Categories > Anime/Manga > Attack on Titan > When You Don't Know What You Want
Hitch Dreyse didn't know the horrors of war. There were other battles to be fought much closer to home. She knew the ways of the streets and how to earn small favors, how to hold a number of jobs and deal with the lower common denominator. She knew how to slip by on a few choice words and let others believe what they saw.
She was seventeen. Adequate with a knife. Adequate all around, really. Nothing special. Not really much of a looker. Just full of risky words and a sharp tongue. Her friends puzzled ceaselessly over how she'd made it into such a prestigious organisation like this, but that didn't matter. None of them had been lucky enough to get into Wall Sina.
Trost had been a nightmare, or so she'd heard. Hitch couldn't confirm that to be true; after all, she'd missed out on all the fun. Not that she minded.
She hadn't bothered to learn any of her fellow MP's names, yet. She just wasn't in the mood; she'd memorize them later. But she did know a few of them already. Boris Feulner had been here the year before her. He was nice enough, but there was not much else to say about him. There was a new boy named Marlowe Freudenberg, about a head taller than she was, sallow-faced and lanky. He had the tendency to be a right pain in the arse with all his talk about cleaning up the Military Police. He was dead serious about it, too. And there was her roommate.
Annie Leonhardt, they'd called her. Hitch hadn't met her yet. All she knew was that Annie had come fresh from Trost, as a member of the 104th Training Corps. Before that, there was little information that could be scrounged up; then again, a general level of incompetence within the Military Police was to be expected. Hitch still wondered about her. What was she like? Hopefully nothing like Marlowe. Though it wasn't her business to speculate; she hadn't even met her yet.
Her group had gone over the weekly procedures an hour ago. Really, that had consisted of a lot of stalling on part of the officers. The lodgings were much nicer than Hitch was used to: there was a bunk bed facing the west, already laid with sheets. A modest bathroom, a desk in the corner. An oak dresser, worn with age but still impressive. A small set of windows, framed by curtains.
Hitch was lounging idly around her room when there came a rapping at the door. She got up with a stifled yawn, walked over to the door and opened it, expecting an officer or someone important. But there wasn't anyone. Hitch blinked. Looked down and found a girl standing on the threshold.
"Oh. You're the new kid, then?"
The girl didn't say anything. She just walked past her and made a beeline for the dresser opposite the bunks. Hitch glanced back down the hall, but there weren't any other girls or higher-ups. She closed the door.
Hitch turned back, sizing the girl up. She was pretty small. Like a little bird of prey. She had the nose for it, and eyes like a hawk, piercing. Fair hair. She carried little but the clothes on her back.
"Right. Guess I'll do the talking for both of us. My name's Hitch. I take it you're Annie, then?"
There was no confirmation. Hitch clicked her tongue impatiently.
"Look, I don't want to do all the talking for you. Are you Annie or not?"
The girl paused. Nodded stiffly.
Hitch sighed. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Stohess was pretty dull once you got used to the nicer accommodations. If you were like Hitch, the most exciting you could affix your time to was guard duty and maybe a little paperwork now and again. Annie, conversely, jumped at the chance to conduct a lot of underground investigations, presumably anointing the many, many ne'er-do-wells that existed within Stohess's reasonably pristine exterior. Hitch didn't see much of her, but stories arose.
"You know, I reckon you're doing a fairer job of cleaning this stupid place up than old man Freudenberg ever has," Hitch began one evening. (This particular moniker was a much beloved one, especially among the staff.) "At least you go out and do stuff." Hitch wondered often why she even bothered talking to her. Trying to hold a conversation with Annie was a lot like talking to the air, or the wall; you could say just about anything and get the same response. "Why do you take on all those jobs, anyway?"
Annie paused.
"We all have hobbies," she said.
Hitch stopped dead. She stared at the other girl, reeling from the realisation that Annie Leonhardt had just uttered her first sentence that was directed exclusively to her. "You have hobbies?" she repeated blankly.
Annie shrugged.
