The sound of tumbling books yanked Armin from the light sleep he had fallen into, and he stared dejected at the volumes that now littered the floor around his bed. He still needed a fair amount of assistant getting up and down from the low frame, so for the time being they would have to stay where they were. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he peered out the window next to his bed for a while, gulping water down his parched throat and hoping that someone would be by soon: he wasn't fond of being alone.

Ever since Armin started his translations, the dreams that followed the long reading sessions had become frantic and almost significant in their urgency. It was like his subconscious was making connections that his conscious mind could not. Sometimes he awoke as if from a memory; other times it was if the dreams he was having didn't belong to him at all. He was never able to fully grasp on to the fleeting images, but nearly every time he had one a new piece of information jumped out at him from the Marotsara records.

He was slowly putting the pieces together thanks to an obscure translation manual Oz had managed to dig up from old records of the Southern kingdoms, but even with congress breathing down their necks Armin had no intention of telling them what he had found until he was completely sure. He didn't want to spread the panic and dread that was starting to pile up on his chest to anyone else until he was certain he was right.

Because if I am reading these texts properly, then it's possible that we know even less about our world than we ever could have imagined.

A quiet knock on the door pulled Armin away from the dark path his thoughts were wandering down, and he looked up hopefully. Arya was meant to be by around this time; perhaps he could convince her to help him with a particularly confusing passage he was having trouble with.

The slight grin he was wearing in anticipation of hours spent shut in a room alone with her quickly vanished as his guest entered, replaced with a look of baffled surprise.

"Annie?"

She was hovering near the edge of the room, a mixture of apprehension and uncharacteristic concern painting her normally stoic features. Armin was astonished that she had come, even with his uncomfortably close brush with death after the last time they had found themselves alone with one another. It had been over a year since they last spoke, and the recollection of that conversation swam to the forefront of his mind as he watched her approach his hospital bed.

"I didn't think you would come." He said hesitantly as Annie's eyes shifted across the bandages wrapped around his torso.

"I didn't realize you thought I cared so little."

Armin was taken aback. "That's not what I meant; I just know the government has been keeping a tight lid on our location-"

"Onyankopon had a meeting with his team in Liberio and ran into my father. If he hadn't, I'm sure I would still be there."

The air in the small room was tense as they regarded each other; not exactly hostile, but with an unfamiliar wariness Armin wasn't accustomed to. He was sure they were both remembering the last time they were together, and neither of them seemed interesting in opening that can of worms. She was still staring at his injuries, and his rigid expression softened.

"I'm okay, Ann."

Annie's composure broke when he said this; the concern and worry she had been trying to mask coming to the surface. Armin knew that not many people had witnessed this kind of expression from her, and regret came tumbling down over him. She still cared.

"I should have been there with you." She said, her eyes dancing with her own form of guilt as she finally met his gaze.

Armin sighed. "No, you were exactly where you should have been. I didn't keep you from our mission because I thought you wouldn't have been helpful…I just didn't want to pull you back into something you didn't want to be a part of."

"I know why you did it, Armin, and until I found out what had happened, I appreciated it. But before you left my father told me that I might come to regret it, and he was right. If I had been there I could have kept you from nearly dying; instead, where was I? So committed to my plan of living a "normal" life that I let the people who miraculously still care about me risk their lives for each other while I taught myself how to cook."

She cringed inwardly, shoulders slumping forward as she reprimanded herself, and Armin shook his head.

"No one blames you for choosing a better life for yourself; a life away from this is exactly what you deserve after all the years you suffered. My opinion on that still hasn't changed."

Her eyes hardened. "Oh yeah? Then it's safe to assume that your other opinions haven't changed either, huh?"

And there it was: the topic both Armin and Annie had hoped to avoid was staring them in the face right off the bat, as if it were truly unavoidable when it came down to the two of them in the same room. The sharp comment she made hurt, but it was nothing less than what he deserved after the things he had said to her.

Even when they were together there had been discord between the lives that each of them wanted: Annie's desire to remain as far from it all as possible, and Armin's inability to stay away. But the words he had shouted at her during their last fight had been inexcusable, even if deep down he wondered if they were true.

He didn't want to do this now; not with everything else that they needed to worry about circling around them like buzzards on a battlefield. Armin opened his mouth to apologize but was surprised by the relenting look she was now giving him.

"Look, Armin, I'm sorry I brought it up. There's no point rehashing this with everything else going on, and I-"

"Hey Armin! I thought you could use something more flavorful than the commissary kitchen mush, so I brought- oh!"

Arya was standing in the doorway, arms laden with packages of something that did indeed smell better than their usual gruel, frozen in place as she looked between Annie and himself. Color rushed to her face as she shot them an apologetic look.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know you had company. Hello Annie, it's been a while."

A shadow passed over Annie's face as she regarded Arya with a blank look, who shifted slightly under the weight of her stare. Collecting herself, Annie nodded to her, and a glimmer of respect replaced her cool demeanor.

"Doctor Halbrand. Reiner tells me it's you I have to thank for keeping this idiot from kicking the bucket. Once again it seems like you've done us a huge favor."

Visibly relaxing, Arya smiled tentatively back at her.

"It's starting to feel like a full-time job, if you ask me."

Annie gave a small laugh at this, and Arya hurried over to the table sitting next to Armin's bed to deposit the load of food she was carrying, scooping up the books that were still scattered across the floor.

