(She didn't understand what she was doing.)
...No, that wasn't right. This sequence of action, she knew, the nightly routine — Reiner's snores, his giant frame hanging half off the bed, heedless of covers or bedclothes, asleep before his head hit the pillow. Bertholdt dropping his armor, boots, crumpling his cowl as he tossed it across the room—where? Had they left yet? How many already dead? Paradis, she remembered, with all of its filth—the drunk that had grabbed a strand of her hair after she arrived, sniffed it, proclaimed his undying love—insect—and she had laughed and laughed—please die—and now here she was, conquered, cocooned in crystal, no, she was padding across the armory floor, quiet as a thief, no, she was already mimicking the biting of her thumb, focused rage, her head filling with nothing but earth and sky—
Four years.
—She understood what she was doing. It was the why that puzzled her.
(Why? Eren's bitter voice, a ghost, blood-thick and dripping. She had the ability. She doesn't need a "why," Armin. She killed them just because she could. And if I had power, I could have stopped her.)
Strange to think of her lost father, now, as she sits up and pulls her body closer inward, wrapping in itself, unspoiled linen almost masking the scent of blood and organs and death; stranger still, to remember her friends...
The Warriors.
The flares.
The shouting.
The boy—
He appears like always at the sound of her scream, and she's clutching at him blind, almost tearing his clothing for want of the warmth of the skin beneath them. His mouth cages hers before she can voice his name; his tongue tastes her unspoken fears. Suddenly, she wants to bite—to break away and scream and ask—Is this your duty, former soldier of Eldia? Am I only a wounded refugee for your care, to be healed with your mouth, your hands, your body?
No, not him. She wants to not care, not seek—no, she wants to hate him, the boy she saved, who saved her, too. She doesn't want to remember the blue of his eyes, the crease of his hood over a hidden smile, the comforting touch of his hand over hers. She doesn't want to ever forget.
She doesn't want to want at all. From the mouth of want comes only pain.
The soft cloth of his loosening cape surrounds her, cool ripples on her bare skin, bitten raw and burned from memory—he is smoke under her mouth, ashes; she breathes him in to taste human skin, instead of the fall of man, of Marley. His hands tighten in the tangle of her hair and she cries out, silent, stifling the sound against his chest as she twines her legs around his, pulling him onto her, into, around her; nails, desperate in his back—
"W—we shouldn't—when you're like this—"
—she tries to banish the voices with every movement, every arch of her body against Armin's—you left me you left me and I am here, alone, alone, afraid—instead she whispers please, please, please and the night sounds of Bertholdt and Reiner are fading in her ears and she can only hear Armin's breath, hard and painful, soothing her small choked sobs as his body shields hers. She pretends that he whispers her name—Annie—that voice in the darkness that was her only constant, four years—and maybe he does, lips forming the shapes of sounds, ghosts in the night—no, no more ghosts, too many ghosts—his hips working so gently, filling her so sweetly—maybe I am a ghost, too—even the very first time when she begged and begged him, tender, so much tenderer than she deserves—and she's reaching, she's reaching, she can almost touch her father's hand—he's smiling—
Is this... 'because I can'…?'
—the walls crumble behind her eyes as she falls, clinging to Armin for life, trying not to remember remembering the dying screams of Marley, her friends' battered bodies, the dark-descending steps. Tears stream her cheeks as she stares down to the bottom, to the waiting, wanting ghosts—then a murmur that might have been her name, soothing, no, painful, but softer still than any spell, and she smiles, brokenly, into the skin of Armin's shoulder—no, I'm not the only one here—he lifts her, rocks her, carries her to bed; his lips brush her hair, her forehead, mouth—again she can hear the night, the room, Reiner's great bear-snores and Bertholdt's quiet breathing; and wishes, prays for their dreams to be untroubled, some long-lost paradise of sky and sunlight—not smoke not crystal just warmth just voices—Armin carefully pulls the blanket up to her chin; she catches his hand, holds it, wonders at herself, at him, at them—
—never to be alone again.