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tsukidrama · 2 years

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the road not taken

{I Doubted If I Should Ever Come Back}

ᴀɴɴɪᴇ ʟᴇᴏɴʜᴀʀᴅᴛ x ғᴇᴍ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ / ᴄᴀɴᴏɴ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟɪᴀɴᴛ

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢѕ: night terrors, manifestations of PTSD, references to (physical) abuse, suicidal ideation, angst, & hurt with very little comfort.

Chapter 9 - Bad Dreams 2: Electric Boogaloo

Summary: When Annie hits rock bottom, you're confronted with the realities of her childhood you don't like to think about.

cottagecanon | ao3 | wattpad | ♫

← Chapter 8 | Chapter 10 →

Word Count: 10.5k

Author’s Note: thank you all for being so patient! i truly adore the little community of fans this fic has attracted. it took me a little longer than usual to write this chapter because it was genuinely making me depressed irl - nothing too serious, but it was hard to depict the unhealthy headspace that reader is currently in. so happy this chapter is over! if you haven't read it yet, i started a companion piece that goes along with this fic. linking below.

off the beaten path

Annie looks at you with an amused smirk.

“I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks now,” you insist, “You just don’t believe me, still.”

She shakes her head. “Okay, so who is she, then?”

You falter. “Well, I’m not sure, actually…” you admit. Annoyingly, it only adds to the argument against you.

“...because she’s not real,” Annie finishes.

“No!” you protest yet again, “She was real, and she brought him a bunch of crap. You know how sometimes he comes home from town with a basketful of random shit?”

She nods.

You’ve been thinking about that encounter ever since it happened, and you’ve had time to formulate your own theories.

“She’s got to have some kind of a connection to the place where he gets that crap. Maybe they met there, or she works there,” you say, even though Annie looks disbelieving. “I think it would be a lot weirder if she didn’t have any connection to the stuff. Then I’d really be suspicious.”

At first, all she does is stare. After a few moments when you don’t back down, she laughs again – guffaws, really. It’s the most amusement she’s gotten out of something since she’s been back.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she chuckles, and goes as far to wipe a tear of laughter from her eyes.

And again you groan. “I’m not making it up!”

She doesn’t even entertain the idea. Every time you try to bring it up she has the same reaction, barely giving you the time of day.

Eventually, you just drop the topic entirely. You do however stay on top of watching Papa a little more closely than usual. Unfortunately nothing of interest happens in those first few weeks.

However, it doesn’t take long for you to realize that the only person acting odd is Annie herself. One night during dinner, there’s a particularly worrying interaction.

“Could you pass the potatoes?” she asks. It’s the first thing anyone has said in a while, so it almost makes you jump.

Somehow in the time that she had been gone, you forgot that Leonhardt family dinner was a silent affair. On your own with either one of them, you could get them to open up. When it was you and Papa, you’d talked more during meals than you did anywhere else (maybe the barn, too, towards the end there).

That wasn’t ever your life. As a child, the dinner table was the center of the house. Dinner was a conversational affair, always. You would be asked about your day or about school. In the best years of your life, you would often sit at the table for hours, talking with your grandparents long after you had finished your plate.

But when all three of you are sitting at a table, it’s dead silent. They outnumber you and the silence wins. Before Annie left, you had gotten used to it. You’ll get used to it again in time. It went without saying that this was just the norm between the two of them, that Anine’s childhood had been spent in silent dinners.

It was really lonely. Especially considering that you had gotten used to otherwise. So whenever Annie stops eating and starts talking, it catches both of you off guard before you even hear what it is that she says.

“Do either of you ever think about where we’d be buried if we die?”

Papa’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. And shockingly, that happens to be one of the few things she could’ve said that leaves you too stunned to reply.

She looks back and forth between the two of you before she shrugs and looks back down. “I hadn’t ever thought about it before recently,” she mutters, “Warriors didn’t get graves.”

Her dad’s face is completely drained of blood. You realize that his hands are shaking when the fork in his hand trembles, then clatters against his plate. This reaction is what sets you in motion again to redirect the conversation.

“That’s not something that any of us need to think about right now,” you say decisively. “You and I are young and all three of us are healthy.”

Annie nods with her brow furrowed, like she hadn’t considered that before. “I know that. I was just wondering, really.”

Finally, Papa breaks his silence. “Okay, well, don’t,” he snaps, “Got it?” Despite the intensity that he says it with, it’s crystal clear that his emotion is coming from fear rather than anger.

She nods again to show her understanding, though she deflates a little bit as she goes back to pushing her food around her plate.

Nobody says anything for the rest of the meal, though the mood of the silence changes considerably after that. You’re on edge the whole time, mostly worried that one of them might lash out in pure emotion and the other misinterprets it for anger.

Is it lucky or unlucky that they both shove their feelings down? You swear that you watch the process of each of them controlling their facial expressions carefully before they revert back to apathy.

Neither of them cleans up their spot at the table. Papa stabs his remaining brussel sprouts and shoves them in his mouth, angrily stomping off out of the back door with his mouth full of food. At least he eats them – Annie stays at the table with you for another ten minutes, but she just continues to push her food into a different spot.

You want to ask her if she’s alright, but you also don’t want to make her feel like she’s made anything weird. For once, you’re not sure what you should say. All you can think of is the laundry list of things of things you want to avoid saying.

It takes so long and you come up so short that Annie is the one to finally break the silence once it becomes unbearable.

“Maybe he should get a girlfriend…” she mutters, “If that would make him chill the fuck out for once.”

