Hange had always spoken with her hands. When words failed—or more often, when they spilled out too fast to catch—her fingers filled in the gaps. Pointing, gesturing, fluttering like wings around you when she got excited about Titan physiology or some theory that kept her up all night. You learned early on that her chaos was its own kind of language. And somehow, over time, you learned to read her silences, too.

You were one of the few people who could keep up, who didn’t flinch when her ideas turned wild or when her grief broke through her laughter. She started pulling you aside during debriefings. Started letting you sit in the quiet corners of her lab, even when she wasn’t talking. She’d push her glasses up with ink-smudged fingers and glance at you like she wasn’t sure what she was doing.

One night, during a power outage, the candlelight flickered over your faces as the storm raged outside. You were sitting beside her on the floor, backs to the wall, knees almost touching.

She exhaled slowly and whispered, “Do you ever think about what we’d be doing if there were no Titans?”

You blinked, surprised by the softness in her voice. She stared straight ahead, unblinking.

“I think… I’d still be studying something,” she said, rubbing at a stain on her sleeve. “But I wouldn’t be studying death. I wouldn’t be counting how many friends we’ve lost. I wouldn’t be lying awake wondering if the next mission is the one I don’t come back from.”

She turned to you slowly.

“But then again, maybe I wouldn’t have met you. And that’s the only reason I can’t bring myself to resent all of this completely.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

She smiled then—wobbly, uncertain. “That’s a selfish thought, isn’t it? That I’d trade everything to keep hearing your voice in the dark like this.”

Another mission. Another funeral. The two of you stood too close again in a hallway too narrow, breaths fogging in the cold.

“Sometimes,” she murmured, “I wish you were less kind to me. Then maybe this wouldn’t be so hard.”

You asked, “What wouldn’t be?” She stared, then gave you a crooked grin that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Letting you go. If it ever comes to that.”

And still, nothing changed. Not really. She still laughed too loud. Still pushed her glasses up when flustered. But now her gaze lingered. Now her hands shook when they brushed yours.

And maybe, just maybe—you shook too.