Signs of Time: Ch. 3
Apparently, Rosemary's phone had been dropped at some point and she'd left it at Bunny's house. Her mind raced with a million excuses as to why it would be more feasible to get a new phone as opposed to obtaining her current one; as an unemployed college student, all conclusions became moot. And she couldn't bring herself to discuss with her mother about the situation to possibly sweeten such a deal with her, so off to Bunny's she went.
She couldn't call or text ahead, considering the predicament she was in, so she just had to hope that Samuel wasn't there. To her absolute dismay, he was sitting outside, holding her phone, as if he was anticipating her arrival.
She had to admit, even though she was hurt by his cheating, he was still devilishly handsome. He was a few inches taller than her – so was just about everyone else in the universe – with bright blue eyes and brown hair that reached halfway down his back. She could see why Bunny went after him – or maybe he went after Bunny.
She couldn't think about that right now.
Exiting the Uber, she slowly walked up to him, keeping her hands behind her back; she didn't want to communicate with him in any capacity. She just wanted to get her phone, check her messages, and leave.
Surely there would be messages from him and Bunny. She would absolutely be deleting those without reading them. Probably from her mom as well, since she'd "stayed out" all night and into the next day. She was surprised her mom didn't ask her more questions about the party, but maybe she figured her daughter would discuss it with her when she was "sober".
Rosemary couldn't have been anymore clear-headed if she wanted to be.
"Rose!" She saw Sam's mouth form her name, and something about that made her stomach turn. He lifted his free hand to speak to her. "You left so fast, I wanted to talk to you about what you saw."
Rosemary simply shook her head and extended a hand for her phone, keeping her face as still as possible. Her Uber was only going to wait for so long, and she had some research she wanted to do, anyway.
"Aw, come on, Rose. Don't be like that." But despite his protests, he handed over the device.
She turned on her heel to leave, but he stopped her by grabbing hold of her wrist. She wretched away from his grasp and spun around, glaring at him with her dark brown eyes, seeming darker still with her anger.
"I'm sorry. She's sorry, too, you know."
She would have blanched if she wasn't trying her best to keep her composure. Why was he apologizing for Bunny? Wasn't she an adult capable of doing that on her own?
"Come in and talk to us. Let us explain."
"My Uber is waiting," she signed at him quickly before turning around again, pulling her hands in front of her so he couldn't grab hold of her like before. As soon as she got into the car, and the driver had sped off, she thought she felt the burn of tears start to form behind her eyes. She shook her head, willing them away; neither of them deserved to have her cry over them.
The Uber driver stopped at her house, and after rating this one – just like the last one and every one before that – five stars, she exited the vehicle and hurried in. Her mom was in the kitchen, and normally Rosemary would offer to help, but she was just too distracted with her thoughts to be of any use right now.
Maybe the distraction would be good for her? She didn't know. But she didn't think being around knives and a hot stove would be an intelligent idea right now.
In her room, she shut the door behind her, pressing her back against it, sliding down it and hitting her bottom on the floor, resting the back of her head against the cool, painted wood.
She just wanted to get back to Hange and Eren and even Levi, of all people, and to figure out what her purpose was behind being there – where ever there was – in the first place. She pulled out her phone and googled their names. Hange Zoe. Eren Jaeger. Nothing came up. They were rather individualized names, so surely something would have come up. Some type of historical text? An excerpt from an article? Anything?
But nothing at all came up. She felt disheartened by that fact. Whatever they were doing in that field, it seemed rather important, and surely it wouldn't have gotten lost in history.
A short while later her mother let her know that dinner was ready, but she wasn't hungry. She couldn't bring herself to eat when her head and heart were so far away. Her mom could tell there was something wrong, Rose knew, but she didn't pry. Only offered leftovers if she got hungry later. Thanking her mother, she was once again left alone with her thoughts, moping around in bed.
She could try her Calculus homework again; even though she was adamant yesterday on using her accommodations for an extension, she just needed to get her mind off of – everything else, really.
Rose changed into some pajamas first: a white nightgown that reached her knees and a pair of white slippers. Then, sitting at her desk, she began struggling over those wretched numbers all over again, and at some point she'd dozed off. She'd woken up in the middle of the night to something shining behind her in her bedroom. Initially, she believed it was the light from her phone background indicating a notification – maybe another message from Samuel – but when she looked back to her amazement it was a bright, white portal.
She jumped to her feet, then she quickly made her way to portal and sent herself through. She tucked into herself in the hopes that it would make the landing less harsh, but wooden floors, she'd discovered, were rather unforgiving.
Rose pushed herself off the ground with her arms, feeling a little shaky from the fall, and looked around. She was in her "room" from before; her party clothes that she'd worn a couple days ago (had it really been just a couple days? Felt like an eternity ago) were still on the chair. The ground reverberated with the indication that someone was running toward her, and she quickly turned around just in time for Hange to open the door, Petra right behind her.
"You're back! We got worried!" Hange said, entering and bending down to be floor level with her. "Are you okay? Looks like that was quite the fall."
Hange was pointing at the bridge of her nose, to which Rosemary instantly placed a hand and winced.