You nod so that she feels like you’re on her side. What you really want to do is point out that maye he had a point to be concerned. It wasn’t like her to bring up the topic of death so suddenly, not since you’d left Paradis and the curse ended.

It didn’t feel like a good sign that she was talking about death from the start, but when you think about it compared to some of the stuff she’d said as a teenager you can’t find it in you to call her out. It doesn’t raise enough red flags with you that you’re particularly concerned about her state of mind, given the fact that she acts normal with you for the rest of the night.

She’s a little quiet maybe, but she’s as affectionate as always. After you both get ready for bed she lies down with a book, and you curl up on her shoulder reading along from the side. A few chapters in you feel yourself getting tired and falling asleep on top of her, and she’s attentive enough to wake you up just enough to reposition you comfortably.

There’s a smile on your face. The last thing you expect is for things to go off the rails, but of course life has a special way of kicking you in the ass when you’re least expecting it.

You sleep hard that night. It feels so safe when Annie’s arms are around you and the cats snuggle in, that you let your guard down. You’re so comfortable that you fall into a much deeper sleep than you intend to.

At some point, you’re roused from sleep, but the heaviness in your eyelids is too strong to resist. You’re vaguely aware of Annie moving beside you, but you shake off the disturbance and flip over to scoop Donut into your embrace. It’s actually only due to his claws sinking into your arm that you wake up all the way.

“Ah fuck, nice paws – no claws,” you chide him, removing each of the tiny daggers from your skin. “Damn it, please chill out, Donut…”

You open your eyes and sit up, losing your grip on the squirmy cat. He darts away, slinking into the shadows of the room. Only when you turn do you realize that you’re alone in bed – actually, you’re alone in the room, you realize when you glance around. Annie is nowhere to be found.

Ah, shit. Her weird comments about death and burial from earlier that night flash in the forefront of your mind and immediately, you fear the worst. You nearly leap out of bed to check the balcony and the bathroom, and any corner of the room where she could conceivably be tucked away in.

She’s not upstairs. There’s nothing out of place.

The only clue to her whereabouts comes from a sound down the stairwell. The door to downstairs is wide open, and something clatters like it was knocked off of a shelf or table to thunk on the hardwood floor.

Oh, no. Please, no.

Your heart is in your throat as you throw on some clothes. Please, please let her just be getting a snack downstairs. The Siamese yowls at you from the bottom of the steps, probably hungry herself. You shoo her away. There are clearly more pressing things than feeding the cats right now. Fucking cats…

The kitchen is empty with the inner door open and the screen door swinging in the wind. There’s a noise in the garden, a rhythmic thumping with an odd echo that reverberates between the three buildings surrounding the area. The bad feeling that’s pulling your guts down gets so much worse when you realize that ‘echo’ you’re hearing isn’t a reflection of another noise at al, but rather quiet sobbing.

More or less, you know what you’re walking into. Some kind of horrible nightmare manifesting in a weird way. Had she ever run out of the house before? You wrack your brains and the answer comes up no. She’s made it onto the balcony and even down the stairs, but never even onto the bottom floor, really.

Nothing that you couldn’t fix by just pulling her back into the room afterwards. Nothing that had overwhelmed you so much you don’t know how to handle it. All of that changes tonight.

She’s standing on the edge of the garden, kicking the shit out of the part of the fence next to the picnic table, the part that cuts out to divide the garden. She’s really pummeling the crap out of it, to the point where the wood begins to splinter. You notice that not only is she still in a sports bra and pajama shorts, but she’s also not wearing any shoes.

Her bare foot comes down on the fence and it breaks altogether. She rips the fence post out of the ground and throws it off to the side, then graduates to pulling at individual boards. Grunting with effort amidst her crying, she dismantles it piece by piece.

After the nose incident and talking about it was Papa, you know better than to intervene. Especially not when there are shards of wood and god knows what else flying around. So instead you remain at the bottom of the ramp crouched in shadow.

This was everything you were afraid of since she came back. You start to get a little overwhelmed by emotion, but you’re still not sure what she’s triggered about. Before you take action you need to know what you’re dealing with, to see what she’s having a nightmare about in the first place.

You try to get closer without making any sound. Annie isn’t talking, just crying, shouting every so often, but it’s not words. After she’s ripped apart the fence as much as it will budge, she kicks aside one of the chairs.

When she tries to get a new angle on beating the fence, she ends up backing up right into the tree, and from the sound of it, she smacks into it quite hard – you audibly wince at the thwacking noise her skull makes against the bark. Her crying grows more frantic, and you can finally hear what she’s saying clearly as she cries out to defend herself.

“No… I’m sorry. I wasn’t slacking off,” she whimpers, “I’m not taking a break… No sir! … okay, yes… I will.” Her voice shakes, and she falls to the ground as she scrambles away from the tree.

There’s no metaphorical expression that can describe the way it feels when it hits you. You might as well have been punched in the gut with the way it twists. You’re nauseous and dizzy and in shambles.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs, “I won’t do it again…”

Hearing those words coming out of her mouth fogs your brain up so badly that you just stand there stunned for a few moments. This is the one thing that you can’t handle, the one thing that breaks you more than anything else. No matter how hard you try, you can’t address this with a clear head.

Annie pulls herself to her feet, and all of a sudden to your horror, she kicks up one of the tomato plants. It goes flying through the air. In quick succession, she kicks down the entire row of plants. Bell peppers, then squash, then eggplants go flying in every direction. Some are entirely uprooted while others are kicked like a soccer ball.

