18

There was no need for the type of assistance he received, but if he was going to do something that would drain him, he better learn to accept looking helpless and swallowing his pride when it would lead to the objectively better outcome.

So he let himself be pushed through the mineshafts, his backpack on his lap, crutches held in one hand and the lantern he'd smuggled out of the Stohess caverns in the other as Romi wordlessly pushed him. This whole journey would've been far easier if he hadn't asked for a wheelchair to be taken all the way from Trost into the mines, but he couldn't find it in him to feel particularly ashamed about it.

He'd do things differently this time. He'd take responsibility where it was due.

They reached that familiar gate at the end of the tunnel that as per habit spiked his pulse. Romi parked him in front, placing her lantern on the floor but lingering behind.

Armin looked back up at her and read doubt on her face.

"Is something the matter?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, no… Just…"

She looked away, pressing her mouth closed.

"Will that lantern be enough? We've never used blue light down here. It's so different."

A delay in her answer.

"Yes."

"Right…"

Romi was notoriously deferential, but this time, it struck Armin as suspicious, the way she scrambled over to the gate and pulled it open. She returned, but he stuck up a hand before she could move him anywhere.

"Thank you, that is all the help I need."

Romi stiffly nodded. "Right, right," she mumbled, picking up her lantern from the ground before starting her retreat to the policemen's cavern, though he suspected it was with a few backward glances.

When she was gone, Armin stood, satisfied that he didn't need to use his wheelchair for support to find his balance on one leg after placing his backpack and crutches aside on the ground. He placed his lantern down on the seat before strapping his backpack on and moving the chair so that it stood by the gate but out of the way. Then, he took his crutches and faced that dark gate, breathing in deeply.

What came next would by no metric be easy, but he did have one advantage on his side: a wounded soldier evoked pity. If nothing else, how pathetic and beaten down he looked could form the bridge that eased the tensions between them.

Deciding that he needed to swallow his feelings, he took the crystal lantern he had broken when he'd thrown it down a week ago in hand and crutched inside.

He didn't need to see Bertholdt to know that his eyes were pinned on his encased leg the moment he noticed. He hadn't gotten up yet, still lying on his side, and had given up on rejecting the sleeping bag and blanket as a gesture, likely believing Armin would never visit again to see him reject them.

As Armin took his silent seat, leaving his backpack on and placing his crutches and lantern aside, he gave Bertholdt the chance to look all he wanted. Let him draw his own conclusions, the way he surfaced his arm from the sleeping bag and blanket he lay wrapped inside to push himself from his position lying on his side to a more upright one; and indeed, he seemed to have retained enough of his eyesight to see what it was that had brought Armin here.

He'd draw his own conclusions pretty swiftly. There was no need to explain things to him. All they needed was that silence during which Bertholdt might connect with Armin, or he might instead choose to let it leave him cold.

Tired of carrying his torso's weight on his arm, Bertholdt finally moved his legs to help him sit down, hunched forward over his legs as he for once didn't let the wall support his back. His eyes travelled up, not quite to Armin's face but they definitely considered it. By Bertholdt's standards, this was a warm welcome and a signal that he was listening.

Armin's arms tingled. He let himself sit quietly, determining who was going to be the first one to speak. It didn't seem Bertholdt knew what to say or do either, but the empathetic look in his eyes was promising that they could make peace with what had happened.

Now came the hard part.

Armin swallowed subtly. He parted his lips to speak, eyes falling upon a sullen Bertholdt.

"I want to start over."

Bertholdt didn't react. Armin wasn't sure if it registered at all, the way he sat there motionlessly, but it must've, because he bowed his head forward in favour of that ground he'd been staring down for months.

Armin followed suit, looking down into his lap.

"I'm not proud of how the past months have played out. Especially not the last few times we saw each other. I wish to start over."

Bertholdt had nothing to say to that, his conflicted thought process legible in the tension of his face but remaining unspoken.

"I, um… I've had some misfortune, as you can see," Armin continued, tapping his leg. "The others have left without me. I shouldn't be here in this condition, but I feel bad about what I've done. Forcing you to make a decision because I was tired of waiting, it was… It was so stupid. I regret it."

He looked up to meet Bertholdt's eyes, already aimed his way.

"Can't we try again?"

Evidently, even the more extensive explanation left Bertholdt unable to formulate an answer. It was a large thing to ask. For all Bertholdt knew, Armin had just abandoned him and Hitch had been correct when she said that even with a good explanation, that still left Bertholdt with bitter feelings over not being helped during the time he was gone.

Bertholdt's eyes lost interest when they turned hooded and his straightened back slumped forward more, mouth slightly agape.

"Are you a murderer?"

"… Huh?"

"Are you a murderer," Bertholdt repeated a little louder in the same low, uninterested tone, as if Armin hadn't heard him.

"Bertholdt…" Armin whined. "I never denied that I was. I know that I am a murderer. I know that I will die a murderer. Why bring that up now? What does it matter?"

"You're a murderer."

"Yes. I am."

Bertholdt leaned his head forward, then nodded at Armin's acknowledgement of his sins.

"So then… You know what burdens you carry."

"Yes."

"And…"

"And I know what burdens you carry, too," Armin filled in where Bertholdt trailed off. "What horrible, heavy burdens were forced upon your shoulders."

Bertholdt weakly nodded but didn't look satisfied with that. Armin felt the nerves rise to his head again. Like last time, he couldn't figure out where Bertholdt wanted to go with this. Some type of statement about their similarity, even though the scale was different. He let Bertholdt continue at his own pace, which he did after several minutes of silence.

"Would you let that woman kill Jean if it meant you didn't have to become a murderer?"

Just to consider it scraped against Armin's stomach.

"No."

"Would you let the others you killed do what they had to if it meant that you would be spared from having to kill them?"

"No," Armin repeated. An idea of where this was going formed in his head.

"What about me? Would you… Would you let me kill you if it was the only way for me to live?" he asked, this time with a noticeable pause between his words. The subject hit as close to home for him as it did for Armin.

"I don't know the answer to that."

"I think you do."

Armin clamped his jaws together at the accusatory tone. He didn't want to go there, but if Bertholdt had already noticed, there was no point holding on.

"I wouldn't let you kill me just to save your life."

"But you don't want to be a murderer."

"What does this have to do with what I said?" Armin changed the topic.

"You can't answer."

"I don't think this is relevant. I don't see where you are going wit this."

Bertholdt looked miffed at that dismissal, and Armin had to remind himself of his decision to swallow his uneasiness in favour of making sure he could still come here in the first place. He couldn't let Bertholdt get under his nails.

"You won't let them get you," Bertholdt continued when Armin didn't expect him to, "even if that makes things much easier for you. You'd rather get the short end of the stick if it means sticking by what you think is right."

"Right."

"Why?"

They'd had conversations like this before. Ones where Bertholdt would interrogate Armin with an endless slew of whys and hows that delved into every detail until Armin was backed into a corner and he had to pay attention not to contradict himself. The topics had been less serious than this one, but Armin could sense the trap being sprung around him.

"It's the duty that I have. It's the oath I swore when I joined the Survey Corps. But even if I hadn't… I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let go of what I believe in."

"You won't just lie down and die, even if that would be easier. Even if you know that that would save a lot of people you don't know."

For the sake of the rhetoric, he'd go with Bertholdt's story.

"That's right."

"You shouldn't. I don't think anyone can take away your right to fight for what you believe in, even if it's a lost cause. So…"

He took a moment to exhale deeply.

"Why can't I do the same thing?"

An appeal for compassion. He could not afford to be so direct, but it was clear: he was not asking for Armin to see his argument. He was asking Armin to see him.

The clarity and the structure of this appeal made it evident that these were the things that had kept Bertholdt up at night when he believed Armin to be gone for good. The words he wanted to say to make things better but which he knew he never would.

Except he did.

And Armin wanted nothing more than to amend his wrongs; than to tell him, loud and clear: I see you, Bertholdt Hoover; I see how hard you fight to be who you want to be and not who they have made you into.

I see who you are.

Yet when he spoke, all he could smuggle through that thick wall that stood between them was underwhelming.

"You can, Bertholdt. Of course you can."

Bertholdt said nothing back. It fell on Armin's shoulders to steer this conversation away from complete catastrophe.

"You should do what you think is right."

"It will never align with your values."

"I know," Armin answered, swallowing the words. "But I think that you will feel much better if you don't perceive me as an enemy every time I come down here. Our values don't have to align. So… Can we please try again?" he reiterated, finding hope in the fact that Bertholdt at least had gone through the effort of trying to ask for compassion the definitive way he had.

"Try what again?"

"To be friends."

"As in… Start over from the beginning?" Bertholdt asked, carefully this time. "Like this is the first time we've met?"

"Maybe," Armin answered. "There is so much that happened. Even before everything happened. I'm fine with starting at the beginning again, but I know that we can't just forget everything. I'm not asking you to just forget what happened, either, but I hope we can function beyond it."

"Why?" Bertholdt asked in return, like Armin had just kicked him.

"Someone needs to be the one to do this, right?" Armin presented his argument by reflecting Bertholdt's own words from a lifetime ago back at him. "Someone needs to take care of you. You need food and clean clothes. You simply don't get them without me. But if we're going to fight and glare and argue every time I come here, then what's the point? Why should we separate feeling worse every time I come visit? What do either of us get out of that?"

Bertholdt stayed quiet, but he looked unconvinced.

"And I know. I know that the way things currently are, it's hard to get back into that rhythm we had back before I screwed things up. I genuinely don't know how to fix this situation in a way that won't drain you. You've already fought so hard, you don't need more hardships."

Armin turned his palms up in his appeal.

"Don't you think it would be easier if we decided to start over again, without pretending that all the good never happened?"

As Bertholdt remained silent and his eyes drifted back towards the wall behind Armin, Armin let his hands sink back against the edge of the crate, where his fingers carefully strained to press themselves between the ridges of the planks.

"Bertholdt."

A shallow jolt in his shoulders, Armin thought. He ground his jaws over each other left to right, biting down the burning self-preservation that screamed at him not to go this far, not to be so honest and show himself so bare in front of an opponent who already knew that he was thoroughly weakened.

"The only constant in my life of the past months has been you. I can't lose you."

There was his effect. First, in the form of slightly widening eyes as those words fully sank in. Then, a twitch of his hand, laid down with the back atop his sleeping mat, still tied into a fist but mobile enough for the small movement of his fingers to be noticeable. And finally, in the bob of his throat.

Armin couldn't avert his eyes from Bertholdt. Everything he showed, every twitch of his muscle, every change in where he looked was important in determining whether these next few years would be hellish or bearable.

Bertholdt abruptly looked up, a weary look on his face that went well beyond the deep folds under his eyes and the unshaven hair that darkened his taut jaw and his greasy scalp.

"Do you really want this?"

