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[no, she didn't. she didn't have to run. she didn't have to do anything but she got it in her head that she needed to be there to try to save her sister when there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. she was never going to be strong enough. she was never going to be able to protect Clover. she hadn't been able to for years. why would this have been any different?]

[she takes the water absently, but the surface isn't still while she holds it.]

What did she do to deserve this?

[it's not a question that needs an answer. it probably doesn't have one. she probably hadn't done anything. Retrospec does this. it just does this and nothing anybody can do will stop it from happening once it's made up its mind. nothing matters. nothing matters.]

[ maybe she had a brother to push her. maybe she had seen something that eren hadn’t. perhaps she didn’t have to die, but it happened, regardless of it being an accident or not. for a moment, eren has no answer. he feels the weight of personal guilt on his shoulders instead.

it’s the same question he’d always make about his father, about people at the hospital. he’s learned a lot from there and still keeps learning. he tries to tower over these lessons as learned, but in the end— eren is as flawed as any human could be. he doesn’t hold his glass, because the water wouldn’t be still either. ]

She did nothing. [ he doesn’t blame minato, or lina, or clover herself. he blames himself, but he doesn’t dare to verbalize it. that’s the sort of thing you suffer silently with. lina’s company had yet to achieve the rank to hear it. ] But we always need someone to blame.

[ eren puts his head in his hands, before raising it up to keep his reddening eyes only at a glance of color and nothing more. ]

Were you guys talking more?

[and Lina blames the world. she still blames the world and still hasn't accepted that some problems are her own fault but right now she can't even bring herself to get angry at anyone or swing it around into "if i'd been nicer", "if i'd been better to her", "if i hadn't been such a fucking bitch then maybe my sister would still be alive" because none of that is productive and she's still. scared. of being that vulnerable.]

[she's scared a lot, she guesses. setting the water down, she joins Eren in putting her head in her hands, rubbing her palmheels against her closed eyes in a useless attempt to stave off tears. her voice is already fraying as she brings up memories of meeting in a dream, of being better sisters to each other no matter what.]

She was going to help me look for scholarships. For culinary school.

[this is miserable. she doesn't even want to think about it. she can't. she doesn't want to think about anything right now because it's all going to come back to Clover and how they were going to be better and how they were better sisters than the world allowed them to be and how they were going to be better and now she'll never have that chance because one of the people she loved so much it made her heart ache has been torn from it and she won't... she won't ever recover. she can't. how can she?]

[her breathing is ragged, too. she's trying so hard to keep herself together. geteilt und zusammengebracht.]

[ there’s a small stretch of silence, eren’s shoulders are shaking, but soon, it’s apparent that he isn’t crying when he inhales: he’s laughing.

none of this was funny— he’s only remembering her. he’s thinking of what she asked him on the phone, and what he suggested. she went the whole extra mile. she did something that eren was feeling something different for. he’s feeling like he made a difference in stark contrast to her end. it’s ironic.

at the same time, eren is far from happy. it’ll take some to move on, but the more he thought about it, he wondered: would clover be enjoying the attention or tell them to stop weeping? ]

You cook?

[Lina isn't... surprised. she's been through grief before. nothing as serious as this, but close enough to it. people react differently. and maybe she's been waiting for something to break for a while. maybe she wants any excuse she can to not cry, and she can't even make herself be mad at Eren for laughing because she gets it and it's. the most sickening kind of infectious.]

[she leans down, nearly resting her entire head on the counter, propping herself up only by her forearms now, and there's a monotonous string of nearly-silent laughter coming from her throat before she even realizes it. her hands are still dry, so she's not crying yet, but she knows she's going to soon. but for now, she can take this, and she's even ready to answer when he asks.]

I cook. I wanted to start making Clover food again, like I did when we were kids. I thought it might help.

[ he wants to be thankful, but at the same time—

grief doesn’t go away. he knows what he knows of lina through a twisted dream, but weren’t they all human? he wished he could’ve been having this talk earlier, maybe with clover sitting there next to them.

well, they shouldn’t stop looking, even with clover’s life-or-death status up in the air. eren crosses his arms on top of the counter as well, and kaiser seems to wander curiously over to the laughing. because laughing was— good, wasn’t it?

his eyes are tired and worn from stinging so much. ]

If you know the places she was looking into, let me see it.

She hasn't made a list yet.

[this is. so much. is this what a loving family looks like? Eren and Clover actually... both wanting to help someone out? people just. working towards a common goal together? even though Clover isn't...]

[Lina doesn't know. she doesn't want to think about it. she doesn't want to but how can she help it, how can she think about anything other than her dead sister, the sister she couldn't even wait behind for to see her body hit the ground, the sister she won't even be able to bury because she can't bring herself to do it, and the laughing transforms so suddenly and seamlessly into dry, shaking sobs that it almost surprises Lina herself.]