She smacks into the tree again, and it triggers another episode of hysterics. The crying starts up anew, with another sputtering of apologies and half-coherent begging. “[more horrible dialogue]”

Half of it isn’t ready to harvest yet, not as if that matters to the nightmare. Cabbage, lettuce, kale, and cauliflower all go flying around and break apart on impact. Seeing her physically rip the garden to shreds is what tips you over the edge.

You swallow the sickness you’re feeling and slink along the fence as you creep toward the en suite. You can’t do this alone. Desperately, you wrap your knuckles against the glass of Papa’s window. It’s a lot louder than you anticipated so you duck into the shadows in fear that Annie heard you.

If she did, she doesn’t react to it. She continues screaming and kicking, spinning quickly on her feet amongst the destroyed plants. You start banging on the door now, rather insistently, until you hear rustling on the other end.

You keep knocking even when you hear him, though a little bit more softly. Only do you stop when you hear the lock disengaging.

The door creaks open and Papa peeks out groggily. He looks confused at first, but the second he registers that it’s you, the bleary look on his face disappears.

“What happened?” he asks, his gaze sharpening.

You can’t even get any words out. As soon as your mouth opens you just start sobbing. Papa is expectedly taken aback by it. His eyes widen, though by his standards you know he’s trying to control his face. He reaches out for you but then freezes in place, unsure of what to do, and flounders for a moment.

His expression grows unreadable as you watch the worst-case scenarios flash in his mind. He looks genuinely worried as he swallows hard. You can literally the recollection of her weird comments at dinnertime dawn on him, and worry floods his expression, “...she’s not?”

“No, not like that,” you blubber, “but I didn’t know what to do.”

Eventually, you manage to point out in the garden as you choke on another sob. Finally, it seems to sink in for him what’s happening when Annie once again bumps into the tree and shrieks, sobbing and promising that she’ll do better.

When you turn, you see that she’s back in the middle of the garden ripping plants straight out of the ground and hurling them against the side of the barn. Dirt splatters against the red painted wood, noisily thunking with each collision.

You look back to Papa to see his reaction. Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised by the blank look on his face, but you are a little disappointed. Right now, you need him to be there for you. Well, what are you expecting from him exactly? After all, it is Papa. You feel bitter tears forming in your eyes as you start to realize it might be a futile effort.

A shower of dirt rains down from a few feet away. You jump in surprise, whirling around to see that Annie’s aim has now reached the en suite. Some onions thud against the bricks again, and this time the dirt that flies off hits the both of you.

Only the third time do you realize that Papa is somewhat frozen. A hard handful sails across the garden directly toward you, and all of a sudden the instincts you learned during that annoying month and a half where deflecting random shit became a regular thing for you. Soil rains down all over your body but you manage to successfully block whatever vegetables – radishes, maybe? – that she’d hurled over.

Finally, it seems like Papa fully realizes that you need help. You cry out in shock and disgust, and the squealing as you try to shake off the dirt must bring him back into reality. He grabs you by the upper arm and yanks you inside his room before the next vegetable comes flying by a few seconds later.

He shuts the door and all at once, every emotion hits you at once. It’s like as soon as you’re physically separated from the event, you start to process it. The full effect of seeing Annie in this worst-case scenario, your inability to deal with it, the fact that you had to admit that, and the fact that you’re hiding when you feel like she needs you.

You completely lose your shit. Tears flow down your face as you blubber hopelessly. “I should’ve brought her back to bed before she was able to make it out here. I usually wake up – I don’t know how I slept through it. Is this my fault?”

“Stop that right now,” he demands, placing a hand on your shoulder, “No way this is your fault. This isn’t your mess to clean up. You were right to come to me, okay?”

You start out sniveling, balling your hands up into fists so hard that your fingernails dig into your palms. Words don’t come out.

“Did she hurt herself?” he asks seriously. His grip on your shoulder unintentionally tightens.

Immediately, you shake your head. “Not beyond whatever she did to the fence. Maybe some bruises… I don’t know. Nothing intentional, if that’s what you’re asking.”

And though Papa looks a little bit relieved, he’s still very tense. Right now he looks older than you’ve ever seen him.

Your lip trembles as you try to say more, but what ends up coming out is so shaky that it’s nearly inaudible. “I just… god, I feel so fucking useless. I can’t help her.”

“You’ve done a lot for her already, more than anybody else ever has,” her dad tells you, and he begins to shepherd you towards the nearby armchair. “More than I ever have, too. You never should have felt responsible for this burden. This is all on me. I need to know that you understand that.”

More tears overwhelm you. Papa stops trying to guide you when you start to stagger. Instead, he just pulls you into a hug.

Something broken inside of you cracks further as emotions you didn’t realize you still had come back to haunt you. You feel terrified and inadequate and like you should have done something different, or better. Is he sure that this isn’t your doing?

The choked-back emotion suddenly becomes too much, and once again you’re sobbing. “No,” is all you’re able to get out this time, “no, no.” You say over and over again. Your vision tunnels and your limbs go weak as you start to hyperventilate.

“Yes,” he tells you, firmly, “You’ve done a good job for a long time. Do you hear me?”

You nod, out of instinct more than anything. It doesn’t feel like you’ve been doing anything at all. Maybe you just don’t know how to accept praise anymore.

He pats your head affectionately, albeit a bit awkwardly. “I want you to try and let this go after tonight…It’s time I took responsibility for my actions. It’s my fault after all. There’s nothing you can do to help her.”