"Yes," Armin spontaneously responded, finding himself honest. "More than anything. I need to know that when I come to visit you, I won't leave feeling worse than when I entered."

"Do you really think that is a possibility?" came Bertholdt's drained question. "All I do is destroy people. It's what I was sent here to do."

"I think that is a path you choose yourself," Armin responded. "They may have forced many horrific things on you, but they don't choose who you are. I treasured our friendship before everything happened. I even found our talks afterwards to be constructive, from when things were good. You're not destroying me."

One lie. One white lie, that was all. One thing that he didn't need to know about.

In the end, Bertholdt was why Armin stood there in the first place, why he had chosen to hold on just a little longer. Something about him drew out the best and the worst in Armin. If Bertholdt chose to be kind, then it was no longer his fault that his existence was ruining Armin. Then Armin could live with the bitterness that it wasn't Bertholdt's fault, but Paradis'.

It took Bertholdt a long time to consider Armin's offer. But finally, with conviction, he nodded, looking Armin straight in the eyes.

"If you think it's possible, then do it."

Relief washed over Armin like a deluge, but the smile that followed was delayed. It was something he'd wanted to hear for months but feared he never again would. And yet he also knew that this was the beginning of a tough battle he had once more condemned himself to; one where he would have to pay careful attention to what he thought and did, how he protected himself from succumbing to the hardships that he would inevitably face now that he was back.

Despite his resolve, he could yet drown.

"You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that," Armin said, a sheepish laugh underlining his words. "Really. I thought it would never be alright again."

The exasperated look in Bertholdt's flecked eyes betrayed that he already regretted his decision, and Armin instantly straightened his back before deciding he needed to use his hands.

"My back's starting to hurt, so I'm taking this off," he explained as he let his backpack down and opened it, taking out the clothes on top and placing them next to him on the crate for better reach. "I've brought with me some goods again. Some special ones, too. And by the way, you need to know that none of this depended on your answer. You were getting these no matter what."

He shot Bertholdt a smile that broke against Bertholdt's wall.

"I tried to take some summer fruits and vegetables with me this time. It occurred to me that I never got you much variety, so have some now."

He took out the bundle of food, larger than usual.

"I won't be able to bring it over this time, though. Can you catch this?"

"Um…" Bertholdt mumbled into the textile wrapped around his hand before he bit it loose and let it drop beside him.

"Here," Armin said, tossing the bundle over, which Bertholdt caught with more success than Armin expected.

Bertholdt's eyes glistened at the package as soon as he got it so close to him, but the expression diminished soon after. He placed the bundle by his side, digging his fingers into the textile to determine what Armin had brought along this time. He'd eaten in front of Armin before, but never his rationed meals.

"You should eat. It's been a month since your last proper meal, hasn't it?"

"Yeah. Something like it," Bertholdt answered, a delay in the way he finally decided to undo the knot in the fabric with little precision and his eyes fell upon the assortment of food items Armin had gathered for him.

Radishes, cherries, a couple of loaves of bread, a small block of cheese, a pair of dried sausages, a tin with an assortment of nuts selected especially for variety, a few flowers of broccoli, and a couple of carrots. Much different from the things Armin would usually bring, making it difficult for Bertholdt to keep his hunger under control at the abundance of food.

He ran his hand over the various items, fingers notably gentle and careful as they explored the textures of everything he'd been brought, turning them over and examining them as if they were poisoned, spoiled, or otherwise unfit for consumption. Armin could only watch on fascinated to see what he'd do next.

Bertholdt's choice landed on one of the pieces of broccoli, grabbing it and bringing it close to his face. He gave it one last look before he opened his mouth. The blue light of the lantern made it exceptionally obvious how raw his gums looked. Armin hoped that the things he had brought along would suffice to restore the balance in his body that had been disturbed by unwise meal management by the higher-ups.

Once started, he was ravenous. He clearly tried to hold back, but it was impossible with the hunger meal they were weaning him on in this place. Every careful brush of his lips over the leafy vegetable was immediately followed by a forceful chomp, taking great effort not to just swallow it all down in one go.

Armin let him. He'd never seen anyone's eyes tear up just from eating a flower of broccoli.

Deciding that staring wasn't what he wanted to do, he instead emptied the rest of his supplies on top of the crate before grabbing them in one arm and using the other to carefully stand and turn around, tossing them down with less finesse than usual. No laundry this time. Even the cloths used to pack his meals were gone. So he closed the crate again and sat down, careful to spare his right foot.

"I brought something else that may be useful this time around," he announced, watching as Bertholdt continued to feast. "They transport you in a wheelbarrow, right?"

A nod.

"Brutish and needlessly difficult, if you ask me. They thought I needed a wheelchair. I don't. You can have it instead. Like this, they can roll you where you need to go."

Once again, a nod. With his full mouth, Bertholdt apparently did not feel like thanking him with words. It was just one of the many things Armin would have to deal with.

"That's not the only thing I brought with me," Armin continued. He didn't hesitate to reach for his backpack again and take out a book, presenting it in case it would help Bertholdt link the cover's colour to the subject. "Do you know who Yannick Henze is?"

For the first time, a pause. Then, after consideration, a swallow and a curt nod.

"He has written controversial books."

"I'm surprised you know that. His books only surfaced after we toppled the government."

"They're banned in Marley. Someone must have brought them along when your ancestors fled to Paradis."

A Marleyan author rather than a Paradisian one?

Armin looked down at the book in his hands. More than a hundred years had this information been available, and more than a hundred years had humanity not used it as a guide on how to formulate their own opinions. No wonder they were struggling to get by.

A common point between Marley and Paradis was that they saw this material as dangerous. But out of the two, only Paradis was finally righting that wrong.

"I have one of his works here," Armin explained. "The Nature of Absolutism. When I read it, I thought that it might interest you as well. Can we read it together?"

A final nod. Bertholdt resumed eating, more controlled now that he had been better satiated. The food would prove to be a good snack during the reading. A good way to focus.

Armin revisited the book, more well-acquainted with the specific terminology the author used after he'd already finished it once. All he could hope for was that Bertholdt would understand these complex concepts after an extended period of physical unwellness.

Bertholdt halted his eating after he was done with the broccoli and a couple of cherries, listening in silence that Armin had learned to identify as focused. All the theories about the relativity of morality and how one decided their own beliefs based on how they saw the world had to resonate with someone like him, who had also decided to interpret the world through a lens only he fully understood, with all of his experience and hardships.

Extending this knowledge to him was a definitive gesture of peace, one that could not be matched by words or promises or hand gestures. The best way to tell him: I am done trying to buy you, I want you to make peace with your choice and take away the pain.

And just like Armin avoided using his words to convey the message, it was unlikely that Bertholdt would ever tell him whether or not he had accepted the offering. Armin would have to see it through his actions. His mood. How keen he was on shooting down Armin for the slightest misstep, how susceptible he was to his mood swings that fluctuated based on random factors beyond either's control.

With a plof, Armin closed the book at the end of a chapter, keeping it trapped between his palms. The sound pulled Bertholdt back out of the silent daze he had landed in, proving that he was still paying attention, and he looked back up at Armin for the first time in hours.

"My voice is giving out, I'll have to stop," Armin somewhat hoarsely stated the obvious. A month of barely talking to anyone had made this exercise straining. "This basis is a lot to think about already. Don't you think so?"

Bertholdt responded with a hum and a nod, failing to resist the urge to push back his shoulders and straighten his spine to stretch his muscles after sitting still and listening for so long.

Armin lightly swung the book from one thigh to the other, looking down at the cover. "You can see why it made me think of you. It reminded me of those few banned tomes we'd read together in the library. Like old times."

"Yeah."

Barely any reaction to that recall. Armin would be lying if he said it didn't disappoint him.

"Do you have any thoughts so far?"

Bertholdt remained silent. His mouth curled into a subtle grimace, one Armin had grown attentive for. There was something he wanted to say but he held back.

"You can say what you want. Blank slate, remember? That means I want to keep things good, too, no matter what you say or think" Armin encouraged him.

Clearing his throat, Bertholdt decided to give in.

"I agree with what the writer says. That's all I have to say."

"Everything?"

"I suppose."

"Even the things about how society needs to set proactive boundaries instead of seeing morality as a relative, nuanced tool? Those would doom you on the grounds of allowing so little flexibility."

The thought that doomed Armin according to Henze's doctrine.

"Is that what he said, though?"

"That is how I interpreted it, yes."

"It's not," Bertholdt whispered.

"How did you see it, then?"

Bertholdt thought about that question for a while, his middle and ring finger on his lips.

"All he said was that you can't use the end to justify the means," he said. "If you set no boundaries for your actions at all, you can argue until your end does justify the means. There are lines that can't be crossed."

"Who decides those?"

Again, silent contemplation. Maybe Armin's question was rhetorical in nature to avoid going into accusatory territory.

"It's a process," Bertholdt concluded. "It's about seeing what works best without being cruel."

"Would such a society have a place for someone like me…" Armin wondered out loud.

"For a…"

"For a mass murderer," he completed when Bertholdt wasn't ready to

Bertholdt simply nodded in understanding, not to answer Armin's question. They seemed to be on the same page about what Armin was avoiding.

"Maybe they will see why you did it. But it probably doesn't matter to them. If your end isn't theirs, then to them, your means will always be evil. It only matters that you did them a service or that you went against their interest."

"Like Marley and Paradis did with you."

A loaded pause.

"Yeah."

To that, Armin nodded, avoiding Bertholdt's eyes as much as Bertholdt did his. Hunched forward over his lap, he straightened his back and brushed his fingers against the papery cover.

"Well… I like to think that there is more to people than just looking after their selfish desires. There's more in the other chapters. Maybe you'll change your mind."

"Who knows."

Armin accepted the fatigue over Bertholdt's usual dismissal. Today had gone as well as it could've. It was a victory he'd gladly accept.

Back on the surface, he took refuge in his chosen room and made himself at home before scouting out the building. It was quite different during summer than it was in the winter. Policemen were less bitter, even could be found in a cheerful mood, but the excessive heat of the past few months formed a new source of annoyance, putting them out of commission. Armin couldn't find any of them in their usual common room, instead seeing them resting in the shade outside where the day's cool breeze could help them cool down.

During a trip around the premise where he more thoroughly explored the town of Tourze than he could with the rickety body he inhabited in the winter, he discovered several interesting facts.

First, that several dozen animals resided in and around a farm he hadn't distinguished in the snow. Among the livestock, he counted three cows, ten sheep, two goats, and an entire flock of chickens that explained why milk, eggs, and poultry were so abundantly used in the meals served to him during the winter.

Second, that the snow had covered a large garden with vegetables and fruits grown locally that offered the policemen fresh produce, as well as patches of land used to grow vegetables and fruit trees.

Third, that the farmers who tended the land and animals drove Armin to discover the limits of his mobility on crutches for getting too close to their land and called on the policemen to shoot him, an issue that was luckily avoided thanks to his long blond hair that made the policeman who responded to the call recognise him from afar and de-escalate the situation.