Later, when the shock had worn off, Hitch supposed they all had hobbies. Some went into town, others read, or played rounds of cards or traded gossip. Annie beat the living daylights out of criminals and got paid for it.
But this period of tedium was not to last.
Hitch awoke one morning to find Annie in the bathroom, back to the entryway, hunched over the commode. There was an odd, revolting smell polluting the air.
"What is it? You drop something in the-" Hitch stopped talking when Annie retched, violently. "Oh. You eat some of the bread? I should have mentioned-you don't want to do that, it's worse than shit."
Annie tried to speak, but she quickly doubled over again, heaving. Hitch recoiled at the sight.
"I'll, uh, go ahead and tell the others you're not feeling well."
Annie was still in the bathroom when she came back, but no longer prone to vomiting.
"Didn't eat anything," she said. "Can't keep it down."
"You can't eat?" Annie nodded. Hitch eyed her curiously. "You want me to take you down to the infirmary?"
"No."
"What d'you mean, no? You're vomiting all over the-"
"Hitch."
Hitch exhaled shortly. "Look, if you're just going to be a hard-arse about this, then I won't stop you. Just keep it in the bathroom, all right?"
Annie was sick the next day, and the next, and she kept mostly to herself, but she had been doing that for so long that Hitch thought little of it.
She stopped taking missions. Not because she wanted to. Actually, Annie got her health back within the week, but for some inexplicable reason now relegated herself to small jobs and paperwork. Hitch figured she'd suffered injury, but never received solid confirmation. Annie remained bitter in her state of apparent incapacitation. Hitch left her to brood.
And so Annie trained. Furiously, as if to make up for lost time. On multiple occasions Hitch caught sight of her out in the field, perhaps an hour or so after break, going through the motions.
She often came back to their dorm in a state of exhaustion. Just slumped onto her bunk and passed out. Sometimes she didn't come back until Hitch was fast asleep.
One night, however, Hitch found herself pressured to reach out to her.
"How long have you been out here, exactly?"
Annie whirled around, hackles raised. She didn't falter when she laid eyes on her. "What do you want?"
"You coming back to the dorm, or are you just going to keep kicking the shit out of that dummy?"
Annie turned back, regaining her stance. Her whole body was rigid with determination. Or maybe she was in pain. It was hard to tell with someone as stoic as her. "I'm training," she supplied, stiffly.
"Right, well, it's a bit late for all that. Has it ever occurred to you that some folks might be trying to sleep?" Annie didn't say anything. Hitch rolled her eyes. "Oh, just go to bed, will you."
They were nearly a week and a half into their service. The sun shone brightly through the windows. Every now and then it ducked behind a cloud.
Hitch remembered the day clearly, because it was the first time she woke up before Annie did. The previous night, the other girl had collapsed into her bunk and didn't get up until Hitch decided to rouse her out of pity's sake.
"You're going to be late if you don't get ready."
She left Annie sitting on the lower bunk, and she was still there when Hitch returned. Hitch was more than a little suspicious at this point, but she went on with her business without inquiring; it would be fruitless to do so. She was halfway across the room when Annie spoke.
"I missed."
Hitch stopped, looked over at her. "You talking to me, Leonhardt?" Annie continued to watch her feet. She was fiddling aimlessly with the sleeve of her shirt.
"I'm late, Hitch," she reiterated, to the half-polished floorboards.
Hitch frowned. "Late for wha-ohh." She shrugged. "Is that all? It's not exactly unusual, you know."
Annie stopped fiddling with her sleeve and looked up. She looked a lot younger all of a sudden. "That's not what I mean," she said, voice lowered almost to a whisper. "I haven't had one in weeks."
Hitch almost wanted to laugh at how scared she looked, but something struck her as off. She decided, for the moment, to play it down. "How do you know it's what you're making it out to be, huh? Are you a period-expert or somethin'?" Annie shot her a dark look. "All right, all right, I can take a hint." She sat down on the bed at a safe distance from her. "But honestly, don't you think you could be jumping to conclusions? Maybe you're just ill and late."
Annie shook her head. "No," she muttered. "No, that's not what this is."
Hitch scooted closer despite the risk of danger. "Right. How do you know?" she asked.