Whatever endorphins that the hug releases in your brain are enough to physically calm you down enough that you can breathe a little easier. “So what am I supposed to do then?”

“All you need to do is stay here in this chair. I’ll come to get you when it’s over.”

Before he releases you, Papa sighs. He waits until your sobs have calmed before he lets you go with a comforting pat on your back, and then he guides you down into the large cushy armchair next to his dresser.

He takes a moment to grab a blanket from the trunk at the end of the bed. He unfolds it halfway before draping it around your shoulders. It’s a little bit haphazard, but the gesture is received all the same.

Now that you’re a little calmer, you let yourself relax. He adjusts the blanket around you to tuck you in, then pushes your hair out of your face.

“Stay here,” he repeats. He looks at you with more concern in his eyes than you’ve ever seen before as he tries to read your expression.

You sigh, and the remnants of your sobs rattle your breath. Eventually, you nod your head.

“Okay…” you agree, and then nervously add: “Don’t take too long.” You’re not sure where it comes from.

Papa nods, and his eyebrows knit together with emotion. “Of course not.”

You hadn’t realized you’d had so much tension in your body still until it releases. You slump down in the chair and release a sigh – also one you didn’t realize you’d held in.

Whenever he rises back up to his feet, he lets out an old-man grunt of effort. He hasn’t even gone outside yet and it’s obvious that he’s exhausted. Not that you can blame him, of course. And though you’d stopped counting after a while, just a few months had run you ragged. What must it be like to have your existence whittled down to the worst things you’ve done, no matter how hard you try and fix the mistakes of the past?

It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. He certainly reaps what he sows, but regardless you don’t envy the twenty-something-odd years of baggage that he’s carried with him all this time. He’s dug himself a hole so treacherous that he’s the only one capable of navigating out of it unharmed at this point. It must be daunting.

Before he leaves, he takes a moment to pull himself together. You don’t think he knows that you can see around the blankets based on the way he lets his facade crack. His face visibility breaks as emotions overcome him. He takes a moment to compose himself, wiping at his eyes viciously and pushes down all his feelings.

You recognize it all too well – of course that’s where Annie got it from.

It makes you so genuinely sad to see Papa struggling that it sends you into another bout of hysterics. You hold it in just as long as it takes for him to leave, but as soon as the door closes you make no effort to quell your sobs anymore.

The moment that you let the flood loose, you’re swept away in it. It’s overwhelming in the worst possible way.

You’re plagued by the uncertainty you feel, and for a moment your brain runs wild.

Is this really what this life has turned into? Is this actually happening to you right now? It started out so idealistic and felt so right… How could something so genuine have devolved into something that feels like a nightmare of your own? Sometimes you wonder if that’s all this is – maybe Annie was never the one with the issue. You’re the one stuck and you can’t escape. If you squeezed your eyes shut tightly enough, then maybe you can force yourself to wake up.

Wherever, whenever you end up has got to be better than this. The things you’ve experienced in the past were objectively worse than having your girlfriend freak out on you… But it really wasn’t just that anymore, was it?

It started before she even left, you realize. The first time you felt this way was when she found out she had to go back to Paradis. You’d been so afraid that you were going to lose her that you couldn’t recognize that she was already gone.

She was gone the minute she knew she’d have to go back. You put your best effort forward and still, you watched as she slipped through your fingers.

How the fuck could that NOT be your fault? How could you not blame yourself?

It feels like the life you’ve spent so much time and effort building out here might fall apart, and you’re sickened that it makes you nostalgic for the time she spent in the crystal. At least back then, you didn’t know what it was like. Now that you’ve experienced a taste of the domestic happiness you wanted so badly with her for all those years, you can’t imagine living without it.

You’re not entirely sure what exactly scares you so much. It’s not like you’re going to be kicked out onto the street. Annie is more than your significant other, she’s your everything. When something happens to you, she’s the first person you want to tell. You tell her everything. She’s the only person in the world who knows everything about you, and you’re the only one who knows everything about her.

For so long you turned to one another for comfort and validation. Even just for attention – basic social needs. All three of you have a lot of time on your hands out here. A few months ago she would happily chatter on about this or that project she wanted to take on, or explain whatever she’s been working on to you.

It feels like she never talks to you anymore. Not only that, but you hardly even see her doing the things she enjoys. She stops painting, stops carving. It was noticeably concerning, but every time you try to point out that she’s clearly not okay she just brushes you off. Asking her any questions about how she feels gets the same reaction as if you’d tried to pull teeth.

So badly do you miss the days where she’d come to find you from across the cottage just to tell you about the plot twist in her book, or to show you something she found in the grass or from the garden. She hardly ever even looks at you anymore save for when you specifically get her attention.

Even when she does listen, her eyes are vacant like she’s hardly paying attention. For the first time in years you feel like she doesn’t want to be around you. These days you get more from Papa than from her. It really fucking sucks.

You miss her. You miss the life that you’d had out here, and you don’t understand why she’s gotten so depressed or what you could possibly do to help.

After the worst of the panic passes, despair ebbs into curiosity.

You could try and pretend like it’s for some greater purpose, that you’re listening so you can know how to better help them – after all, even if Annie was talking to you she won’t remember anything, and Papa has never been forthcoming. But honestly, that’s not why you end up choosing to snoop.

It’s really not any more complicated than you being nosy, in the end. The context of Annie’s nightmare alone tells you what to expect from the interaction, but you want to listen in for yourself. You feel like you need to hear this.

You’re not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s just the fear you might regret not finding out, in the end, that pushes you to get up. You keep the blanket around you snugly as you stumble to your feet and over to the door.