After his brush with his own once again deteriorated stamina, Armin stood panting, hunched over as far as he could against his crutches without falling over as his saviour unconvincingly offered him a waterskin to drink from, compassionate for the great amount of sweat that beaded on his forehead and that soaked his clothes after the chase.

And that proved to be his first issue: his saviour turned out to be Karel, and now the favour Armin had done him of not ratting him out to Svea for slacking in the snow all the way back in January had been repaid.

Exactly his luck that it had to be one of those three recruits. He only had two chances left, or he'd be on his own, but the encounter gave him an idea.

Finding the patrol schedule wasn't a difficult task, pinned to the notice board in the barracks' common room.

It took a little bit of preparation, but being in the wrong place at the wrong time was not so hard, and so he found himself face-to-face with Egon, who just caught him at the stairwell of the underground storage room stuffing food into his backpack.

During the moment when Egon stood confused by his findings, Armin rose back to his feet using his crutches and shot him a smile.

"Oh, I'm glad someone else is here. I underestimated how hard it would be to take this with me on my own. Could I get some help?" he asked, subtly swinging back and forth his leg in a cast to drive home why he needed said help. "If you just carry my backpack back up to my room, we're solid."

Egon's response came with hesitance, mouth agape as he worked out how to best tackle this peculiar situation.

"You're not supposed to be here. And you're not supposed to be taking that."

"Oh, I just walked in here. There weren't any locks, so I thought it would be alright."

"Yeah, well… You're still not supposed to be in here? Isn't there food upstairs?"

"There is, but…" Armin started, looking off to the side, "none of that really suits my taste. All the good stuff is down here, so I decided to grab myself a portion or two."

"That's more than a portion or two," Egon argued. "What do you need all that food for?"

"I'm in recovery after being stuck in bed for a month. My doctors told me to eat plenty of meat and animal products, but what I get here isn't enough. I'm just looking out for myself, nothing more."

Egon eyed him with scepticism. "Um… Yeah, you stay here for a minute, I'll get you some help," he said as he turned.

He knew. He definitely knew.

"Hey, wait a second," Armin interrupted his escape, "don't I know you?"

Egon stopped.

"… Sorry?"

Armin demonstratively put his hand on his chin, as if to think. "No, I definitely remember you. I just can't remember where from."

Egon looked over his shoulder, not following at all, and Armin snapped his fingers.

"You were one of those people I saw playing in the snow, weren't you?"

"I don't–"

"Yes, I remember it clearly now! You asked me not to tell anyone, and I kept my mouth shut. Your hair was longer then, but it's definitely you," Armin continued. "Then that makes you… Egon, right? You like to take it easy when you're not supposed to, huh?"

Egon's eyes widened at that. He ground his teeth together as he thought about what to say, frowning when he opened his mouth again.

"How do you know my name from that?"

"Oh, I heard Svea and Travis talking about you to Dominic."

The anger left Egon's face, now replaced by horror over those names. The nerves that flooded Armin's system were far more pleasant than they were disabling.

"A few days before we first met, they talked about… How'd they say it again? A runt who needed a good beating, maybe even a sliced-off finger or a strongly-worded letter to Commander Nile Dok to get him booted out of the Military Police if they ever found him slacking off again. I figured they were talking about you. Maybe I should ask Svea how she dealt with you after the snow thing if you won't tell me."

Egon pressed his mouth to a thin line as he considered the implication of Armin's words and Armin felt himself relax. They must have lectured the three and put some fear into them before the snow incident. Armin wasn't so sure if this would work if they hadn't, and therein lay his gambit.

"Wasn't there something about December that caused Svea to–"

"What do you know about what happened in December!?" Egon cut Armin off, and suddenly taking that route didn't seem like such a good plan anymore.

"Nothing," Armin honestly admitted, not making his misstep audible in his naive response. "I just heard something happened, and Svea has been paranoid about security here since. Enough to get policemen booted out of the division if they don't take their job seriously."

The stares the two of them exchanged were laden. It was clear that Egon already considered himself cornered, he just had to come out for it.

"What do you want?" finally came.

"Huh? What do I want?" Armin obliviously echoed. "I'm just doing my job as best as I can and following my Commander's orders."

Egon sighed, looking bitter. He moved to turn back, but Armin once more interrupted him.

"But… Come to think of it, maybe there is something you can do for me that will keep me busy enough to lack the time to go chat with Svea."

Uneasy as he looked about it, Egon nodded his head.

The plan didn't require Armin to wake up early for a change, but when another night terror took him to a burnt city and guided him into the mouth of a titan, he decided that he'd gotten enough rest and he spent the rest of his time up watching the moon wash out in the breaking dawn's glow.

Hours later, beyond breakfast, he found himself in the barracks' kitchen, secure that no one would bat an eye at him as he worked with the materials that the very person who was guarding him had fetched for him in secrecy. Putting in the effort now would surely redeem Egon for his earlier slacking. So long as Armin didn't push this, the arrangement could last.

Bertholdt opened the boxes Armin brought down into the mines one by one like a child would the Yule gifts they'd been asking for all year. His eyes lit up with gusto when the smell entered his nostrils and he realised what Armin had brought along—omelettes, boiled and sliced eggs, and a grilled chicken breast, hopefully still warm after the journey underground. And on top, a skin of milk to accompany the usual water, a few slices of bread, and some cheese to make sandwiches out of the eggs.

"Vegetables won't do," Armin explained. "What I brought you yesterday can help, but what you really need is animal products to gain weight."

"Is that allowed?"

"That doesn't matter. I want you to have these to help with your deficits. No one will catch you. I made sure of it."

"How did you get these?"

"One of the guards is helping me. He thinks it's for me, to recover from the leg, and that I ate these in my room, where the others can't see."

Bertholdt stared at the arrangement of food ahead of him, his shiny lips parted. Then, he closed them, nodding without eye contact.

"Thank you. Really, I… Thank you."

It was odd, to feel something while down in these mines again. Something different than a pull that wished to lure him as far away from the underground as it possibly could. A glimmer of satisfaction and relief, flickering in his heart as a tiny, vulnerable flame that he wanted to shelter with all he had and foster to a full wildfire, but knew would never stand a chance.

Bertholdt requested Armin to stay while he ate. Armin figured out pretty quickly that Bertholdt preferred to eat in silence when he didn't respond to any other attempts at making conversation. As great as it would be to save some of these things for later, animal products spoiled so much quicker than vegetables and fruits did. Even in this cold, the fresh eggs and meat would go bad within days, and even now that Bertholdt had been forced to survive for long enough to want to stock up on things, he understood this was not possible.

It took maybe an hour for Bertholdt to slowly work his way through half of the food and take a few sips from the skin of milk. Already, Armin got the impression that there was just a hint more colour in his cheeks, but his optimism was shattered against the cave walls when Bertholdt slumped back and looked just as listless as he had for months instead of jumping back to life as Armin had secretly, naively hoped he would.

They played some chess, read some more The Nature of Absolutism, repeating a couple of chapters about the relativity of morality which Bertholdt requested Armin reread for the sake of clarity, and Armin stayed until the evening to see him unfold and grow into an active man. But as soon as he started gathering his belongings, Bertholdt once again slumped into a languid heap that looked nothing like the more lively version of himself Armin encountered while they were talking.

After all that, Armin realised, it pained him to leave even for one night. Never before had he more desired to drag Bertholdt with him to the surface and let him sleep with company for a change, protocol be damned.

It was rare for Armin to lie awake not because of guilt or pain, but because his lips were tingling with a feeling he couldn't quite define.

Too mild to be excitement.

Too intense to be relief.

Accomplishment, maybe?

It felt good. To offer that food had felt good. Better than all other times combined, possibly because for the first time, Armin did it solely out of care.

All Armin could think about was that he had done a great thing manipulating that policeman to get him the ingredients and cover he needed. The colour in Bertholdt's face that indicated that for the first time in many months, he was finally sated again said it all, and the possibility that he might see again.

A feeling he thought he'd never again feel when it came to Bertholdt, or anyone at all. A feeling that maybe, he was not the complete failure he'd concluded he was, and terrifying as it was to veer away from the comforting permission to just be useless and dead meat as soon as Bertholdt had perished, he could not resist melting into the warm embrace of accomplishment that flirted with the level of his standards.

He could get used to this. Gods, could he get used to some success for a change.

19

Travis sifted through Armin's belongings like an instructor who caught wind that one of his students was smuggling alcohol onto the training grounds.

It had been inevitable he'd eventually pique the curiosity of either one of the siblings and have his backpack searched. As Travis tore out the single pair of spare clothing, his journal, the book he'd taken along for the day, and finally the towel he'd packed one by one, Armin considered himself lucky this was not a food day.

Travis stuck his hand in deep, searching the bottom of the pack for anything else Armin could've smuggled in.

"You ain't telling me that's all you're dragging in there," he said. He stood on unsteady legs and reeked of a long night of drinking that had extended too far into his shift.

"Sometimes, I give him a little bit of alcohol or a pastry I purchased in the city. Not today," Armin clarified.

Switching to picking up the pack, Travis shook it to listen for any contraband, but Armin had concealed anything incriminating well.

"You know the Colossal ain't gonna fuck you for doing all this, right?" Travis finally said when he tossed Armin's backpack back onto the table with little care.

Drinking tea with the policemen so often had gotten Armin used to their crude language by now, but it always caught him off guard when they tried to make jabs in that direction. Armin's throat constricted the way it had every time his thoughts veered too close to this topic ever since he had fled Stohess.

What was Travis seeing in him? Was this more of the police's usual methods?

Armin set his crutches aside and took a seat at the table to return his possessions to his backpack. Travis didn't seem so happy that he was being ignored. He leaned his hips against the table and crossed his arms.

"Your Commander called it a little fag, but I doubt it could sodomise anyone with a micropenis."

Jab at Bertholdt to jab at him. It was the usual next step and Armin's facial expression didn't shift as he folded the shirt Travis had so carelessly tossed onto the table.

"You into that kinda stuff?" Travis pushed when Armin wasn't overcome with that coveted anger.

"You're the one who can't stop talking about it," Armin retorted, now frowning.

Travis laughed at that with great exaggeration.

"Oh, how rich, kid. Don't think I didn't see the underwear in your bag. You're just here as a tourist to come view its conditions and watch it change. Throw it some scrap meat and watch it perform for you. Creepy little freak."

Freak was new. Brat, idiot, titan shit, and about every other asinine insult and belittling term in the book were common. Not freak.

First the search, now this. Armin wondered if Travis had a personal score to settle with him. This went beyond the usual degeneracy the policemen would sink to in order to kill their boredom. Though Armin could subdue his emotions in the moment, the sexually-charged nature of his accusations was bound to come back to him during a late-night overthinking session he'd lie awake avoiding thinking about.