"That's what I thought." She turned around and said something to Petra, who nodded and left the room, just as Levi turned around and entered. Still smiling, she was speaking to him now; Rose wished she could hear what she was saying.
"You're making too much nose," he said to Hange, but his gaze was on Rose. She couldn't help the blush that colored her cheeks. Hange must have said something else, as his eyes left Rose long enough to give the other woman his attention, but it was just a few seconds later that those lead colored eyes were on Rose again.
Rose would need to ask him privately if she'd offended him somehow. Although, in his interactions with everyone, he seemed rather bothered with just about everybody to some degree. Maybe that was his demeanor?
Hange was waving a hand in front of her face, trying to get her attention. "Rose? Did you see what I said?"
Petra entered the room then, holding a rag wrapping something in it. She handed it to Hange, who proceeded to press the ice cold rag – it had to have a bag with ice in it, Rose deduced – to Rose's face. Rose found herself wincing again and wanting to pull away, but she managed to fight off that feeling and instead she took the rag from Hange and held it herself.
"I said, we're leaving tomorrow."
Rose tilted her head to the side, blinking quickly.
"We have to go over the walls and take care of some Titan business," she said rather enthusiastically.
Petra and Hange both looked back at Levi, and when Rose's gaze reached him she managed to see him say, "—get too happy about that."
Rose set down the rag and found herself signing the word "titan" at them without even realizing it. Then she held up her fingers in a capital "T", her head still tilted slightly, inquisitively.
"Oh, you don't know about those?" A giant smile plastered on Hange's face. "While we're gone, I'll leave you with a few things to read."
Petra put a hand on Hange's shoulder. "It's probably time to go to bed." To Rose, she said, "Good night!"
With that, after getting her off the floor and on the bed, Rose was left alone. Titan. Why did she not like the sound of that?
So a Titan was a humanoid being that ate humans, to put it lamely. They didn't digest them, though, which seemed to be a point of fascination for Hange. Also, they didn't move at night, but didn't necessarily sleep either.
Recently, there had been evidence of Titan-shifters, people among humans who could shift into Titans. They are considered beyond abnormals. These Titan-shifters have conscious thought, weren't interested in eating humans, and some – like Eren, Rose was discovering – help humans in their plight against the Titans.
Rose ate up Hange's research. Though, she did make sure to heed everyone's warnings – not to ask her about them, just read what she wrote and go about the day. By the time Rose finished most of it, it was lunchtime. Meaning, according to Hange, they would be in the middle of their mission by now.
They were in an area surrounded by these things. Rose couldn't imagine how truly frightening that was for the younger recruits. Most of them didn't look older than fifteen or sixteen. However, she had to commend them on their bravery. And, evidently, Hange, Levi, Erwin, and a lot of the older ones had been doing this for awhile, some even years. To do a dangerous job like that for literally years on end had to be taxing; no wonder Levi had such a sour look on his face all the time.
After lunch, Rose continued reading, and then she went on to reread some of Hange's notes that she found harder to understand – or believe – and soon enough she had fallen asleep at the dining table over all that paperwork.
She had awoken to something being draped over her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she lifted her head to see Levi walking away. She reached a hand over her shoulder to see what he'd put on her; a blanket. She checked a nearby window, the one just above kitchen sink; it was pitch black outside. There was a single candle illuminating the room, and to indicate that she'd woken up – since she didn't speak – she blew it out.
His silhouette stopped at the doorway leading to the stairwell, and she could tell he had turned around to look at her. Then he vanished into the darkness, only to suddenly appear beneath a kerosene lamp.
"What did you do that for?" he asked, coming to sit down across from her.
She grimaced at him; she couldn't – wouldn't – talk, and he very well knew that. He sighed then, standing up again to fumble with a small coffee table before returning with a notebook and a pencil.
Reaching for it, she first wrote, Where's Hange?
"Her place. She doesn't sleep here."
Then she wrote, Is everyone else asleep?
At that, he stared at her words as if searching for something. Then he finally answered, "Eren is."
There was something behind that, like he was trying to hide something from her.
So she asked, And everyone else? Like Petra?
With that, he lifted his gaze slowly from the piece of paper to meet her eyes, and something about them wasn't angry, or annoyed, like usual, but almost … sad. "They're gone."
Rose was physically taken aback at that. She swallowed hard; she didn't know any of them long enough to get upset at such news, but it was upsetting nonetheless.
"Is that all?"
She shook her head, then she simply wrote, I'm sorry, Levi.
He looked down at her handwriting as if trying to decipher code before bringing that hardened gaze back to meet hers. "Thank you. Now let's get to bed. It's late."
He was right, but she didn't feel like he should be alone to mourn his friends. They were his friends, after all, right? She followed him regardless, holding the edges of the blanket around her shoulders as if it would protect her from such terrible news.
Once outside her room, he opened the door for her and waited for her to enter before closing it behind her, not even uttering good night – not that she would have known if he did. She wondered, while sitting on the bed, sleep surely a lost cause right now, how Hange was doing, and if she was okay. She wished she could talk to her. She wished she'd talked to Levi more, if only about anything else.
But now they were each alone, in their rooms, left to their thoughts and to the dark of the night.