"I just know," said Annie, and her voice was hushed. Hitch looked at her for a long moment, hesitant to approach. She didn't know why; something about the way her roommate just sat there, silent and scared, was unnerving. She'd never seen her exhibit any kind of emotion except nonchalance, and certainly nothing like this. It was almost pitiful.
"Hey," Hitch said finally, in a rare moment of seriousness. "Hey, come on. Look at me, all right?" Annie raised her head, but stared at the wall. Hitch noticed she was trembling, almost imperceptibly. She bent over, hands on knees, so she could see her face. "So, uh...do you know whose it is?" Annie didn't say anything, but she gave a nasty jolt at the infliction of whose. Hitch realised the unpleasant connotations of her question and quickly backtracked: "I mean, you don't have to tell me anything about it. If you don't want to." Again, she was met with silence. Unsure whether that was a good sign or not, she sat up and continued: "Look...I dunno what I can do, or if I can do anything, but if you need cover, I'd be more than happy to do something..." Hitch trailed off.
Annie drew her knees up to her chest, curling into herself. Hitch decided to test her luck again.
"You want to talk about it?" Shrug. "Do I know this fellow?" Annie shook her head. "Was he all right to you?" No response. "Oh," said Hitch quietly. "He wasn't...?"
"No," Annie said, voice strangely hoarse. "It wasn't anything like that."
Inwardly, Hitch sighed with relief. "Does he know you're pregnant?" Annie didn't move. "You don't know?" She nodded shakily. "Shit," Hitch muttered. "Anything else you want to tell me?" Annie shook her head. She looked on the verge of a kind of silent breakdown. "...I don't suppose you have a plan?" Again, no response. Hitch sighed. "Lovely. All right, I guess I should give you some advice. You listening?"
Annie nodded.
"If you don't fancy getting kicked out onto the streets, keep your head down and give it a week or two. We can go from there."
Annie gazed forlornly up at her past her folded arms.
"Trust me on this one," said Hitch.
One of the many perks about living in the Military Police was the lack of people. No longer did they have to deal with a room teeming with their kin. No longer were they clustered together with several other kids in a room that always smelt of feet.
And so it was that, eighteen days later, the two of them were on lunch break. They sat separately, but that suited Hitch well; she figured they could both do without an hour's worth of awkward silence.
Hitch kept watching Annie out of the corner of her eye, offering half-hearted replies to the various topics of conversation. Her friends didn't seem to notice this.
It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes into the hour when Annie froze. Her gaze shifted down. Hitch wondered for a moment if she'd dropped her fork, but Annie didn't bend down to retrieve anything. She just blinked, as if stunned. Abruptly, she got up from the table and stalked over to the entrance hall.
"What's wrong with her?" someone asked.
"Don't worry about it," said another voice.
Hitch frowned. Should she follow her? Annie had certainly been acting strange, but she hadn't done anything as drastic as this. But there was something about the way she'd looked at whatever had caught her attention. Hitch just couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
In the end, she decided to follow her, despite her friends' protests.
"I'll just go talk to her," she reassured them. "She's been having a rough week."
She went back to their dorm on a hunch and found the bathroom door closed. As she walked over to it, she heard movement from within. Hitch considered knocking, then cast aside the idea, called out:
"Annie?"
The occupant gasped sharply.
"Are you all right? Do you need help?" No reply. Hitch was growing impatient. "Are you hurt?"
There was a long pause. Hitch heard scuffling from the other side of the door, then it opened. Annie stood there, swaying slightly. She looked dazed.
"I'm bleeding," she said, faintly.
It took Hitch a moment to understand that the other girl was talking about the state of her trousers.
"Oh." She breathed a sigh of relief. "See? You got all worried over nothing!" She clapped her on the back without thinking, and Annie flinched. "Ah-sorry! I forgot you're not very..." she stopped. The other girl continued to stare blankly at her pants. "Er, hullo?" She didn't even swat her away. Hitch sighed. "I'll leave you to it, then. Let me know if you need extra clothes."