"You know why it's like that, right?"

Armin didn't answer while he placed the stack of neatly-folded clothes back into his backpack.

"'Purge this rotten seed from the world for good'. That's what your Commander said. I remember it well."

Now that got his attention. Travis must've noticed him falter, even if it was just in the small details of his body language, because his familiar pestering smirk returned.

"'Don't hurt it! Don't hurt it!'," he whined with folded hands, as if pleading, "that pain in the ass told us. Would get us court martialled if we dared touch the Colossal. Had to leave things in your Commander's hands because they were the only one who could make it talk and they'd kill it with kindness after they failed to kill it in Shiganshina. Bitch had it. Colossal was terrified and about to snap and talk. And then what does Hange do? Sets the fucker on fire before it's given the chance to squeal and yells at us for trying to stop 'em. Real principled one, your boss."

He seemed proud of that.

"Had no qualms using every method they had at their disposal after that, to hell with scaring the shit out of the Colossal. And when they cut off his prick, what does the bastard do? Doesn't grow any of it back, of course. Had your Commander cussing it out for hours, but at least it had a semblance of a brain in it by refusing to grow it back."

This had been rehearsed, like so many of Travis' other jabs, and it had been fine-tailored to get under Armin's skin.

That unevenly-severed index finger immediately came to mind. First a suspicion, now a confirmation: Bertholdt had not regrown it as a means to protect himself from further pain. Romi had explained to Armin how they had mutilated Bertholdt and mocked him for no longer being a man and, with a soft and hesitant voice, quoted them as saying he'd been "too much of a… well, you know… to grow anything back". Romi hadn't dared speak the word, but Armin knew very well it was of the same nature as the one Travis had used. It had disgusted him then and it shocked him now.

Armin still remembered reading the details about the session Travis outlined—how crude Hange had been about everything they'd said, though not through the specific expression Travis had quoted. The session cut off abruptly in the notes at some point, and Armin now suspected that it had not been fully recorded by their request.

Hange must have done something they knew they'd go on to regret if they kept the police from writing down what came next.

Travis leaned down onto the table, arms crossed, and Armin stood and gathered his backpack, done having to listen to this.

"Grew back a tiny little nub later so it could piss," Travis tried, sensing he'd lose his target soon. "But go ahead and give it all this insignificant stuff if you want to be dicked down by a tiny prick. Yeah, you seem like the type of guy who's satisfied with nothing. Bet you know all about what it's like to have a nub, huh?"

Taking his crutches, Armin chose to exit calmly.

"Sve," Travis laughed behind him, "hey, Sve, do you know if the eunuch has grown back its goods yet?"

"Why don't you go stick your hand in its pants if you want rabies so badly?" she deadpanned without looking up from her newspaper. From her tone, Armin got the impression that today, Travis was pushing it beyond her nerves too.

"Yeesh, buzzkill," was the last thing he heard Travis say before he managed to crutch his way into the mineshaft leading to Bertholdt's cell.

He direly hoped that Svea's comment was born from annoyance and not truth. Exploitation of such a nature would be yet another worry on Armin's mind, and he knew for a fact that this was the type of subject he couldn't discuss with Bertholdt. Not without ruining their relationship. He couldn't ensure that he would be spared any future incidents. He couldn't even share that they were kindred spirits.

After the high he'd felt the previous week, this was a huge blow. How could he forget so easily that Bertholdt was still hated by the world?

He had to stop for a moment as sickness overcame him and he only then noticed that his stomach was sending some of his breakfast back. He leaned against a mine wall and took his water skin off his backpack to swallow it down.

Prick. Absolute brute of a man. Armin couldn't imagine that Travis had many friends up on the surface if this was the spiteful banter he liked to indulge in when he'd had a few drinks.

And what did it imply about the way he interacted with Bertholdt? It was obvious Travis was spiteful that he couldn't effectively kick him in the groin whenever he desired. Hange had been cruel when they needed answers and remained trapped by government officials, but the people who surrounded Bertholdt chose their cruelty. They had been selected exactly because they wouldn't grow sympathetic and compromise the security in the mines.

More than ever, Armin wanted to throw Bertholdt's arm over his shoulder and drag him to the surface himself, emerging from that dark hellhole two broken bodies working together as one. He'd be a wanted man for it.

When he retreated to his quarters for the night, he found Travis sulking on his own, looking dreadfully gloomy as the others didn't bother to pick him up—and Armin couldn't help but feel like it was where such a miserable man belonged, but it didn't change one gruelling fact.

There roamed monsters down in that mine yet, but Armin could not sufficiently protect Bertholdt from them.

"I want to talk about something."

Bertholdt was the one to initiate their conversation topic for a change, late during an evening when Armin had decided to stay for as long as he could. He'd been more lively all week during Armin's visits, but this was a first.

Armin didn't make the mistake of letting it excite him too much just yet. "What is it?"

"I don't know how to start."

"Maybe you can tell me what it's about and we can see from there?"

Bertholdt didn't respond. The focused look in his eyes proved it would be serious.

"It's about Marley."

Oh.

Armin's heart skipped a beat and he had to swallow hard to keep his voice from cracking when he spoke.

"If you need some time to think about what to say, there is plenty of it."

"I've thought about it a lot. I know exactly what I want to say, I just can't figure out where to start."

"Oh."

"It, um…" Bertholdt fidgeted with the fabric of his blanket. "It's something I wanted to say after you read that book to me. A question I had."

So it dealt with morality and ethics. Armin's ears were sharp for anything and he prepared himself to commit everything he was about to hear to memory—and suddenly, he felt two-faced for being excited in the first place. Like he still was some kind of spy or interrogator when he had long decided that this was all for Bertholdt's sake.

But if Bertholdt gave him incriminating information, what was he supposed to do with that?

"If it's impossible to say it politely, then say it crudely. Or use keywords. It's better out than in, isn't it?"

Bertholdt nodded. His fist tightened around his blanket and he licked his lips as he thought, but finally, he found the courage to speak up.

"There's just… something I really need you to know."

Armin looked on permissively, waiting.

"You have to know that I hold no love for Marley, Armin. No matter what it may look like. I grew up there, I know well enough what they are capable of. How cruel they can be to the subjects they're supposed to protect."

Something sour crossed his features.

"Paradis is better. Isn't that what you wanted to hear from me all this time? Paradis is objectively better. You have so many issues, but compared to what Marley would do to us, this is… This is paradise. But compared to the other countries, so is Marley. Out of all countries that threatened to torture me, Paradis is the only one that carried through with it. I can't bear to help a group of people that would do that to me and everyone I value."

"I… I understand that," Armin submissively accepted the excuse. Bertholdt really wanted this off his chest. Usually, he'd be guarded. Was he more open because Armin had fed him properly, or rather because Armin had trusted him enough to introduce him to The Nature of Absolutism?

He hadn't brought food along today to lessen the odds that police would find it. The reserves would last him more than a day. At least, Bertholdt hadn't taken that the wrong way.

Bertholdt looked up at Armin, something vulnerable glinting in his eyes.

"What will you do when ships show up at your shores? What will you do to those soldiers if you win? Will harming them for answers in exchange for the lives of Paradisians be your relative morality for the day?"

There was the question he had in mind. Concern for his countrymen knowing that Armin believed that a good end justified all means, inspired by a philosophy book that claimed the opposite.

"No," Armin resolutely answered. "We will give them a choice. They can cooperate with us or be detained, but we will never torture them."

At least, so he hoped. Though torture was unlawful on paper, there were many loopholes that left room for it. Enough that even those in charge could openly engage in it.

"Will you?"

"You don't believe me."

"No. You needed my information and you were prepared to do anything to get it. What difference is there between them and me?"

"For one, their numbers," Armin argued. "You were alone. There will be hundreds of them. Not all of them will be equally trained and not all of them will remain loyal. We don't need to hurt them to learn about them; we can sit down and talk, the way it should have gone with you as well. Secondly, I am not in a coma. I can make sure that nothing bad happens to them. Matters were far more pressing when you were first captured than they are now, so I doubt that our leadership would act with as much preemptive urgency and make the mistake of committing such brutal overkill."

Bertholdt gritted his teeth, exhaling sharply.

"So I'm special again."

"Circumstances were different, Bertholdt. It should've never happened, so when we get the chance to right our past mistakes by doing things correctly this time, shouldn't we grab it?"

Looking away, Bertholdt frowned. He sounded like he wanted the other prisoners to face what he had faced so that he would be less alone. If Armin knew Bertholdt at all, that was exactly what was going through his head right now, and he'd be ashamed about it.

"I suppose so," he rasped.

"I thought you would be relieved to know that we won't harm any more enemies. Marley… They wouldn't make the same consideration. They'd do anything to get what they need. Wouldn't they?"

"They would, and yet…"

Bertholdt didn't continue, not even when Armin slightly tilted his head and stared him down for an answer.

Yet that was the nation Bertholdt chose to server, as he'd said before.

"I just want to make sense of what you think. See how you came to the conclusions you came to. If Paradis is so much better, why you can't allow us to make the world better. Please offer me clarity."

Bertholdt thought for a long time. When he answered, he didn't seem entirely certain of himself, but he at least had the decency to indulge Armin.

"You're selfish. You're a coward."

The directness came as a shock. Armin didn't respond to the challenge. He searched Bertholdt's eyes for any sign of a threat, but only found brutal honesty.

"Marley's imperialism will be the cause of so much suffering that'll make the world worse, there's no doubt about that. But do you know what would make the world even worse? If it got trampled underfoot by millions of colossals. I can't let that happen. I can't allow that to…"

Words trailing off, Bertholdt remained silent for a short while, then looked back up at Armin with certainty.

"I know what my duty is. You can present it however you want, Armin, but as it stands, you are the one on the side of the country that threatens to destroy the world, not I. You have to see that."

Bertholdt sounded so much like Armin when he had to state harsh truths that carried no moral verdict with them.

He closed his eyes and sighed, continuing.

"But I get why you act the way you do. I'm just as selfish and cowardly as you are."

He looked up at Armin again.

"It would be a lot harder to swallow if I didn't feel like I was picking the lesser of two evils, but I think that I would always choose to protect my dad and Reiner and Annie, no matter what the cost. I'd always carry out my duty, no matter what that means. How could I ever judge you for doing the same for the people you love?"

"Are you sure about that?" Armin protested. "You were prepared to kill Reiner in Shiganshina. You were prepared to leave Annie behind with us. Isn't that prioritising the mission over selfish goals?"

Bertholdt bit his lip at the sharp remarks. Like he was being called out for something terrible when in reality, even Armin had a hard time envisioning abandoning his humanity so thoroughly that he would sacrifice his own friends to win.

"That was different. That was Shiganshina."

"How was that different?"