[she wants to say something. she wants to be better about this, but there's such an unbearable weight pressing her against the counter. she's useless. all of this was useless. everything they did. everything they were working towards. it's all gone. none of it mattered. none of it matters. why can't she stop thinking that? why can't her head just stop?]

[ at least now he can’t say he didn’t try, but try usually isn’t on his list of things to do. it’s get things done.

but, there she goes. eren doesn’t particularly like to see people cry, but then again, he’s always got some sort of leak in his tear ducts— he’s easier to cry than almost anyone. he lets it out when he has to, and when he’s had enough, he ceases. lina did not get her time. lina didn’t even see her (not that seeing a body would matter, there wasn’t one to bury and a hold a funeral for).

eren isn’t one to bare too much patience at times, and he’s almost in the current mind to tell her to stop. emotion bubbles in the form of irritation that’s too short fused to keep reigns on, and to keep from speaking out to her, he briefly looks away.

he takes his own time to breathe, and after a few moments, he gets up from his side of the counter and walks. he’s walking over to her side, clattering a chair over to sit himself down in front of her. at this point, she’s had plenty of time to cry. ]

Lina. [ he calls for her attention. ]

[she doesn't want to be here. she doesn't want any of this. she wants her sister back, she wants Clover to still be there, she wants the terror to go away, she wants to never have been an Intoner, she wishes she'd never gotten the app, she wants... she wants...]

[—Eren calling her name pulls her out of it. she can't do anything right now. she can't take anything that happened back, and she can't slide back into her own darkness and rid the world of another sister. she has to be here. she has to be present.]

I'm okay.

[it's a lie. but if he's going to try to stop her, she doesn't have the energy for a fight right now. she barely has the energy for anything. she pushes her head up, wipes at where there should be streaks on her face but she hasn't been able to make any tears actually come, and tries to look at him. her throat is so, so tight.]

I don't... know what to do. I don't know what to do.

[he's trying so hard to move forward for her and she just isn't ready to take the first step. she'd apologize if she realized what she was doing.]

We’re not okay.

[ he makes that clear. he hates lying in every form apparent to him and he’s not about to accept a facade just to let things slip by when the reason he accepted her presence was because things weren’t okay. not that he had high hopes that things would be any better with lina here when both were grieving.

but he was searching for something, someone still familiar to cling to after clover had slipped from his fingers. ]

I never thought I’d lose more family. [ he doesn’t particularly cry, but his throat does go right again to speak. he pushes onwards. ] And this wasn’t the way I wanted to get to know you more.

[there's a bitter ghost of a laugh stuck in her throat at the idea that the death of their sister is really what's bringing them together. after they fought so much, so briefly about her in a dream that still feels real, and after Lina had put so much useless, useless work into fixing things.]

I wanted to get good enough at cooking to invite both of you over one day. [so she could show Clover what she'd been missing out on. what she gave up. but that's not... that isn't the important part. and it isn't true anymore anyway.] I wanted to make you the best meals of your lives and get to know my brother better that way.

I wanted to do so much, and I just... [if he's lost people, she probably isn't saying anything new. but this is. this isn't something she knows. and it's not something she wants anyone to know.] I thought I would have more time.

[ did she just say brother?

she says everything else, and he hears it, but his mind zones in on the choice and it’s meaning. eren certainly doesn’t throw that word around effortlessly with others, and he chooses to judge what he’s seen until now— perhaps lina wasn’t one to say it so easily either.

because “brother” was family. eren almost thinks but you don’t know me, and i don’t know you— yet they both did have a sister in common, didnt they? they had an option to pursue. eren purses his lips, remains silent and watches the hands hovering between his legs, until it’s back up at the girl. ]

We always need more time. [ he says, softly, because even with enough time, enough was never actually enough. he holds his hand out to her, palm up and open. ] So make the best of every second you have.

[ and this might sound rushed, but— nothing is such when your heart is in the right place. ]

I’d like to get to know another sister with those.

[it's. no, sorry. it's easy for her to do that. it always kind of has been. she's always moved fast, brought people closer into her life than maybe they deserve to be. but it's the only choice she's ever had, because she knows that people leave. and yet she's never prepared when they do.]

Did you—[don't call attention to it, Lina. don't bring up how you called him your brother. don't say anything about how he called you his sister. just don't.] Sorry. Yeah. We can... we can do this.

[she's been through worse. she's seen people get taken from her before. and her hand reaches out, and she takes his, and she holds it tightly—not too tightly, not to hurt him, but enough to know that they're both there. together. her voice is solemn but she's finally able to look at Eren in the eye.]

