. I want to hear her side, her perspective on everything, and I want her to tell it to me."
"I see," Armin simply said, leaving silence between the two as he came close to losing himself in thought again. Why make it so personal? That was asking for trouble, especially in his own case. That was begging to get attached all over again. To lose all over again.
"You should ask him too. He's capable of speaking to you, don't waste that opportunity. I'd kill to hear back from Annie."
Armin blinked a few times at that. "You think?"
Hitch crouched down, placing her lantern on the floor next to her before sitting down and crossing her legs over the plateau's ledge. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure about it. No one's really been listening to him, have they? I mean, you can't convince me you didn't try torture to get him to speak, and you can't call cutting him until he says something truly listening, can you? Maybe he just wants to be heard, and maybe, if you let him know you're listening, he'll feel like you're someone he can speak to. It shouldn't be that hard."
Bringing a hand up to his chin, Armin shifted his weight onto his left foot. "I've made it very clear to him that I want to communicate. But he doesn't seem all too interested in that, Hitch. If he wanted me to hear him, he could've talked. He stayed quiet, then asked me to leave when I wouldn't stop talking to him."
"What did you tell him?" Hitch asked, her intrigue genuine.
"I told him how we could help each other. How I could help get him out of there, maybe even home, and how he could help Paradis avoid full-out war, how he could avoid more bloodshed. I made it very clear that Paradis is prepared to give him an audience and listen to what he has to say. It doesn't interest him in the slightest how his actions would affect us."
Hitch scoffed, making an amused face. "Of course it doesn't. You were there as an authority with a deal, but that ain't ever gonna work, now is it?"
"Huh?"
Leaning her elbows on her lap and resting her chin on her hands, Hitch leaned forward. "I could be wrong, of course. But from the sound of it, you showed up as someone with a task for him to carry out, not as someone who'll listen to him. Giving away all his secrets to a bunch of military top brass ain't exactly what he needs right now. Have you asked him how he's feeling?"
"Um…" Armin hummed. "I haven't found the moment to try so, no."
"No wonder it all went wrong if you can't even do that. You need to show up as a friend if you want to win his trust back. It needs to be genuine and real. You can't just be cold and calculating in the same way he's probably heard a hundred times from a dozen other officials. Annie would hate it and just kick me and leave if I put up my official police voice with her. If you show up as," she made matching air quotes with one hand, "the 'official and cold Survey Corps representative', it'll only make him crawl deeper into his shell. How would you feel if the roles were reversed?"
She looked him down seriously, eager for his answer. Armin wanted to retort that he'd understand that the gravity of the situation overrode any personal feelings he had, but something about that felt dishonest. He'd seen it in a pair of green eyes — a bottomless well of disdain and mistrust, unmasked and on full display.
Fuck, he didn't know what it would feel like. But what else could he do?
"So you think it will go better if I lie about how I feel instead?"
"No, I think it will go better if you stop lying."
Armin shot her a confused glance, but she remained resolute. "I'm not lying when I go down there," he lied.
"But are you telling him the truth? The good and the bad? Are you telling him about how much he affected you instead of just what he wants to hear? You've got your own grievances and if you want to be the person he can trust again after everything that happened, you're gonna need to put all your cards on the table."
"I don't know about that…" Armin dropped his hand, turning his back on her with his eyes on the floor. "I'd practically go on to call him a cruel devil if I were to give him full disclosure. I need to meet him halfway, and that means I can't be fully honest about that. Not to mention how much military information is classified."
Behind him, Hitch laughed.
"Oh, come on. You have the privilege of knowing he's listening to you when you speak. You can't tell me you're gonna honestly waste that, can you? If it's important that he's honest about all the info he gives you, you should focus on open communication, even if that means telling him he bugs the hell out of you. If you give him half truths, so will he. That's all."
A pause during which Armin presumed Hitch stood up.