Bertholdt shook his head. "I don't know… It's all a blur to me. But it didn't matter to me anymore what happened. I didn't make a choice, I gave up fighting against what I had to do. The only comfort was that you'd get to die instantly without any suffering, but then you had to survive and…"

He vaguely gestured Armin's way, eyes pinned on the minefloor in front of his sleeping bag.

"And get myself burnt," Armin completed.

"That's not what I meant," Bertholdt strongly retorted.

"And yet it is what happened, isn't it? I chose to jump into your steam knowing what would happen. You did exactly what I expected and I got myself burnt."

Bertholdt looked on solemnly. Apologetically, Armin noticed with a jump of his heart that Bertholdt displayed guilt about the hurt he had caused Armin despite it being his only option.

"But that's not what matters," Armin continued. "I've seen monsters. Actual monsters. People who are cruel just because they can be, and who hurt others just because they have the authority to do so. That's not you. You're not a bad person. You did what you had to do and what you believed was right. Doesn't that mean something?"

"Maybe. But what did it change? I mean, in the end, they…" He swallowed hard. "They left me behind too to save themselves. To make sure that Marley still had titans to bring back home. We'd be defenceless if they hadn't, so they had no choice, really, what else were they going to do …"

His words came out softly, rambling something to himself that he didn't quite find comfort in. It couldn't have been easy to accept that he'd been abandoned to the enemy to do with what they wanted. Armin wasn't so sure that he fully had accepted it yet, the way Bertholdt squinted his eyes ever so slightly and the corners of his lips pulled his mouth taut.

"I don't know if it's quite the same, but it happened to me too."

"What do you mean?"

"I know what it feels like to be left behind. My parents went to explore the world without me. My grandpa was sent to the frontlines. I wasn't chosen to live. My friends didn't want me to come here, didn't believe in me– and now they are so far from here, and I am not, and I doubt they're thinking of me. And Eren…"

Armin swallowed, suddenly aware of the lump that had formed in his throat as he bared himself.

"Eren has always run away from Mikasa and I. He keeps going his own way, he keeps secrets from us, he keeps abandoning us when we really need him, and…"

He stopped, biting down his jaws hard to keep his tears from spilling over. No other topic was capable of getting him this upset, but months of lying in bed and mulling over why Eren was lying to him and why he had been distancing himself from Armin had only weakened his resolve instead of fortifying it.

"What a stupid thing to be upset about when you've been left in enemy territory with no one to back you up," Armin softly dialled it back.

His blurry eyes locked directly with Bertholdt's.

"I'm sorry that they left you. I'm sorry that you couldn't finish your mission. I'm sorry that this is where you are stranded."

"You'd be dead, as would your friends," Bertholdt righteously pointed out.

"I know."

A stunned few blinks from Bertholdt combined with a strangled inhale between his teeth.

"And you're still sorry I didn't?"

Armin narrowed his eyes in solemn compassion.

"It caused you a lot of pain, didn't it? Even if it's better for us that you failed… I still wish that there had been a way for both of us to get what we desired. Without anyone having to get hurt or die."

One corner of Bertholdt's lips pulled taut. His breathing turned heavier for a moment until he got it back under control and his eyes matched Armin's thoughtful ones.

"If only the world weren't so cruel that we need to make this choice."

Armin hummed in agreement. If only the setup had been different. If only there were a golden middle way. If only Paradis and Marley hadn't been what they were: unbudging and so certain of themselves and their ways that they couldn't see that maybe, there had once been a compromise but that their actions repeatedly destroyed it.

If only things had gone differently and they'd been afforded the choices to avoid this mess that neither desired.

If only the world weren't so cruel that they couldn't be friends.

Maybe they had no need for nations. Maybe it would be better if the world was made up of many small entities instead of few large conglomerates that could sweep its crimes and inhumanities under the rug and tear a boy limb from limb with no one there to bat an eye. Maybe like that, no one could do the harm that they had done to each other.

No one could enforce suffering on a scale this large.

"Can you tell me about them?" Bertholdt broke the silence.

"Huh?"

"Ah, sorry, the… The burns."

Armin's eyes drifted to the palm of his left hand, less affected than its back yet still insensitive. One of the worst places to itch.

"Well… You know what happened, don't you? I threw myself at you to distract you so that Eren could cut you down and your steam burnt me in the process."

"And then what?" Bertholdt asked in a quiet voice, testing the boundaries of where he could push this.

"You're asking me about my wounds and my recovery?"

Bertholdt pulled his blanket tighter over his shoulders.

"Yeah."

A bit of a personal question. Privacy Armin would have to accept he'd have to give up on if he wanted to form a connection. Bertholdt didn't sound like he was trying to get satisfaction out of hearing how Armin had suffered.

Maybe he would feel less alone if he heard how Armin had hurt just like him. It had helped Armin greatly to know Bertholdt had been tortured when he'd been suffering from his burns, though Armin long changed his mind on the matter by now. Crude as it was, it helped.

"It hurt," Armin truthfully answered. "It hurt more than anything I've ever felt in my life. Sometimes, I still wake up in panic just from the memory translating itself into my dreams."

Bertholdt's face twisted subtly. Armin couldn't pinpoint if he regretted asking or if this was compassion.

"Mostly my upper body was affected. Most burns were on my chin, neck, shoulders, arms, and hands. I had some on my chest, my back, my sides, and my thighs too, but they're minor compared to the rest. Some wounds were superficial, some deeper, and a few areas beneath the skin, but not many."

One hand crawled to the other to poke underneath the meaty curve of his thumb that had lost all feeling.

"I don't remember much of the first days. I was in a coma, but sometimes, my consciousness would break through. I presume that they cleaned and bandaged my wounds in Shiganshina, but I only got proper medical help when we were back. I woke up eventually. It was like my skin was boiling and melting and a thousand red needles scratched the surface, but it reached so deep into my veins that my nails couldn't reach it. They refused to give me anaesthetics because they feared I wouldn't wake up again, so they tied me down to keep me from scratching."

He paused to swallow, breaking eye contact in favour of the ground as he folded his hands across his lap.

"They should've taken the risk. It was the better alternative."

In the top region of his sight, he could see Bertholdt nod at that.

Would he take the risk too?

Of course he would. He'd been fine with dying when he lay on that table. For him, the freedom that'd come with death had been even greater than it would've been for Armin.

"There were many times when they thought I wouldn't make it. Somehow, I pulled through. They fed me larger quantities of food during that time, even though my stomach sent most of it back. They didn't want me to reach a critically low weight and die from that. That's also when the itch became the worst part."

"Itch?" Bertholdt asked.

"Yes. When burns heal, the fire is eventually replaced with this hellish itch that you can't do anything about. They say it never fully goes away. It's maddening."

Bertholdt wouldn't know. Any burns the Colossal Titan may have given him, he'd heal away at a moment's notice without ever allowing his body to go through the natural healing process.

Still, he nodded like he understood. Armin's mind went back to a gruelling paragraph in Grisha's journals, one that offhandedly talked about the way the military's titan studies division was no stranger to testing the limits of its shifters, and he wondered if Bertholdt maybe had experience with burns too and he was simply looking for a connection.

Then again, he'd said only Paradis ever tortured him. That must have meant Marley left him alone. That, or he didn't consider burn tests torture.

"Are you itching now?" Bertholdt dug deeper.

"Only a little. The cold temperature helps keep it under control here and we worked hard to make the scars heal as well as possible, which did a lot to reduce it. It's worse up there when I'm sweating in the heat. We're experiencing a heat wave at the moment and it's been rough."

"But the pain is gone?"

Armin shook his head. "Not quite. On hot days, it's still there. My skin is stiff and certain movements pull on it. It's like leather pulled taut over my muscles, and sometimes, the strain hurts."

"Is it… bad?"

This time, Armin wasn't so sure what to answer.

"Pain is relative. Just because I got fullbody burns one time doesn't mean that touching a hot pan on the stove doesn't also still hurt."

Armin tightened his fingers over the backs of his folded hands.

"The pain is manageable, but it's still pain. I don't want to be in pain, but I'm not sure if it will ever fully go away."

The ghost of the first time they had this conversation played through Armin's mind. January, when he had just been discharged from his medical arrest in Trost and he'd immediately trekked for Tourze as soon as Hange let him. He had reminded Bertholdt of how much those burns hurt, how permanent his scars were, and even told him that he wished he had the convenient healing powers Bertholdt possessed to avoid all his suffering, just to feel powerful when facing his assailant at the cost of losing the upper hand in the conversation.

Convenient that it was why they could rip out his soul and discard him once he was no longer a man.

What was that even supposed to accomplish? To make Armin feel better when the ache was still fresh in his mind? To point a finger at the person who had done this to him and rub it in that Bertholdt had also suffered?

Where had that hurt led him? What journey had it sent him on; to be so maddened by the flames that blistered his skin and infected his mind with the unquenchable need to seek answers and comfort that it had led him to gain an understanding of the one who had hurt him so?

Had he not gone, Bertholdt would've remained a subject that'd always send him spiralling into a dark place, if not a dagger plunged into his self-confidence.

Had he not stayed, Armin may have never made peace with the idea of failure.

He'd have thrown away a part of his humanity he could not bear to lose but that he would've gladly tossed out just to find relief from his demons.

Now, he hadn't. Now, he had gained a deeper understanding of both Bertholdt and himself. And now, he was trapped deep underground, just like Bertholdt was.

Maybe all that pain had been worth it after all.

"I can't help but wonder, Bertholdt," Armin said, almost whispered. "Why did you want to know? Why did you ask that question in particular?"

Bertholdt looked up at him and blinked before he shrugged.

"It just made sense."

It just made sense.

There had to be more, but Armin didn't want to ruin this moment by prying.

"Why are you crying?"

Armin's eyes widened. His hand went for his face, where his cooled skin had concealed the single wet line that trickled down his cheek. Bertholdt couldn't have possibly seen it from where he sat with his eye condition.

"I'm… not…"

His lips pulled taut. There was no point in it. Bertholdt clearly felt comfortable enough to bring it up, something Armin wouldn't have expected out of him again. There was no point in suppressing this.

He sighed, shakily and louder than he expected. This time, he felt the hot tears trickle over his face.

"A stupid reason, really. But it's just… No one asked me about it before."

He loosely gestured the arm that leaned on his lap Bertholdt's way.

"You're the first person who asked me how it felt. The others could see it, I guess, but they assumed that they understood how it felt too. They supported my recovery, but they never asked me if I was fine. Not when it came to the burns."

He swallowed.

"And I just… I mean, I intend absolutely no offence, but why is someone that the world tells me is my enemy the first one to ask? Why didn't they see how much I wanted them to ask?"

"Do you feel abandoned?"

Armin looked up at Bertholdt in surprise.

Abandoned.

How could he possibly say all that and still need someone else to make it all click in his head?

The others had abandoned him much earlier than when they left him on the mainland.