Quickly you realize that the only way you’ll be able to hear anything outside from there is if you crack the door. The wood is just too thick. You’re worried that if you do that, Papa will notice. It doesn’t seem like a risk you’re willing to take.

Instead, you waddle across the en suite into the bathroom. There, you feel a little safer away from the glaring yellow lamplight. Just the moon lights up the bathroom, dimly, and even though the glass still distorts the sound from outside, you can already tell that it’s a better option than listening from the door. You have a clear view of what’s going on in the garden.

The first thing you noticed is that Annie has escalated to projectiles. The wooden stakes holding up beans and fruit bushes have been thrown like javelins, buried in the soil with severed vines still wrapped around some of them. Luckily, she seems to have exhausted her supply at this point. In fact, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything left for her to use at all.

You undo the latch on the window slowly so it stays quiet, and silently push the window open so that you can finally discern the mumbles. You hear grunts of effort from Annie and the sound of blows landing, then the splintering of wood. You can’t see either her or her dad, but you’re not sure you want to.

Maybe this was the world telling you that this is your chance to stop before your feelings get hurt. Maybe Papa had been right and you should have just stayed in the chair where he’d left you.

No, it’s too late for that now. You’ve already seen the damage. Your heart is in your stomach.

Quite literally, there’s nothing left. Nearly all the plants are ripped up or somehow broken. You can’t even see her at first glance, but you’re so overwhelmed that you can’t bring yourself to look.

All of a sudden, you change your mind. You abandon the idea of snooping and run to lean against the sink.

Tears flow down your cheeks despite trying to hold them in. It’s all too much, this night, everything about it. It destroys you that it’s happening at all, and the fact that such old wounds were still literally destroying aspects of her life. The poor garden…

It was the heart of the home, both literally and figuratively. It connected the three buildings physically, and from the flowers and shrubs lining the fences to the garden that you eat from, it was by far the most closely-tended bit of land. It was beautiful and important to all three of you, and now it was completely and totally wrecked. There was nothing usable. No harvest to be salvaged, nothing to sustain you anymore.

It wasn’t like you would starve or anything. You go to the market on a regular basis and you could just buy more food. It was the emotional aspect of losing everything that you worked so hard to build here with her. Right now you couldn’t even try to find a bright side. The depression overtakes you and you let yourself collapse in front of the sink in tears.

What you want to do is embrace the emptiness. You wish you could lie down on this cold tile floor and dissolve. The wind will sweep away your body bit by bit as it erodes mountains and boulders. Tiny little pieces of you will scatter one atom at a time until you’re everywhere and everything. You’ll be strewn throughout the world in a million places at once, and most importantly, you won’t be in pain anymore.

Even then, when you’re nothing, would you feel as lost as you do right now? This isn’t good or evil. There’s no moral decision to come to terms with, and maybe that’s why you struggle so much. You can still make a choice that will push Annie away even if you have the best intentions.

You have nothing to win. In every scenario, you lose. Right now it feels so suffocating like there's no possible way out.

Are you supposed to fix this, when it's so behind hope? What you wouldn't give for anything else to be happening to you right now.

A high-pitched shriek from outside snaps you out of your thoughts. It’s clearly Annie – you don’t even have to hear her speak to recognize her voice. You go back to peer out the window, and somehow you will yourself to look past the wreckage. Desperately, you search for movement or a familiar silhouette.

Annie cries out again, and the noise aims you in the right direction. She’s on her hands and knees close to the barn, scrambling backward in the dirt, flinging debris left and right as she tries to avoid her dad.

“Get away from me!” she screams.

Papa stands with his hands up in defense about fifteen feet away. “I haven’t moved any closer,” he points out.

It doesn’t seem to matter. She tosses a handful of ripped-up leaves and broken stems in his direction. “I said to get away from me!”

He sighs, but he doesn’t flinch when plants shower on top of his nightclothes. He doesn’t even bother to brush them away. He just stares ahead with no expression.

“If I stay where I am, will you stop throwing things?”

She looks in both directions like she’s considering her options, and shrugs after a few moments.

“Probably not,” she admits.

Papa laughs, a little dryly.

“Thanks for your honesty. If it makes you feel better, keep at it,” he says apathetically. He goes as far as to roll something toward her with his foot – maybe lettuce, or a head of broccoli? – from this distance, you can’t tell.

Annie accepts the ammunition, holding it aimed, locked, and loaded. “I will not hesitate to throw this at your face,” she threatens.

All he does is stand there. “That’s fine. You can throw it.”

She winds herself up, cocking the vegetable above her shoulder, ready to hurl it. Now it sounds like she’s about to cry.

“I’ll really do it!” she shrieks, her voice getting more desperate.

Once again, her dad puts up no fight. “Okay.”

The vegetable sails through the air, revealing itself to be broccoli as it shatters against his shoulder and flies in every direction. He barely flinches as he absorbs the entire impact of the blow, just takes it. All he does is stagger backward a few steps.

Even from here, you can tell how hard of a collision it was, but Papa makes no sounds of complaint or pain. He holds his shoulder, though he still stands.

There’s a long silence so oppressive and thick that you struggle to breathe.

“So, is it helping?” he asks eventually. His voice isn’t angry or resentful, just weary. He’s sad, worn by so many years of regret, just now accepting the reality that this is where she’s ended up.

There’s more crying and grunting from Annie on the other side of the garden, who now drops to her knees as she scrambles to find something else to throw.

“Get it all out, there’s another pile on your left.”