For Clover.

[ there is eren, doing what he's always done: judge from first impressions. ]

I'm doing this for me me, too. [ just to give her a slight correction. ] I wanted to get to know you much earlier.

Really?

[he's said it a couple times now, but she's still surprised by it. she's surprised every time people actually want to be around her—she's always been so... bitter, so depressed and negative, and yet so desperate for contact that she'll take any she can get and clutch it until the life is gone, or make it out to be more than it could ever possibly be, or cover up flaws that she tricked herself to never have seen. there's a long pause while she thinks of all that, while she tries to come up with the words.]

How much earlier? I... you had the worst first impression of me. I'm so sorry.

[ eren waves that off with a tongue click and a shake of his head. finally, he can pick up his glass without it trembling, so he takes in water to wet his lips. ]

If we go by that, then I’m probably worse.

[ eren’s answer to finishing that dream was of course, killing her, they are better off not using those as anything accurate to go off of. ]

Ever since Clover told me about her other sisters. [ even though, that as a child, eren had the small fear of clover’s “family” returning to take her away. these are adult times now, though. ]

[ha. yeah. adults who would never have fears like that, of families taking sisters away. god, Eren is too good to her. a lot of people are but Eren is the one she's focusing on right now. she still needs a few to collect herself, but if he's able to keep calm then she can probably manage it, too.]

I deserved it. I wish that weren't the side of me you saw, but I think it... I think it needed to happen for me to start to change.

[for her to actually admit that is another one of several steps forward that she's needed to take for a while now. she won't thank him for it, but it's on the tip of her tongue.]

One of my friends taught me to stop assuming things and listen to other people, and. [sigh.] I just wish I'd learned it sooner. But it's like you said. We have the time now and now you can... I don't know. You can get to know the same Lina that Clover knew.

[ the part that mattered most was her acknowledging that, so it’s good enough for eren. he wouldn’t even want the thank you. now, he can’t say much about assumptions— he does that constantly and it’s hard to get some reigns on that with difficult people, but. he’s getting better, he likes to think. he’s working on it. he can’t always be as right as he thinks he is. ]

There’s nothing stopping you.

[ by all means— they have all night. ]

Not anymore.

[though it does... hit her, a little. that the same Lina that Clover knew isn't Lina as she is now. Clover had started to get to know her, to see what she'd turned into and the kind of woman she was trying to become, but... but. Eren would be able to know Lina better than her own sister had. and that would hang over Lina for their entire friendship if she let it, and right now she wasn't in the mood to fight it, but she wasn't really in the mood to succumb to it, either.]

Is there... anything you wanted to know in particular? [a dry, humorless laugh chased that sentence.] I'm not good at talking about myself.

You said you cooked, so . . .

[ a gesture!! and to think, eren was usually the one that thought this about himself at times. he was picky, he was probably hard to deal with, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t social with those he wanted to be with. ]

Start from there. I only cook when I have to.

[ that’s almost always, especially if elliot weesely stays the night . . . dear god the horror ]

Oh, um. Okay.

[no, that's. as good a place to start as any. and focusing on the one thing that still, 100% makes her happy might be a good way to get her to move forward and pretend like things are going to be... not okay, but. not a complete living nightmare.]

So I... started learning how to cook in the orphanage. Because I used to be a really angry kid, and they decided I needed a more positive outlet for that energy. So I've been cooking for, um, most of my life? Most of my life that matters, at least. [all of it matters and she hopes he doesn't preempt her on that because she knows.] Mostly these days I just cook for my roommate to make sure she's eating things that aren't nutrient shakes.

I met her when she was in . . . My friend’s body.

[ yeah when that happened, but eren’s interested in hearing as she goes through the rest. it makes him almost smile, because, same hat. eren makes a short pointing gesture to his drum set while he finishes on a last sip of water. ]

That’s what they gave me for my outlet.

[ he was a very, very angry child when dad passed. ]

[oh! they've met. okay. that's good, at least. hearing that they know each other does make Lina smile, though it's weak, a ghost of what she'd normally have on her face when thinking about Jen—lately, at least. when she notices the drum kit, she tries to force a fuller one.]

There isn't a lot that can get aggression out more than drumming, I guess. [thinking about the time in the orphanage is... difficult, right now. but as long as she doesn't focus on her family, she'll be okay.] They didn't trust me with the stove for a month. They said it was too much fire. Just because one time I accidentally found one matchbook where it didn't belong!

[that was before she found her family, of course. when she was just Carmelina and she had no idea what she was doing but wasn't old enough to make any choices for herself yet. simpler times. the corners of her eyes crinkled up just a little.]

I struck one and set the rest of the book on fire.

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