It had already started when they dragged him toward the horizon without ever giving him the time and space to find his footing in the here and now. Jean meant well when he talked him into exercise and pushing his boundaries. Hange meant well when they wanted him out of the mine and back in action as soon as possible. Eren meant well when he used their book to inspire him. Levi meant well when he said it wasn't Armin's fault. But in the end, they didn't give him the chance to stand still at what had happened and process it.

How could he ever stand a chance at recovering when they didn't give him any time to reflect?

They were so near to him, pushing him in the back all along the way and gripping his hand without letting go, eyes set so starkly on tomorrow that they had yet to notice that he had slipped out of their grip yesterday.

Turned out that it wasn't just that Armin was the only person left who would listen to Bertholdt. Bertholdt also was the only person left who would listen to Armin. He'd laugh at the irony if the noise wouldn't make that knot in his throat collapse and break him.

"I don't know if abandoned is the right word," Armin half-heartedly answered, averting his eyes as he felt he failed to suppress the pout the thought brought about within him.

"Then what is?"

Armin shrugged.

"Abandoned feels like it has intention behind it. I don't think they meant to do that. This is just… I don't know, negligence? Oversight? Inattentiveness?"

The sight of the others leaving at Trost's southern gate stood branded in his memory. None of these words stung any less than abandonment did.

Bertholdt nodded. Through blurred pupils, Armin could see that he understood the sentiment. Considering the importance of the weapon that lay dormant within his body, he was less likely to just be overlooked like that, but there had been plenty of situations where he had not mattered in the slightest. Where he'd just been a tool for others to use, or worse: where everything else he was hadn't been relevant to the equation altogether.

Like being fought over like a piece of meat to be fed to a monster.

Like becoming blade fodder for the sake of answers they couldn't cut out of him.

Like having his mistreatment turned a blind eye to by the so-called proponents of progress and equality.

Bertholdt understood more than well enough.

He gave Armin the space he needed. Soon, he got control over his emotions again and managed to dry his eyes. They'd both pretend it hadn't happened but Armin would remember. He was allowed to be vulnerable today and he could see it open up a path towards healing.

It should be mutual. They both deserved this chance.

"I told you about my burns," Armin broke the silence between them. Bertholdt looked up only half-heartedly. "Do you want to tell me about the things that happened to you?"

Bertholdt's eyes widened, then narrowed a moment later.

"No," he quietly answered.

"I don't mean to pry. As a way to let them go and move on from them. You may feel better. I did when I answered you."

"No." This time, he was more resolute.

Armin would have to try elsewhere.

"Maybe that's the wrong question. Are you in pain? I mean right at this moment."

The sour expression on Bertholdt's face waned. He considered, then spoke up.

"Yes."

That surprised Armin. Bertholdt looked fine.

"What do you feel?"

"My head hurts. It hurts to breathe, and my body feels like it's being crushed and cut at the same time."

Armin leaned forward on his crate. "What? Has anyone done anything to you?"

"No."

"Have… Have you done anything to yourself?"

The sickening dull thud of a skull hitting a cavern wall echoed through Armin's mind. It was very well possible that was the cause of Bertholdt's unease.

Bertholdt looked down.

"No…"

"It's just there?"

Bertholdt nodded.

"It never goes away. How is it supposed to, with this torture device on me and this darkness around me?"

Torture device.

The mechanism hurt Bertholdt. Made him feel trapped; crushed, even.

All those instances where Bertholdt's breathing length didn't quite match the great volume of his chest added up when Armin accounted for the idea that the harness was strapped to his body so tightly. It had been inside the manual, and yet Armin had never accounted for the idea that constricting his body to remain effective would have its consequences.

"That's how you've been feeling all along?"

Bertholdt nodded.

Armin remembered his early days of maneuver gear training. How even a single belt that was pulled too tight would leave these red lines branded in his skin that would itch like cuts for the rest of the week. How any abrupt stop or wild turn would translate itself into a bruised chest, soreness that lasted for days, and in some cases, even broken bones or an injured neck.

Even though Bertholdt sat still in his harness, living inside a tightly-fastened framework of metal and leather couldn't feel so good. And somehow, in all of his calculations, not once had Armin properly considered that Bertholdt was still in pain.

Pain that, as he realised with a twist in his chest, no one could do a single thing about.

He swallowed. Bertholdt simply looked away like a profound, embarrassing secret of his had just been uncovered.

Nothing Armin came here to do would help take Bertholdt's pain away.

Not when pain was Bertholdt's greatest enemy and he'd be forced to live with it for the rest of his life.

Not when Armin knew damn well that neither Hange nor any of the other worthless excuses for Bertholdt's caretakers would ever consider loosening the strain to offer their loathed prisoner the right to breathe.

Nothing Armin came here to do mattered.

Their goodbyes for the day were brief. Bertholdt sensed that the revelation had been tense for Armin, and Armin's lack of a solution discouraged him even further. Like he only said it because he trusted Armin to fix it for him, only to fail.

There was a certain sense of guilt that Armin felt as he went up the elevator and made his way back to his sleeping quarters under an infinite blanket of void and stars outside his window.

He barely slept, tormented by a myriad of nightmares where needles were thrust into his veins and he was sentenced to turn into a monster—before he shot wide awake again covered in feverish heat and made for his backpack as fast as he could with a cast dragging behind him, pulling out a translucent bottle wrapped in cloth that his dream cast his attention onto.

He stared. Unbroken and unused, still full.

He hadn't done anything like it before.

A well-aimed apple could ache quite a bit if tossed hard enough but was non-lethal. A toughened hunk of bread would maybe hurt when used for blunt force trauma but was ultimately pretty harmless. A blanket would only form a strangulation hazard to an already overpowered opponent, and he couldn't see any of the games he'd provided do any good either.

A syringe could kill a man.

Armin was effectively arming Bertholdt. If this went south, it could mean serious trouble for both of them.

Pragmatism.

Humanity.

Two roads that branched in front of him, with devastating consequences if he chose the wrong one.

Sleep didn't find him again. He wanted the sun to rise so that he could go down into that mine already, but he knew well enough that with how late he'd stayed the night before, Bertholdt would be out until the late morning. He'd have plenty of time to mull it over, but he'd gone through such a dilemma often enough to know he'd be at a standstill until his eventual meetup with Bertholdt would force him to choose in the heat of the moment.

When he set foot inside the policemen's cavern, Armin found that it was, for once, empty.

It wasn't the first odd thing that had happened that morning. The policeman operating the lift had told him that apparently, someone was looking for him. Armin figured that if this someone really needed him, they should've looked for him harder and they'd have their chance during the rest of his stay.

Now, he was alone. It wasn't so rare for this place to be lightly manned, but he'd never been there on his own. An eerie sense of loneliness crept over his back. Deserted but fully lit, like its inhabitants vanished into thin air, this area radiated something unsettling that made Armin stop and listen for the structural soundness of the caverns.

He still, sometimes, expected a foot to break through the ceiling and crush him in these tunnels, even after all these months.

Was Bertholdt still there?

There could only be one reason why Bertholdt was no longer guarded, and that was if he no longer needed to be guarded.

That message.

The Survey Corps has returned with serum from the outside world. Bring the threat up now to dispose of it.

Armin could imagine such a handwritten note as if he'd seen it himself.

He heard a loud rumbling noise just then that made his body stiffen.

There could be two reasons why Bertholdt was no longer guarded, Armin then with dread in his stomach realised.

Would she fit through these narrow corridors, crawling all the way into the mine to come rescue her fallen comrade and free him at long last after Armin's words spurred her on to free herself and take a stance? Was the message a warning that she was on the loose and to be on the lookout, be it for a human or a titan? If she was the one to find out about the royal family, then surely, she'd be cunning enough to discover Touzre's secret location.

No. She could easily enter in human form and slice everyone down. But a titan transforming underneath the earth and crawling through it would create such a loud rumbling noise.

Before he knew it, he was crutching through the darkened passageway as fast as he could, tearing open the gate hard before staring back at him sat Bertholdt, pulled away from the gate as he blinked at Armin with a hand before his eyes.

"Armin…?" he asked, eyes painfully narrowed in the bright lantern light. "What's going on?"

Armin stopped, panting. Swiftly, he jerked his head around to look over his shoulder into the endless void behind him before looking back at Bertholdt.

"Did you… Did you hear something?"

"No?" Bertholdt leaned forward as far as he could, leaning on his arm to peek outside the gate. "Is something there?"

Again, Armin looked back. Nothing.

"I hear everything that happens here. There's nothing there," Bertholdt assured him.

Armin swore that he'd heard that noise. But if Bertholdt hadn't heard, then it must not have been there. Then again, if Annie were there to rescue him, would he tell Armin? Or would he let her cut him down in search of freedom?

What was worse—to be alone or not?

Trying to do away with his sudden panic, Armin crutched into the cell as inconspicuously as he could, but he soon realised that he wouldn't fool Berthold, the way he was shivering even with his weight leaning on his crutches. He pulled the gate closed behind him and turned back around, pausing to catch his breath as silently as he could.

There were blades in the other cavern. Should he go get one? Would he stand a chance against a far more proficient assailant, even if she were weakened by prolonged immobilisation?

Bertholdt stared at him with wide eyes, his face pale. "Are you… okay? Who's after you?"

"I'm fine," Armin breathed out. "I don't like this mine. Makes me feel boxed in sometimes."

To that, Bertholdt lifted his head and opened his mouth in understanding, but his eyes remained sceptical.

Armin made his way over to the crate and placed down his backpack, ploffing down on top of its surface. His heart was racing. This wasn't good for him.

So if no one was there with him, why was the cavern empty? Where were the police?

"Did you get breakfast this morning?"

"Yes."

Armin wanted to ask more, but for every word he said, he'd owe Bertholdt more of an explanation. If he found out that there were no guards here now, would he take his moment to strike and try to escape?

Why did Armin still not trust him?

"Okay," Armin breathed. "Alright. It was just my imagination, then," he said with a laugh. "All's fine. Nothing to worry about."

"Um… Okay," Bertholdt answered.

They sat in silence for a while before Armin remembered he was there for a reason.

"Hectic start of the day," Armin said. "But let's ignore that. How are you? Did you sleep well? I came in later than usual to let you catch your rest."

"Fine," Bertholdt gave his usually short response as he looked off to the gate. Armin's abrupt entrance seemed to have knocked all of his early morning energy out of him, a reserve that never ran that deep to begin with.

"Great. I have prepared some food again." No mention of anything else.

Bertholdt's eyes stayed pinned on the gate, but they shot wide.

"Are you hungry now?" Armin tried again.

No reaction. Armin looked down at him, then picked up short footsteps in the passage. His head shot its way too, and sure enough, he saw light through the cracks.

"The rude one," Bertholdt whispered as he leaned back against the wall, almost cowering.

Armin grabbed his crutches and stood on unsteady arms.

"Armin? That you in there?" came shouted, the words echoing off the passage walls.

A male voice.

"I can see your light, y'know."

Travis.

"It's me," Armin shouted back.