"But what do I know? Maybe he ain't like that at all and he really is a jerk who pretended to be nice. You know the guy better than I do, you'll have a better idea of what'll work. I just want to help you find your inspiration. You came to me, after all."
The metallic creak of Hitch's lantern echoed through the cavern.
"Ah… Sorry, Hitch. I didn't mean to shoot down your ideas. I'll consider what you've said. Thank you for suggesting these options," Armin apologised. Glancing behind, he was met with Hitch's smile.
He didn't intend to open all communication and give everything away like that. It would be a foolish move, both in terms of getting compliance and for Paradis' security.
He looked ahead again and tilted his head, eyes now pinned on that lifeless crystal and all it represented, without really looking at what lay slumbering inside. There could still be potential inspiration to be found here, as unlikely as it seemed. If nothing else, he now had seen with his own eyes information that he could relay to Bertholdt in exchange for a bit of his trust: that she was safe, after all.
Trying to focus on what lay ahead of him didn't quite work out when what lay right behind him was still so fresh. Communication was key. Armin knew as much, he didn't need Hitch to point that out to him even if he'd been reluctant to put it into those terms. There was truth to the idea that Armin's half truths would only compel Bertholdt to return half truths. In matters as delicate as these, those were bad news. But to swing the other way and advocate for total transparency? That was simply foolish.
What would he have to sacrifice to win this battle? Which risks would he have to take? He'd have to figure these out before he went back.
"Hey, sooo…" Hitch started behind him. "I can imagine it's not helping you when I'm standing here staring holes in the back of your head. How about I give you a little while to clear your head and think without me there to bother you?"
Armin wringed his fingers into loose fists. If Hitch kept talking over him, she'd indeed be a distraction. Maybe it would help if she waited outside, but Armin wasn't particularly keen on being alone in this room for too long. It was probably about time he went back anyway.
"No, actually. I think I will just–"
Looking behind him, Hitch was gone. He gaped up for a second before calling out a hesitant "Hitch…?" that already showed the early signs of unsettlement.
"No one will question you if they come to check up. You got that pretty little medal, remember?" came shouted from way too far into the corridor for Armin's comfort. "Be responsible and make sure someone stays around!"
Oh gods, she was ditching him. As fast as he could, he started his way towards the stairs to catch up with her before she could leave his sight. This was his first dash in half a year.
"Hitch, wait! Actually, I'm done here? Take me back to the surface!"
His voice only echoed through the chamber, and when he reached the exit and poked his head out, Hitch was long gone.
A shiver ran over his spine. He really didn't want to be alone down here, and he considered for a moment dashing after her, but he stood nailed to the floor. What if he took a wrong turn and ended up getting lost? What if this were the first time Annie would truly be alone and she'd take advantage of that, chasing after him to kill him?
What if she already had?
His head swung around, relieved to see that crystal still intact behind him instead of the foot of a titan hovering above him to crush him.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK. That policewoman from the previous shift had been right about one thing, and that was that Hitch had taken him down these halls with the sole purpose to utterly and thoroughly fuck him.
How could she? How long would she be gone?
Armin paced back and forth on the plateau, head in his hands, lost on what to do. This wasn't all that bad, it shouldn't be all that bad, and yet he felt more threatened than when he had entered Bertholdt's cell on both occasions. If he hadn't dreamt about that cave-in last night, he wouldn't be so on edge right now to be down here. And what if Annie did leave the crystal knowing her only obstacle between imprisonment and freedom was but a single frail, wounded scout? She'd know better this time than to spare any of them.
He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have come. He was going to face so many sleepless nights from this moment alone and he should've never come.
No.
Stop that.
What good would panicking do him?
There was nothing here that could pose a threat to him. The surrounding infrastructure was sound and solid and any life that may have once been inside the bodies that lay just a few rooms over had long left them. He was alone, but never in any danger.