Quickly she finds the aforementioned ammo sitting a few feet over. A chunk of potatoes, roots, and dirt smacks into his stomach a few moments later. You hear an audible grunt on impact afterward. It’s not as hard of a blow, but even from across the yard it’s clear that he’s struggling to keep himself upright. Yet Papa doesn’t let himself wobble and remains as tall as he can manage.

Just seconds later, an eggplant hurtles end-over-end to smack him right in the head. You gasp, expecting him to be hurt. Maybe it’s in the shock but he doesn’t seem to react to this blow at all. He stays there hunched over for a few moments as the garden goes quiet.

Luckily, after this third throw, Annie gives up on attacking. She can’t seem to find anything in the general vicinity and it visibly overwhelms her. She buries her face in her hands, and defeated, she collapses to the ground.

You watch with bated breath, not sure what to expect. The silence and stillness put you at unease. This is a loud and tumultuous affair and it doesn’t make sense. There’s a long moment where Papa just stands there, seemingly stunned. You’re right at the moment when you’re asking yourself why he isn’t doing anything when he finally does.

Slowly and deliberately, he starts to make his way over to her. He keeps his distance at first and when he gets close enough for her to be aware of him, he calls out. “I’m coming closer now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m not taking a break! I’ve been training this whole time,” Annie pleads, terrified.

He sighs heavily. “I don’t care about that anymore.”

“Wh– what?” Annie asks, her voice cracking.

There’s a long silence, and when he speaks again there’s a tremble in his voice that makes you feel even less sure than you already did.

“You don’t have to fight anymore,” he tells her, more firmly this time, “In fact, I think you’re long overdue to take a break.”

You can barely hear her with the way she’s crying, but at some point, you hear a word squeak out amidst the heaving. “Really?”

Papa nods as he walks a little closer. As he does, he blocks her from the view you have of her from where you sit.

“You can rest. You’ve done perfectly,” he says.

“...I have?”

Although you can’t see her anymore, you can still hear everything. You want to move again so that you can see them, but you’re also frozen in place.

“Yes. I’m proud of you, Annie. Rest, okay?”

You can hear in the way her breathing quickens that she’s getting frantic. “I – I don’t know how…” she admits.

Papa sinks down, presumably to his knees. “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out together.” A few long seconds pass before he asks: “Is it okay if I hug you?”

She doesn’t respond, but the fact that she doesn’t shove him away is enough. It’s so dark that you can hardly see what’s happening aside from the vague dark shadows of movement. You hear Papa wheeze as he sits down on the grass, then Annie starts crying more intensely a few seconds later.

“I’m sorry,” she says loudly after a few seconds.

Her dad says something in response, but it’s too quiet for you to hear. What’s left of the fence now obscures most of your view.

It’s not good enough. You’ve heard too much to back down now. Ever nosy, you back away from the window and walk back through the en suite. The blanket falls from your shoulders and onto the floor behind you.

The door handle clicks and disengages quietly, but then the door creaks as you push it open. Even though you were told to stay in the chair, you’re not really afraid of being seen. Most of the reason that you stay quiet is that you don’t want to interrupt.

You crouch behind the overturned table a few feet away to hide, willing yourself to be silent. You still can’t hear anything, so you hold your hand over your mouth to cover the sound of your breathing. Now that you’re closer the hushed whispers between them start to become audible.

It’s not just Papa talking, you realize. Annie is speaking in surprisingly full, coherent sentences. She doesn’t sound present, though. Her words are slightly slurred and empty of emotion, sleepily mumbled out.

“No, I’m not upset at all. You’re not in trouble right now.”

You glance around the edge of the table and catch a glimpse of Annie’s hair. Her face is buried in her dad’s shoulder, her voice so muffled that it’s barely audible. “I’m sorry. All I ever do is hurt people…”

Papa shakes his head.“That isn’t true. You have so much to offer the world and your family. You’re smart, and you’re strong. Not just your body, either. I’m so proud of the way that you take care of Y/N, and of me.”

As she curls in further, her eyes disappear out of sight. “But I’ve hurt you.”

“Well, I hurt you too,” he reminds her. His fingers scrunch up in her hair to comfort her as he holds her close. “It’s never something I’ve resented you for.”

She sniffles. “Really?”

“Of course not. I was always proud, even if it wasn't for the right reasons,” he says, “At first it was just because of how much progress you made, but after a few years I realized: you proved that day you won’t let yourself be treated poorly by someone who claims to love you. That wasn’t something I taught you, for sure. But it’s come to be one of the things I admire about you most.”

When he stops speaking for a moment, a silence so heavy and filled with uncertainty fills the air, that you’re grateful when you hear his voice again.

“I wish that you could have had a father in me before I sent you out into the world. I was too stubborn and proud. Because of it, we both missed out on so much. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

Annie remains quiet. From behind the table, you're hit with another wave of emotions. The hand on your mouth tightens as your sobs threaten to burst out.

Papa continues on. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good father. I’m sorry that I thought it was enough to give you food and a home, and that I made you fight instead of letting you be a kid,” Papa’s voice starts to waver, but he continues on as his daughter sobs in his arms. “I’m sorry that I did things so wrong back then that you’re still hurting now. I wish I knew how to fix it… but sometimes it feels like it can’t be fixed. You have every reason in the world to hate me–”

“– no!” Annie interrupts, all of a sudden. It stops him dead in his tracks.

“That’s not true,” she cries, “I don’t hate you at all.”

Now it’s Papa’s turn to sniffle, left wordless. “Really?”