And I'm shattered
But it really doesn't matter
'Cause my rescue is gonna be here soon
"Coldplay - Help Is Round The Corner
":https://youtu.be/uuFHUb9ZiO0
She was seventeen. Adequate with a knife. Adequate all around, really. Nothing special. Not really much of a looker. Just full of risky words and a sharp tongue. Her friends puzzled ceaselessly over how she'd made it into such a prestigious organisation like this, but that didn't matter. None of them had been lucky enough to get into Wall Sina.
Trost had been a nightmare, or so she'd heard. Hitch couldn't confirm that to be true; after all, she'd missed out on all the fun. Not that she minded.
She hadn't bothered to learn any of her fellow MP's names, yet. She just wasn't in the mood; she'd memorize them later. But she did know a few of them already. Boris Feulner had been here the year before her. He was nice enough, but there was not much else to say about him. There was a new boy named Marlowe Freudenberg, about a head taller than she was, sallow-faced and lanky. He had the tendency to be a right pain in the arse with all his talk about cleaning up the Military Police. He was dead serious about it, too. And there was her roommate.
Annie Leonhardt, they'd called her. Hitch hadn't met her yet. All she knew was that Annie had come fresh from Trost, as a member of the 104th Training Corps. Before that, there was little information that could be scrounged up; then again, a general level of incompetence within the Military Police was to be expected. Hitch still wondered about her. What was she like? Hopefully nothing like Marlowe. Though it wasn't her business to speculate; she hadn't even met her yet.
Her group had gone over the weekly procedures an hour ago. Really, that had consisted of a lot of stalling on part of the officers. The lodgings were much nicer than Hitch was used to: there was a bunk bed facing the west, already laid with sheets. A modest bathroom, a desk in the corner. An oak dresser, worn with age but still impressive. A small set of windows, framed by curtains.
Hitch was lounging idly around her room when there came a rapping at the door. She got up with a stifled yawn, walked over to the door and opened it, expecting an officer or someone important. But there wasn't anyone. Hitch blinked. Looked down and found a girl standing on the threshold.
"Oh. You're the new kid, then?"
The girl didn't say anything. She just walked past her and made a beeline for the dresser opposite the bunks. Hitch glanced back down the hall, but there weren't any other girls or higher-ups. She closed the door.
Hitch turned back, sizing the girl up. She was pretty small. Like a little bird of prey. She had the nose for it, and eyes like a hawk, piercing. Fair hair. She carried little but the clothes on her back.
"Right. Guess I'll do the talking for both of us. My name's Hitch. I take it you're Annie, then?"
There was no confirmation. Hitch clicked her tongue impatiently.
"Look, I don't want to do all the talking for you. Are you Annie or not?"
The girl paused. Nodded stiffly.
Hitch sighed. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Stohess was pretty dull once you got used to the nicer accommodations. If you were like Hitch, the most exciting you could affix your time to was guard duty and maybe a little paperwork now and again. Annie, conversely, jumped at the chance to conduct a lot of underground investigations, presumably anointing the many, many ne'er-do-wells that existed within Stohess's reasonably pristine exterior. Hitch didn't see much of her, but stories arose.
"You know, I reckon you're doing a fairer job of cleaning this stupid place up than old man Freudenberg ever has," Hitch began one evening. (This particular moniker was a much beloved one, especially among the staff.) "At least you go out and do stuff." Hitch wondered often why she even bothered talking to her. Trying to hold a conversation with Annie was a lot like talking to the air, or the wall; you could say just about anything and get the same response. "Why do you take on all those jobs, anyway?"
Annie paused.
"We all have hobbies," she said.
Hitch stopped dead. She stared at the other girl, reeling from the realisation that Annie Leonhardt had just uttered her first sentence that was directed exclusively to her. "You have hobbies?" she repeated blankly.
Annie shrugged.
Later, when the shock had worn off, Hitch supposed they all had hobbies. Some went into town, others read, or played rounds of cards or traded gossip. Annie beat the living daylights out of criminals and got paid for it.
But this period of tedium was not to last.