"I'll come back to change your dressings in a little while, okay?" She said, gently placing the books into Armin's outstretched hands and shooting him the kind of secret grin that never failed to send a wave of warmth from the base of his neck all the way to his hairline.

"Thanks, Arya. We won't be too long."

Dipping her head respectfully to both of them she hastily exited the room, closing the door softly behind her. The aroma of whatever dishes Arya had brought filled the room, and Armin's stomach let out small grumble.

"Do you want to share it? I'm sure it isn't as good as your own, but it's better than most of the stuff you can find around here."

He gestured to the empty chair opposite the table, but Annie remained standing, staring at him curiously.

"What?"

The look she was giving him made Armin anxious: it was somehow both callous and pleased, with an undercurrent of painful understanding that sent ripples of unease through him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Making her way across the room she sat in the seat he had offered her, opening the parcels on the table and laying them out on the table between them.

"Looks like you finally managed to find a more interesting and pleasant girl after all."

Armin's face burned hotly at this remark, and he quickly looked away in embarrassment.

"It's not like that, Ann." He mumbled, unable to meet her eyes. Leave it to Annie to both pick up on and call out such an invasive topic after a less than two-minute interaction. Although now that Armin thought about it, he hadn't exactly been discreet from the start when it came to Arya, and the notion that everyone else had probably picked up on it as well sent another rush of embarrassment into his cheeks.

"Mhm, whatever you say."

Her tone was airy and nonchalant, but a hard edge had formed in her expression.

"You know, I talked to Reiner and Pieck before I worked up the nerve to come up here. It seems like you not the only one that has it in for the good doctor; even Captain Levi isn't immune to her wit and charm." She said, her voice taking on the slightest note of mocking.

What is it about her that's got all of you so hot and bothered, anyway? I suppose a bat of those big doe eyes and her knack for martyrdom sends everyone running though, doesn't it?"

Had Annie been talking about anyone else he would have quickly understood that she was joking, but her dripping sarcasm mixed with the image of Arya clashed inside him in a dangerous way. Anger replaced Armin's initial embarrassment, and his jaw snapped shut as he ground his teeth together and gave Annie a furious look. She froze when she saw his expression, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"You don't know a single thing about her." He growled.

Annie said nothing, still staring at him with a dumbfounded look on her face as she registered the severity of his reaction. He knew he was overreacting, but try as he may Armin could only bring his temper down to a dull roar, and even that was hard to manage. He also knew that she had only said what she did to get a rise out of him, and Armin doubted that either of them had anticipated the intensity of his response, least of all him.

Despite the tension raging wildly around them Annie remained seated, eventually turning her attention back to their lunch. The two ate in silence as he got a hold of his emotions, and by the time they were finished Armin was thoroughly appalled by his unjust behavior towards her.

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure why I reacted that way."

Waving her hand as if to brush his apology off, Annie collected the remnants of their meal and threw them in the trash can next to the door. She turned back to him, crossing her arms and regarding him cautiously.

"Guess that's what I get for intentionally pushing buttons. Either way, I really did have a purpose for coming up here, besides making sure you were still alive and getting into a fight. Everyone I've talked to seems to think that whatever our next big move is, it's going to be a doozy."

Annie shot a quick glance at the mounds of resources on his lap before continuing.

"It's also pretty obvious that one of you are going to get yourselves killed without me there to babysit, and try as I may that concept is getting in the way of my beauty sleep. So, whatever happens from here on out, I'm going to be there to make sure you don't fuck it up. Got it?"

Armin nodded gravely, knowing he didn't have a leg to stand on to try and argue with her over this. The same regretful feeling he had when Arya had made her choice to follow him reared its ugly head as Annie bid her goodbyes and left, and he was once again alone.

How many friends am I going to send to their deaths before this is over?

As he waited impatiently for Arya's return he found himself looking fearfully at the stack of books in front of him; the darkness he had felt before Annie's arrival coming back to take its place around his heart. Picking up one of the texts along with the correlating translation sheets he set to work feverishly, scratching his pencil across a spare piece of parchment as if the very hounds of hell were snapping at his heels. If he could just find one more shred of evidence; that one small piece that would pull all of this together…

Armin reached for another scrap of paper that was lying on top of yet another random book Oz thought might be relevant, but before he could finish writing down the rest of his current thought, his entire body went rigid when he saw the cover of the text that had been hiding beneath it.

Its dark green bindings were familiar to him, as were the silver letters that adorned its battered cover. He had read this one before; a few years prior when they had received a new shipment of recovered artifacts from a Southern Marly estate. It had been a passage from this specific book that had echoed in his head when they discovered the now fully evaporated colossal buried in the ground on their journey to Paradis. The words he had remembered then came screeching to the forefront of his mind, and a cold sweat beaded on his neck as his breathing accelerated.

By the time Arya returned to clean his injuries Armin's face had turned a ghostly white; the book clenched tightly between his shaking hands as he looked up to meet her eyes. She stepped back in alarm, fright coloring her previously calm expression as if she had already heard what he was about to say.

"We need to call a meeting." He said, his voice barely above a shaky whisper. "Now."

Without a word she took off, leaving Armin to succumb to the pure, unfiltered fear that had been watching and waiting ever so patiently to make its triumphant return into their lives.

Everything we have ever done… all the pain and suffering and loss we have endured to save what is left of humanity… it was all for nothing.