“Never. You’re my dad…”

You’re so upset that you throw up in your mouth a little bit. The first instinct you have is to choke it back down, but you’re so viscerally upset that you realize you’re genuinely about to hurl. It’s all you can do to aim away from the place where you’re sitting.

There’s a long silence after that, much longer than you’re comfortable with After you manage to pull yourself together enough to move, you once again peek your head around the table.

He’s not talking because he’s crying, you realize all at once. You had barely even heard Papa’s voice break before this – you’ve never seen him lose his composure, never seen him give in to vulnerability like this. His stoicism didn’t allow for such weakness, or so he thought. Now, it seems like he’s evolving.

“I love you, Annie,” he chokes, “I really am sorry. For everything.”

She mutters sleepily, hardly intelligibly: “Love you too.”

As she readjusts to a more comfortable position, you can see that the look on her face is finally peaceful. Tears still shine on her cheeks but she’s not crying anymore – it seems like she’s fallen back asleep all the way.

It seems like it’s over. You put your hand back over your mouth again to quiet yourself, terrified to move. At this point what you’re afraid of is interrupting such an insanely personal moment for Papa. The telltale sounds of crying still echo in the garden.

All you can think of is how you feel after Annie has a nightmare. You usually want to be left alone to wallow in your misery, so you want to respect his privacy if that’s what he wants, too.

Unfortunately, it seems like that’s not what he needs tonight.

“Y/N? Can you hear me?” he calls out after a few seconds, his voice still shaking, “I know you don’t listen. You’re out there somewhere, right?”

You freeze. Maybe it’s not too late for you to creep back inside and pretend that you stayed in the chair the whole time and that you hadn’t heard a thing. Though, any potential plan is quickly foiled when you step on something that cracks loudly – either a twig or some poor uprooted plant thrown across the yard.

Ah, shit, you think.

“I don’t care if you heard what I said,” he says. Immediately it relieves some of the uneasiness. He sighs, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to carry Annie inside by myself... I need your help to get up.”

Something in your gut twists at the admission. You don’t make the conscious decision to start moving, but before you know it you’re climbing to your feet. You stumble your way across the broken garden.

When you get to where Papa can see you, you freeze. You’re overwhelmed by your emotions again at the sight of him

“Come here, please,” he asks. You can see why he won’t be able to get up on his own; Annie is basically half-draped across him, leaning.

Her head is still on his shoulder, lolling now that she’s fully unconscious again. They’re both sitting on the ground, but all of the weight of her upper body is being supported by the fact that her arms are around his shoulders. He looks at you sadly and continues to stroke her hair.

Again you’re completely overwhelmed by emotion, and you can’t help but fling your arms around him. It throws him a little bit off-kilter, but you have enough balance to keep all three of you upright.

“I’m sorry…” you whisper. You don’t know what else to say, really. It occurs to you later that you could’ve thanked him, but when he’s crying the way he is you feel paralyzed.

To your surprise, he turns around and says: “I’m sorry to you, too.”

It catches you off guard. “Why?” you ask, and pull back so that you can see his face.

Papa shakes his head. “This is affecting you now, too. I wish I could take away this pain, for you both. It never should have existed in the first place.”

Your lower lip trembles as once again you feel doubt creeping into the back of your mind. This isn't your family, not really. You’re still the outsider. “You really don’t owe me anything.”

He rolls his eyes. Not maliciously, but because his arms are still in use. “It’s not about that. It’s my job to take care of you whether you think you need me or not. That’s what fathers do for their children, and the world has decided to bring me another daughter.”

A beat of silence passes. Tears start to form in your eyes as you realize the full weight of those words. Should you hug him again? Should you tell him what he means to you, too? It takes a moment for your brain to catch up.

“I love you too, you know,” he adds. It’s tacked on the end as if it’s a side thought. Like it’s not one of the most impactful things that an adult has ever said to you.

A million emotions hit you at once. Despite the fact that you’re physically holding everyone up, you yourself collapse. You can’t help it. Between what you’d witnessed and what he’d just said, you’re overwhelmed.

Papa’s hand on your back draws you back into the moment. He doesn’t let go of Annie, but he shifts most of her weight into one of his arms so that he can put the other around your shoulders. You’re conscious of his limitations as you lean into the group huddle, holding all of your own weight on your knees.

You take the opportunity to try and center yourself again, to calm some of your less rational emotions.

The three of you just sit there for a minute – well, it’s really just the two of you, since Annie is dead asleep. You sit there with one arm resting gently on her waist and your other around Papa’s shoulder.

Honestly, the only measure of how much time passes you notice is that it’s long enough that your knees go numb. It doesn’t feel real, any of it. For the dozenth time that night, everything hits you all over again.

Is this going to be the new normal? You look around at the destroyed garden from the destroyed rows to the splintered fences and realize that you can’t keep doing this to yourself. No matter how high the highs are, if this is what the lows are like… it scares you.

You need to believe that this was a freak occurrence, something that would never happen again. Yet the night she broke your nose you’d secretly hoped the same thing. As horrible as that had been, maybe you should have anticipated that it would get worse. It always does, after all.

It’s all just too much. This is so overwhelming, to be sitting in the aftermath of… whatever this is. This horrible, horrible nightmare come to life. There’s a part of you that wants to clean it up before the sun comes up so that you don’t have to face the hard truth in the light of day. Maybe if you avoid looking at it you can ignore that it’s happening.