He breathed in and out deep, several times, eyes closed. He couldn't keep his limbs from shivering, but dragging his mind out of that tempest was what he needed for his dangling feet to find the ground again. Nothing would happen. Hitch would be back momentarily, giving him the time he needed to clear his mind and be alone for a while. Wasn't that where he operated at his best?
He sighed out hard, then held his breath. It would be a shame that he'd miss so much work by staying, but Hitch was right when she said someone had to be here just to be sure. He couldn't dodge another responsibility, even if it was unfairly offloaded onto him. If anything happened, he didn't want it attributed to his name.
Before he knew it, his legs had carried him down those stairs and back towards the back of the chamber, his eyes warily trained on that crystal once more. It was like a picture — not a hair out of place since Annie crystallised herself, still looking the exact same as she did that day half a year ago. Armin wondered if she ever opened her eyes when she was alone, if she was even capable of moving a single muscle while inside there. If she could hear anyone when her seal was so air-tight that she couldn't move around in it, like she was suspended in water.
It felt uneasy. Intrusive. Like he wasn't supposed to watch someone sleep like this, least of all someone who could potentially be in a lot of pain, if not dead.
What stories would she tell? Would she be more cooperative than Bertholdt if given the chance to take the deal he had been offered instead? Or would she seal her lips just as Bertholdt did, prepared to face hell to keep Marley's affairs to herself?
It was hard to say. They were so different from each other. The issue of Bertholdt actively removing those who'd gotten past his walls aside, there wasn't much that Armin could do to him that would have an effect on Annie. She cared about being perceived as a good person, even if she knew there was little truth to it. Enough to willingly walk into an obvious trap chasing that pretty lie. Bertholdt didn't. Appealing to his morality and offering redemption didn't work. Calling him less than dirt and ripping his guilt out of him didn't work. He either didn't care, or he knew that he was already too far gone to embrace the comforting idea that he could still absolve himself in the eyes of his former comrades. That he could still be good, if only to them.
No, it was clear, actually. She wouldn't have remained silent the way Bertholdt had, Armin was fairly certain of it. Maybe it would've been better if their roles had been reversed. It wasn't clear what part she had played during the first attack on the Walls, but Hange may have spared Annie harm for no reason except comeuppance when she didn't sport the face of all evil as they knew it. She could've given them what they needed already without being turned against Paradis first, and Armin wouldn't have to crawl deep into derelict mines and haunting basements to figure out where else he could find it.
And stupid as it was, with how his odds looked, he almost felt like it was more likely that Annie would talk than that Bertholdt would. That impenetrable second skin Annie had wrapped herself up in looked leagues less impervious than whatever it was that Bertholdt had concocted to keep anyone out.
Gods, what a mess. Armin wiped his hand over his forehead down to his eyes, where it lingered.
He walked off to the side, then stood still a few paces away and turned around to go back, soon pacing back and forth in the middle of the room, keeping just enough self control to scream out his growing frustrations by the fact that the risk that he was observed was just high enough. No one should hear this.
Maybe they should drag Bertholdt up here and have him see the outcome of their actions. Have him understand that Annie wasn't breathing, wasn't moving, wasn't eating or drinking, and that somewhere in there, alongside her suffocation, alongside her atrophied muscles and her sustained starvation, she was still in there, alive to feel it all. To have him understand that only he could help put an end to it. See how he'd like it if he were confronted with the reality at hand. See how eager he was to let them feed her to the pigs when he saw that she was truly hurting. That he hadn't lied.
Who knew if she truly was suffering. It would be better if she weren't, of course it would, but what did she think locking herself into an airtight crystal? What was her plan? If that were her fate, did she prefer it to capture?
Or was it that she couldn't choose to come out?
He shuddered. One in a prison of her own making, the other in one Paradis constructed for him. Both made entirely unavailable for negotiation by said prison. They were royally screwed if things continued like this, if no one tried to break either of them out again.
So wasn't it easier to start with what laid in front of him?