Hitch awoke one morning to find Annie in the bathroom, back to the entryway, hunched over the commode. There was an odd, revolting smell polluting the air.
"What is it? You drop something in the-" Hitch stopped talking when Annie retched, violently. "Oh. You eat some of the bread? I should have mentioned-you don't want to do that, it's worse than shit."
Annie tried to speak, but she quickly doubled over again, heaving. Hitch recoiled at the sight.
"I'll, uh, go ahead and tell the others you're not feeling well."
Annie was still in the bathroom when she came back, but no longer prone to vomiting.
"Didn't eat anything," she said. "Can't keep it down."
"You can't eat?" Annie nodded. Hitch eyed her curiously. "You want me to take you down to the infirmary?"
"No."
"What d'you mean, no? You're vomiting all over the-"
"Hitch."
Hitch exhaled shortly. "Look, if you're just going to be a hard-arse about this, then I won't stop you. Just keep it in the bathroom, all right?"
Annie was sick the next day, and the next, and she kept mostly to herself, but she had been doing that for so long that Hitch thought little of it.
She stopped taking missions. Not because she wanted to. Actually, Annie got her health back within the week, but for some inexplicable reason now relegated herself to small jobs and paperwork. Hitch figured she'd suffered injury, but never received solid confirmation. Annie remained bitter in her state of apparent incapacitation. Hitch left her to brood.
And so Annie trained. Furiously, as if to make up for lost time. On multiple occasions Hitch caught sight of her out in the field, perhaps an hour or so after break, going through the motions.
She often came back to their dorm in a state of exhaustion. Just slumped onto her bunk and passed out. Sometimes she didn't come back until Hitch was fast asleep.
One night, however, Hitch found herself pressured to reach out to her.
"How long have you been out here, exactly?"
Annie whirled around, hackles raised. She didn't falter when she laid eyes on her. "What do you want?"
"You coming back to the dorm, or are you just going to keep kicking the shit out of that dummy?"
Annie turned back, regaining her stance. Her whole body was rigid with determination. Or maybe she was in pain. It was hard to tell with someone as stoic as her. "I'm training," she supplied, stiffly.
"Right, well, it's a bit late for all that. Has it ever occurred to you that some folks might be trying to sleep?" Annie didn't say anything. Hitch rolled her eyes. "Oh, just go to bed, will you."
They were nearly a week and a half into their service. The sun shone brightly through the windows. Every now and then it ducked behind a cloud.
Hitch remembered the day clearly, because it was the first time she woke up before Annie did. The previous night, the other girl had collapsed into her bunk and didn't get up until Hitch decided to rouse her out of pity's sake.
"You're going to be late if you don't get ready."
She left Annie sitting on the lower bunk, and she was still there when Hitch returned. Hitch was more than a little suspicious at this point, but she went on with her business without inquiring; it would be fruitless to do so. She was halfway across the room when Annie spoke.
"I missed."
Hitch stopped, looked over at her. "You talking to me, Leonhardt?" Annie continued to watch her feet. She was fiddling aimlessly with the sleeve of her shirt.
"I'm late, Hitch," she reiterated, to the half-polished floorboards.
Hitch frowned. "Late for wha-ohh." She shrugged. "Is that all? It's not exactly unusual, you know."
Annie stopped fiddling with her sleeve and looked up. She looked a lot younger all of a sudden. "That's not what I mean," she said, voice lowered almost to a whisper. "I haven't had one in weeks."
Hitch almost wanted to laugh at how scared she looked, but something struck her as off. She decided, for the moment, to play it down. "How do you know it's what you're making it out to be, huh? Are you a period-expert or somethin'?" Annie shot her a dark look. "All right, all right, I can take a hint." She sat down on the bed at a safe distance from her. "But honestly, don't you think you could be jumping to conclusions? Maybe you're just ill and late."
Annie shook her head. "No," she muttered. "No, that's not what this is."
Hitch scooted closer despite the risk of danger. "Right. How do you know?" she asked.