"Oh, great. I was just looking for you."

Where? Where could he possibly have thought Armin had gone that wasn't the cavern or Bertholdt's cell?

Armin looked down at Bertholdt, who sat frozen in place, positively terrified. He decided this was no altercation that should take place in the cell and made his way over to the gate, leaving and closing it behind him before Travis could enter.

"Where were you?" he whispered forcefully. "There's someone supposed to be there at all times, where were you?"

"Whoa, hey." Travis put up a hand. "Can't a guy take a piss in peace? You're just like Svea," he answered, rolling his eyes at Armin.

A bathroom break.

Armin had panicked over a bathroom break.

This was his new bedrock. He could only glare at Travis over his nonchalance.

"Anyway, so sorry to interrupt your teaparty, got a letter here. For your eyes only."

He demonstratively held up the aforementioned letter.

Armin looked at the hand Travis held the letter in. Travis caught on and shrugged, causing Armin to pull one corner of his mouth to the side in disgust. Travis groaned, rolling his eyes again.

"Yeesh, kid, you know how rare water's around here? Just wipe your hands on your pants after handling this if you're such a clean freak."

He pushed the letter against Armin's chest, leaving him no choice but to accept it with the underlying resolution to never touch anything Travis held again.

"This came from the surface. Why not deliver it to me there?"

"You've always been here at this hour, how was I supposed to know you weren't?"

Whatever. Looking down at the envelope, Armin noticed a blue seal with the wings of freedom pressed into it.

Oh.

Quickly, he broke the seal and opened the envelope, pulling out the letter to read in Travis' lantern light.

Armin

Return to Trost headquarters immediately.

Signed at the end by Hange's Commander signature.

He turned the letter around but the back was clear. The envelope didn't have anything written on it either. Travis simply looked down at Armin neutrally as he turned the paper around to search for more details.

"Who gave you this?"

"No idea. Some messenger."

"Did they say anything else?"

"Just to give you this. That's all. Summons, eh?"

Armin's fingers tightened over the letter, crinkling the paper.

No details at all. Only that Hange had written this letter. No numbers on survivors, no names, nothing about contact with the outside world—just an urgent request for him to return to the headquarters.

His lips twitched.

Like this, he could forestall the choice about whether or not he should offer hazardous help to Bertholdt until a later date. He could leave and set his thoughts straight.

And Bertholdt would be in pain for a while longer.

In exchange, he'd learn about the fate of his comrades. He'd hear their stories about what they saw, he'd get to hear for himself whether the claims in his book were true after all—and although the bitterness over his absence and the worry that they had not all made it back home certainly muddied the waters, there was no denying that the prospect of getting to listen to their tales was the most exciting thing he had felt in months.

And maybe, now that he had helped Bertholdt so spectacularly, he could start to consider the ocean his reward for continuing to fight again. He no longer was so useless that he didn't deserve it.

Then it dawned on him. Why were they back so early?

Late July. Early to mid August. Those were their referenced return dates, leaving room for building a makeshift outpost and encounters with the outside world.

If they were back home this early into July, that meant either something really great or something terrible had happened.

He crushed the letter in his hand. Travis waved a hand in front of his eyes and Armin looked up.

"You know I could read what's written in there and that it's good news, right?" he said in a rare moment where he wasn't snarking. Maybe he was even trying to comfort Armin, or he was just happy that Armin would leave.

"I know," Armin answered. "Thank you for bringing me this. That will be all."

Travis looked down on him wide-eyed. Then, he turned around, whispering back those final four words in a sarcastic voice before he got out of range and Armin couldn't understand the rest of his vitriol.

Armin looked at the letter again. In his hands, he held permission to postpone his decision to medicate and arm Bertholdt.

The way he had in January. The way he not only excused himself from seeing Bertholdt again to avoid having a difficult conversation after he messed things up, but he'd also failed to face any of the involved people about his role in Erwin's death.

He hadn't thought about that in a while. Opening up to both Levi and Hange had done wonders. He still hadn't faced Eren and Mikasa, but at this point, he was starting to think no one cared whether he did.

Just like no one would care if he left Bertholdt for a little longer.

He couldn't run. As curious as he was about the outside world, as afraid as he was for his friends, as bleak as the prospect of a dangerous choice was, he had to face this.

So he pulled back open the gate and reentered Bertholdt's cell.

Bertholdt still sat leaning against the wall, collapsed, but he no longer looked afraid. In fact, he didn't make eye contact with Armin at all. How he acted during the evenings, when Armin made clear he was off to the surface.

He anticipated Armin's departure.

Had the other arguments not convinced Armin to stay, this sight did. Bertholdt still needed him. For as long as Armin could, he would help.

"Sorry about him. Back to breakfast. I brought you some eggs and chicken. Should still be hot if you eat it fast enough. I also baked some sausages for you," he said as he opened his backpack and grabbed the items.

Bertholdt simply nodded.

Armin got up to place them in the middle and Bertholdt's movement to take the bundle was limited. Still, he ate, and Armin gave him the silence he desired when he did. He was slow, savouring every bite like it would be his last. Like Armin would abandon him the same way he had in the past.

What reason did he have not to believe such a thing?

Armin just hoped that whatever it was they needed him for would be handled quickly so that he could return, but another issue arose.

His ankle.

It had healed for the greater part of a month. Very soon, he'd be allowed to put weight on it again and practice walking before he was fully capable of joining his comrades in Survey Corps business again. His carelessness had only set him back a little, but not enough to push beyond a few weeks. He couldn't quit the Survey Corps and lose his visitation rights to Tourze. It was unlikely that Hange still had enough confidence in him to station him permanently at Tourze for the next half of a decade.

He'd have to go back to Sundays only. Weekends only if he could push it, but less than every Sunday if he realistically considered the Survey Corps' movements across the Walls. Especially not when the outside played a factor too.

He stewed on it so intensely that it didn't register when Bertholdt finished his meal and Armin wasn't mentally present enough to pick up the conversation again as he usually would. He only noticed when Bertholdt just sat, textiles and boxes empty while his eyes weren't focused on anything specific.

"Good?"

An affirmative hum.

"Good."

Armin gestured his head down at his backpack.

"I have something else. Something a little more fun than food."

Bertholdt didn't respond, just looked up.

Armin grabbed a small box. He wondered if Bertholdt would know what was in it just by sound, but it was unlikely. Followed by Bertholdt's eyes, he set it down in the centre of the mineshaft and then returned.

When he looked back up, Armin had already taken out his bottle of wine to accompany the cigars he'd offered. He quirked his brows curiously.

"They're not Marleyan," Armin clarified. "I know you wanted Marleyan, and I know why you did, but I'm afraid that this is the best I can do. Still, is Paradis wine that bad? I'm sure the cigars will be just fine, too."

Bertholdt looked down into the box again. Armin grabbed the bundled-up towel he'd stuffed inside his backpack and unwrapped it, revealing two beer glasses.

"You drink?" Bertholdt mumbled.

"Occasionally. And I've known that you smoke even before your request. There's a pack of cigarettes that we seized from you after the battle somewhere in storage. If you want it back, I can see if I can grab it."

Bertholdt picked up one of the cigars, rolling it between his fingers as his eyes lingered on it. The box had almost been empty when Armin nabbed it from the common room, surely no one would've noticed. As for the wine… Well, who was to say they'd do such a thorough inventory check?

"So… Just for fun?" Bertholdt asked.

"Just for fun."

He nodded. Armin put the glasses down on the crate, then pulled out the bottle opener and screwed it into the cork, pulling it off with a loud pop that made Bertholdt flinch and Armin's heart soar at the suddenness.

Under Bertholdt's focused gaze, he filled both glasses, then went over to place one at the middle of the mineshaft, which Bertholdt struggled to get back without spilling anything.

"Try to enjoy it, alright? It's not every day I'm able to grab one of these," Armin said, raising his glass into the air. "Cheers?"

"Yeah," Bertholdt replied. "Cheers."

Armin drank. Bertholdt kept his glass at his lips, eyeing Armin before they darted away when they made eye contact again, at which point he took a cautious sip. His face immediately scrunched up from the intense taste. He hadn't had alcohol or any sort of strong-tasting drink in some time, the flavour must've hit quite hard.

Armin breathed out a laugh.

"How is it? Good?"

"Strong. I don't remember wine being this sour."

"Well, when was the last time you had something sour, right?"

"Yeah… Right."

He took another sip. Deeper. Armin got the impression that he liked it well enough.

Bertholdt put his glass back down, mouth moving around as he savoured the flavour of his last sip. Then, his hand went to the box, taking a cigar and holding it up towards Armin.

"Oh, I don't smoke."

He lowered it into his lap.

"How do I light this?"

"Well, how about you just–"

Armin looked off to his side, where the stolen Stohess catacomb lantern's crystal stood on the floor, shining its cold, blue light.

"Oh." He stood. "Right… Give me a moment."

He quickly made his way through the mineshaft towards the cavern, where Travis lay stretched out on a bench.

"Took you long enough," he said, but he propped himself up by the elbows when Armin was already on the way out again after grabbing a lit lantern. "Hey, where are you going?"

"Back. I have some unfinished business. Remember the rules, Travis. My methodology or nothing at all. I will tell you when I'm done, not you."

He wasn't chased. Travis had grown more tired than he was aggressive about Armin's tomfoolery of the past weeks. More complacent with his plans and ideas and his leniency. It was the best Armin expected he'd get out of him, so he embraced it as a success.

Crutching with a lit lantern was quite a bit more challenging than it was with the crystal. Armin still hadn't put it below himself to drop it and set himself on fire, but he made it back to Bertholdt's cell in one piece.

"Okay, so," Armin said as he made it to the centre of the mineshaft and placed the lantern down. "I don't know how easy this is with one hand, but try the flame."

Bertholdt grabbed the lantern as Armin went to close the gate again and then sat down on his crate. Prying his fingernails underneath the glass proved effective as he lifted the dome, then held the cigar inside the burning flame and closed the lantern again. The paper burned red at the tip and Bertholdt cautiously brought it to his lips before he inhaled.

He coughed. Hard, several times, almost dropping the cigar.

Interesting. Bertholdt was a smoker but he couldn't handle smoke. Maybe the roughness of the cigar was different from the finer cigarettes they found in his pocket.

Still, when he was done, he just inhaled again, starting all over, and again, until he finally got back against the wall and laid against it with his eyes closed, like he was savouring something sweet. People must've gotten something out of smoking, Armin always figured, even if it wasn't the vile taste or the stench. Bertholdt looked like he was experiencing some sort of high. Maybe Armin should've smelled those cigars first to double check if they really were just tobacco.

He'd have to ask what he liked about it when he wasn't breaking a moment. So he sat and let Bertholdt enjoy this rare treat.

"Hey."

Armin looked at him after it'd been silent for a good ten minutes. Bertholdt seemed to have adapted to inhaling properly rather quickly and now only softly wheezed and sometimes coughed when he did.