He stopped. Stupid as he would feel, even Hitch admitted to doing it, so maybe there was merit to it. Eyes went back up to that crystal, his glare so focused he almost expected it to pierce through the hard carapace and shatter the crystal, and he balled his fists before relaxing everything and shooting her a lopsided smile.
"It must be comfortable in there, Annie," he said, as neutral as he could to mask the thrill that surged through him but loud and clear nonetheless. "Sheltered and safe. The same can't be said about everyone. Will you really let your comrade face the brunt of Paradis' rage while you sit there inside your crystal?"
Good start. Familiar. If it worked the first time on Bertholdt, it might work the first time on Annie as well.
He adjusted his tone slightly to sound more sympathetic towards her situation.
"I can't stop them. I tried and they refused. But they're only torturing him because he refuses to tell us anything, and for no other reason. There's no point to it otherwise. Didn't you once say that you would be glad to be a good person to me? You would be if you could make me stop having to listen to his screams all day long."
His eyes stayed trained on hers, watching for any movement. Anything at all, but there was none. No change in her expression, not even a twitch of her eyelids.
So he sighed.
"Don't you have a heart?" he tried. "I know you do. I don't know why he isn't talking. I don't know why he wouldn't talk after all the reasons we gave him, after all I saw them do to him. I wish he would. I so wish he'd stop doing this to himself."
There was truth to him knowing what had happened to Bertholdt, and with some morbid imagination it was nothing more than stretching the truth thin.
"There's so much you can do. I'm urging you… no, I'm begging you to give them the good news they need to finally give Bertholdt the rest he deserves."
There it was. Faint, barely there, but it was there. He'd seen it. Her lips tightened just slightly for the briefest moment before relaxing again. Armin wasn't sure if it was a trick of the crystal's broken light or if it was really there, but he couldn't stop now.
"They wouldn't harm you. There's no point in that. Why harm an ambassador who should be our guest, our way towards peace? If there's anything you can tell us, we can stop trying to slice it out of Bertholdt and you can help us move in to make peace with Marley, and once that's done, you can go home again. As can Bertholdt. Don't you yearn for home?"
Though these were the same white lies he'd told Bertholdt, his tone was exactly as genuine now as it was back when he'd offered it to Bertholdt. There would be peace. Bertholdt would be left to rest, in a way. As for what would happen to her…
It would be less dark of a fate than being chained down in a mineshaft and handled like one would a venomous snake. If she proved herself, maybe she could walk around freely. It was by all accounts a good bargain. One she'd be unwise not to take, if she could come out.
Yet she remained still. Stuck.
"Come on," Armin pleaded this time. "I know that you don't want this war to persist, or to let the years pass you by while you live out the rest of your life trapped in a crystal. You do know it's because of you that we figured out his and Reiner's identity too, right? Don't you owe it to them to rescue them?"
Just one more push. Just a little more.
"Are you…" He stared through the crystal with wide eyes, sweat beading on his forehead at his gambit. "Are you that selfish? You would let the comrade who fought tooth and nail to come save you from us get torn to shreds after he's already endured so much of it?"
It felt all too familiar to wait for a reaction for minutes on end as he got nothing in return. No more twitches, no opening of her eyes, no shattering crystal. She was just like Bertholdt. As his oesophagus constricted, he figured that he should disengage before she made him feel the same way as he did, too.
She wasn't him. That was a dishonest assessment. She wasn't in a situation where staying right where she was had no benefits while helping them out gave her freedom without any downsides. She didn't advocate for their world to come to an end. She didn't take Armin's presence for granted. Maybe all of that was because she physically was incapable of doing so, but that made her much better than Bertholdt. Much more malleable, were she not walled off.
Turning back towards the stairs, relief washed over him. It felt rude to stop without saying something, so without looking back, he said his final part.
"It doesn't have to be this way. Don't sleep through the end of the world if you can prevent it."