"I just know," said Annie, and her voice was hushed. Hitch looked at her for a long moment, hesitant to approach. She didn't know why; something about the way her roommate just sat there, silent and scared, was unnerving. She'd never seen her exhibit any kind of emotion except nonchalance, and certainly nothing like this. It was almost pitiful.
"Hey," Hitch said finally, in a rare moment of seriousness. "Hey, come on. Look at me, all right?" Annie raised her head, but stared at the wall. Hitch noticed she was trembling, almost imperceptibly. She bent over, hands on knees, so she could see her face. "So, uh...do you know whose it is?" Annie didn't say anything, but she gave a nasty jolt at the infliction of whose. Hitch realised the unpleasant connotations of her question and quickly backtracked: "I mean, you don't have to tell me anything about it. If you don't want to." Again, she was met with silence. Unsure whether that was a good sign or not, she sat up and continued: "Look...I dunno what I can do, or if I can do anything, but if you need cover, I'd be more than happy to do something..." Hitch trailed off.
Annie drew her knees up to her chest, curling into herself. Hitch decided to test her luck again.
"You want to talk about it?" Shrug. "Do I know this fellow?" Annie shook her head. "Was he all right to you?" No response. "Oh," said Hitch quietly. "He wasn't...?"
"No," Annie said, voice strangely hoarse. "It wasn't anything like that."
Inwardly, Hitch sighed with relief. "Does he know you're pregnant?" Annie didn't move. "You don't know?" She nodded shakily. "Shit," Hitch muttered. "Anything else you want to tell me?" Annie shook her head. She looked on the verge of a kind of silent breakdown. "...I don't suppose you have a plan?" Again, no response. Hitch sighed. "Lovely. All right, I guess I should give you some advice. You listening?"
Annie nodded.
"If you don't fancy getting kicked out onto the streets, keep your head down and give it a week or two. We can go from there."
Annie gazed forlornly up at her past her folded arms.
"Trust me on this one," said Hitch.
One of the many perks about living in the Military Police was the lack of people. No longer did they have to deal with a room teeming with their kin. No longer were they clustered together with several other kids in a room that always smelt of feet.
And so it was that, eighteen days later, the two of them were on lunch break. They sat separately, but that suited Hitch well; she figured they could both do without an hour's worth of awkward silence.
Hitch kept watching Annie out of the corner of her eye, offering half-hearted replies to the various topics of conversation. Her friends didn't seem to notice this.
It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes into the hour when Annie froze. Her gaze shifted down. Hitch wondered for a moment if she'd dropped her fork, but Annie didn't bend down to retrieve anything. She just blinked, as if stunned. Abruptly, she got up from the table and stalked over to the entrance hall.
"What's wrong with her?" someone asked.
"Don't worry about it," said another voice.
Hitch frowned. Should she follow her? Annie had certainly been acting strange, but she hadn't done anything as drastic as this. But there was something about the way she'd looked at whatever had caught her attention. Hitch just couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
In the end, she decided to follow her, despite her friends' protests.
"I'll just go talk to her," she reassured them. "She's been having a rough week."
She went back to their dorm on a hunch and found the bathroom door closed. As she walked over to it, she heard movement from within. Hitch considered knocking, then cast aside the idea, called out:
"Annie?"
The occupant gasped sharply.
"Are you all right? Do you need help?" No reply. Hitch was growing impatient. "Are you hurt?"
There was a long pause. Hitch heard scuffling from the other side of the door, then it opened. Annie stood there, swaying slightly. She looked dazed.
"I'm bleeding," she said, faintly.
It took Hitch a moment to understand that the other girl was talking about the state of her trousers.
"Oh." She breathed a sigh of relief. "See? You got all worried over nothing!" She clapped her on the back without thinking, and Annie flinched. "Ah-sorry! I forgot you're not very..." she stopped. The other girl continued to stare blankly at her pants. "Er, hullo?" She didn't even swat her away. Hitch sighed. "I'll leave you to it, then. Let me know if you need extra clothes."
And I'm shattered
But it really doesn't matter
'Cause my rescue is gonna be here soon
"Coldplay - Help Is Round The Corner
":https://youtu.be/uuFHUb9ZiO0
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