"Hm?"

"Do you want to read something?"

"Sure. Did you have anything in mind?"

"No. Pick anything. I just want to listen to something."

Tale of Dawn instantly entered the forefront of Armin's mind, but he didn't have it with him, nor would he spring that upon Bertholdt unannounced.

Armin dismissed the idea. He stood and knelt, rummaging through the crate's contents to find something fitting until he did. One of the few books in the crate they hadn't read yet: Ghosts on the Shore, a published collection of letters a scout exchanged with his fiancée and various of his friends back in his hometown over half a century ago.

He hadn't read it himself before, fearful that he would soon become that missing soldier with no one left to write to him. Now was an opportune moment. Maybe to offer Bertholdt a sense of feeling less alone in his fear of being abandoned and neglected, too.

Letter after letter. Cigar after cigar. The anthology took a dark turn when a supply line was cut off and the scout's squad was stranded out in a forest for a little while until enough horses could be brought in to rescue his squad. It ended exactly as one would expect, with his fiancée's undelivered letters continuing until the day of her death.

Armin had to breathe in deep before he closed the book to keep himself composed. Perhaps it would've been better had he picked the other, much lighter unread book in the crate, Beekeeping For Beginners, because Bertholdt sat against the wall with his head pulled back so that he stared at the ceiling as his cheeks glistened.

"That's so sad," he said, alarmed to the end by the closing of the book. He'd long finished smoking everything and the lantern by his side had flickered out. "That's so incredibly sad," he repeated with a sniffle.

Armin had expected many things, but not quite this silent emotional outburst. Apparently, Bertholdt was a sappy drunk.

"It is," Armin answered, spreading his fingers over the cover of the book. "I didn't expect this to be so gripping. I mean, I thought that's where it would go, but like this?"

"She always remembered him, but he should've been there… Why couldn't he just have stayed home?" Bertholdt asked, swaying from side to side as he wiped his palm under each eye. "He could've been happy. They deserved to be happy."

"He had a duty that was apparently more important to him than she was."

"But that's just…" Bertholdt slurred out before his words turned too soft to understand. He hadn't had that much to drink, but with how much weight he'd lost, he must've been more susceptible to the effects of alcohol.

"I know, Bertholdt. I know."

He gave Bertholdt his moment, knowing that he wouldn't be able to say much more that was meaningful under his inebriation. They'd done this before, discuss books after they read them, and each and every opinion Bertholdt shared about them made Armin's brain light up in nostalgic excitement. Today was no different, but he'd have to postpone the discussion for when Bertholdt wasn't under the table.

Soon, he lay slumped against the wall, eyes closed, and Armin knew he'd made a mistake presenting the wine on this particular day.

"Hey, Bertholdt," he said, and then repeated his name until he woke up again. "You look tired. How about I give you your afternoon break to take care of yourself and nap?"

"No… Stay…"

"I'll be back. You need to sleep this off."

Bertholdt hummed. Armin took his waterskin from his bag and placed it on the ground, rolling it his way. It landed against his sleeping bag.

"Drink something. Against the headache."

Another hum, but Bertholdt listened and patted the ground until his hand landed on the waterskin. Armin stood up and grabbed his crutches.

"I'll see you in a bit."

Armin sobered up on the surface, choosing to go explore the unkempt paths running through the surrounding fields of Tourze.

Maybe it was the volatile mix connection-loss of Ghosts on the Shore, but Armin's heart didn't sit so well in his chest as he crutched through idyllic fields, for once whipped up by turbulent winds and overshadowed by a darkened sky that at last promised some cool amid this maddening, unyielding heat.

He didn't know how to deal with the issue of his healing ankle just yet.

He hadn't been exercising it the way he should've and he hadn't taken any of his medicine, and yet it was coming along nicely. It didn't feel good, but he could almost put his full weight on it again. A few more weeks and he was ready to resume walking.

He could do that while in Tourze, but that wouldn't last forever. In time, he'd be healthy again. He'd lose his excuse.

Creating a new injury would work once, maybe twice, but eventually, Hange would catch on and lose trust in him. Even if it worked, he'd have to be in pain.

No. Not like that. He'd ask, hold his heart and hope that Hange would be reasonable. He was near the bottom of the Survey Corps' pecking order; they wouldn't lose much if he were to lag behind and work on an unlikely last-minute pass they didn't know he had long given up on.

So long as they didn't find out that he was done with seeing Bertholdt as a mission objective, it could work.

"I've thought of a solution."

"To what problem?"

Bertholdt sat still against his wall, hunched over with one eye squinted and the other closed.

"Your pain."

The strain on Bertholdt's cheeks softened.

Armin held the bottle up in demonstration.

"One of the perks of having suffered a painful fracture is that they gave me medicine against the pain. Melactin, though we came up with that name ourselves, so it probably doesn't ring a bell. I have a syringe and a bottle with me."

"Have you used the needle before?" Bertholdt asked.

How could he tell he hadn't?

"No," Armin answered. "My pain's manageable through other means."

"So… You're going to inject me."

"I don't think you'll let me. But I don't have to. You have some space between straps on your thighs. If you place it about halfway along, where you have the most muscle mass, it'll be near-painless. The effect should be instantaneous. You can give yourself one dosage a day if the pain's manageable and two if it isn't."

An explanation repeated after the one he'd been told one too many times.

"Clear?" Armin added at the end when Bertholdt looked at him with an illegible but definitely sceptical look.

"Sure."

"Try it, make sure you do it right."

"No. Later."

Armin lowered the bottle into his lap.

"Alright, then." He cleared his throat. "I urge you to be responsible with this. You can blow this all at once, but then you'll get sick, throw up for a week straight, and experience horrific nightmares as if they're real. The recommended doses will serve you much better."

Poison from poison. There was irony in the statement.

Bertholdt continued to stare in that way Armin knew he wanted to say something but nothing Armin said or did could get it out of him. He didn't try.

"And… Please appreciate this for what it is. A gift to help take away your pain. Use it as intended. That's the only thing I ask of you."

There was nothing Bertholdt could do to his equipment, but someone like him could definitely figure out how to lay a trap for a policeman and get them to a level where the syringe could do serious damage. The greatest weakness of the mine as a prison was that it was susceptible to hostage situations. The lift operator up top wouldn't hear what a guard below warned them for from the sheer distance between them, and Armin wasn't so sure if they would sacrifice their colleagues to keep Bertholdt down.

Bertholdt was good enough of a combatant to have done this months ago, Armin figured. Something else was keeping him there. Maybe he'd given up, maybe he considered it his best option to be neutralised. Probably, he was afraid of the consequences should he fail.

"Yeah. Just for medicine."

"Just for medicine," Armin echoed with a smile. He stood and lifted the crate's lid, rolling the syringe's box and the bottle back into the shirt he'd used for this. "Do be a little careful with it, too. I don't think they'll see if you use it while you eat, but hide it just a little better. The others, I can talk myself out of, but they may not be so happy if they found out I gave you this."

"I'm always careful."

Armin placed the bundle down, nestling it between a stack of clothes. "I didn't expect it any other way."

Closing the crate again, Armin kept his back turned on Bertholdt and bowed his head forward slightly.

"I do have some bad news."

Silence. Bertholdt had been anticipating it, yet it never came easily when it was there.

"I've been called back to the city. I can't ignore this calling. I'll be leaving tonight. But I'll be back soon. Can't say when, but soon."

He looked over his shoulder. Bertholdt wasn't looking at him.

"I'll see if there's anything I can get you while I'm there. The city has far more goods than the supply room here. Did I tell you about this bakery I found in Trost with really good pastries? I'll get you something from there next time."

Bertholdt shook his head.

Armin turned around, sitting down to put the doused lantern Bertholdt had returned into his backpack and close it.

"No baked goods? How about a stock of dried meat? The seasoning is good around this time of the year."

Again, Bertholdt declined the offer.

"I'll think about what else I can bring."

Armin stood, strapping his backpack to his back and grabbing his crutches, placing them underneath his armpits.

"But Bertholdt, please know that I've had fun these past two weeks. It felt a little like old times. Hopefully, by the time I return, your body will have adapted to the pain medication and you will be able to sit at ease. Get some rest. I will be back."

Without any responses, Armin felt defeated, but there wasn't much he could do about having to leave. It'd have to happen eventually.

"Wait."

Armin stood in the gate and looked back.

"Wait, just… Just stay. Just a little longer."

"I can't, Bertholdt… I'll miss my cart ride back to the city. My friends need me." A sting.

Bertholdt sat there attacked, but Armin knew what went beneath. This was the greatest way in which he could reciprocate, and yet Armin was doomed to have to shatter his heart.

Did his friends need him or did they want to show him that they were back and all the things they'd done that he hadn't?

He hummed and, with great hesitation, turned back around and returned to the cell.

Being unable to sleep seemed like the newest trend for Armin since learning of Bertholdt's pain problem. Hopefully, this bout would last only a few weeks.

He stared up at the ceiling under the pressure of a dull headache that pulsed between his eyes. There was another more glaring reason that he couldn't sleep. Horrible moment to lose possession of his syringe, too.

How had he grown to hate himself so much more than he already did in so little time?

He pressed his eyes closed until he saw white. He was only putting off the inevitable.

So he sat up, moved his legs over the side of his bed so that his feet touched the floorboards, and then reached over to the chair his clothes had been folded over. He took his pants, sliding the belt out of its hoops before taking it in hand and looking down upon it to lengthen the moment.

No point. No need to stall.

He took out one of his crutches and placed its end on the chair so that it hit the floor under a conspicuous angle. He scooted backwards, giving his legs room on the bed, then pushed himself upright until he stood on the mattress. With his bad leg, he pushed one side of his bedsheets off of the bed to imitate a struggle. His hand sweated profusely over the leather of the belt.

Don't wait. It was long overdue. This was his only way forward.

He stared at the leather in his hands. Then, with shivering breath, he folded it double and stuck out his leg with the cast to hang over the edge of the bed.

The motion sent an urgency through his spine that spurred him on to open his mouth, stick the belt in deep enough to push his tongue into his throat, and close his jaws over the leather.

Just do it.

He might vomit. He might even pass out. It didn't matter. Pushing out his leg with the healing ankle as far as he could, he breathed in deep once more before he locked his knee and shifted forward, his full weight conquered to gravity as it all collectively landed on his broken ankle.

A blockage shot through his back so deep that his lungs froze and his throat failed on him even as he clattered against the floorboards and lay there completely paralysed from the tension in his muscles.

He'd expected to scream, to wail, but the crushing pain that shot from his ankle up through his leg and all the way into the core of his being was so soul-shattering and sharp that he rolled on his back and was only capable of sucking in air endlessly under the sound of a guttural wheeze, regardless of how much pressure he put on his ribs and lungs.

Then, the full extent of the fall rushed into his veins and he shrieked.