You haven’t felt like this since the night your nose was broken. This time, however, you don’t have any physical pain to distract you from the gaping hole inside of you. Even after watching it, not even for the first time, there’s still a part of you that can’t comprehend that Annie was capable of hurting you. The broken nose was easy to rationalize as an accident, but this?

This is a really, seriously tangible difference. You can’t hide the trashed garden behind a layer of concealer and an upbeat attitude. You can’t make excuses to keep people away until you’ve got your shit together.

It’s bad this time, and the both of you know it. After he lets himself go for a moment, Papa sobers up, then sighs deeply.

“Can’t sit here forever. You can take her into my room if you don’t want to go up the stairs,” he offers, looking up at you guiltily. His expression says what he doesn’t - that he’d be the one carrying her if he could. That he wishes he didn’t have to ask for your help, either.

Gently, he transfers Annie into your arms. Together you both lower her onto the grass with as little turbulence as you can manage. You stand first, then extend both hands to Papa. He slowly rises to his feet with no lack of trouble, groaning and cursing all the while until you finally heave him up.

As he limps back across the yard into his room, you keep an eye on but you try not to stare. Instead, you consider the best way to carry her and try to judge how far you’ll have to go. She looks shockingly unbothered.

It’s a short enough distance that you feel confident in carrying her bridal style. You scoop her up underneath her shoulders and knees and lift. You stagger forward as you struggle to gather your balance, but once you stabilize, you’re able to power on.

Papa is holding the door to his bedroom open. By the time you stumble through the door, your strength is failing you. You drop Annie onto the bed a little harder than you intend to but she doesn’t seem affected by it. She stays in the exact same position she lands in, so you try to straighten out her body a little so she doesn’t wake up with a cramp.

For a while, you stay on the end of the bed to watch over her. You don’t pay much attention to anything besides watching the slow rise and fall of her chest until you feel a familiar weight around your shoulders. Again a blanket is clumsily wrapped around your shoulders.

You look up to see Papa standing above you with his arms out. He looks more broken than you’ve ever seen him.

As he did with Annie earlier, he approaches you cautiously: “Can I hug you?”

You’re not the same way they are. Maybe you never have been, but especially not after these past few months. He doesn’t need to ask. You don’t want to be asked. There’s this deep aching loneliness inside of you that gnaws at you – and maybe it just means that you’re soft like he always points out, but you want to be doted on unconditionally.

You can’t manage to verbalize a response. Luckily Papa picks up on what isn’t said by the way you weakly reach out to him with tears in your eyes. He sits down on the end of the bed to hug you.

This time, there are no tears left in you. You cry silently as you let yourself relax into the hug, gasping and shaking. It feels totally hopeless and like no amount of reassurance would help, though he does try anyway.

“It’s okay,” he says as he pats your back, “it’s over now.”

Instead of being a comfort, his words make the dread inside of you grow exponentially. Your breathing quickens, your vision blurs, and something in your chest grows tight and painful. Even though you know you’re panicking you can’t stop yourself from spinning out and letting your emotions get the best of you.

Papa sees your reaction and pulls you back by your shoulders. He extends one arm at a time to look you up and down – you’re a bit confused at first but also too overwhelmed to protest.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. It’s then you realize that he’s checking you for injuries.

You shake your head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just–” you break his gaze as you pull away. Your arms go limp at your sides. “It’s not over. Maybe it’s done for tonight, but what about the next time this happens? It’s only getting worse.”

Papa’s lips press together tightly. He considers your words for a moment before tilting his head in acknowledgment. The fact that he doesn’t verbally respond is enough to bring tears back to your eyes. It feels like his reaction is a confirmation that it’ll be horrible forever.

It leads you to spiral a bit. “It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair,” you spit, bitterly, “I don’t recognize this. She would never do this… Why is this happening?”

“I wish that I had answers for you,” he tells you, “you know that I would take away her pain if I could.”

You nod, and as you start to cry again, Papa finally catches on that you need wordless instinctive comfort. He puts his hand on your shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay,” he repeats.

“–is it, though?” you ask. It’s hard not to let yourself spiral, but you do your best to hold it together.

“I hope so,” he says, though he sounds uncertain. He sighs. “Sometimes I worry that my being here is hurting her.”

You look up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Do I even need to explain after what we both just saw?”

“No…” you admit, but you recall the many conversations you’ve had about the subject. “She needs you, too. She’s wanted you here from the start.”

Papa shrugs. “Hmm. Annie doesn’t always know what’s good for her.”

He’s right, but you still feel the need to defend her. “That’s not fair. She doesn’t know how.” Your lower lip trembles. “For so long she couldn’t accept that she has feelings like everyone else. She’s only just figured out how to be honest with herself.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. If she can be honest, then maybe it’s time for her to reevaluate what she wants.”

All you can do is stare at him. “What the hell are you saying? It would be so much worse if you weren’t here. What am I supposed to do without you?”

“You saw what happened tonight,” he says sadly, “I’ve never seen her like this before. I’m worried that she needs more help than the two of us can give her by ourselves. We can’t keep doing this – not like this.”

What you want to do is argue. He was the only person who could have possibly talked her down tonight. You couldn’t have done a thing for her and more than that, you couldn’t even bring yourself to go near her.

You get why Annie wants him here. Nowadays, you need a parent just as much as she does.

“I can’t take too many more beatings like that at this age,” he cracks a smile to try and break the tension, but it doesn’t work. Quickly, his face falls again. “More than that, look at you. When is the last time you slept through the night? You keep denying the toll this is taking on you but I can see how much it weighs on you. Neither of us can keep going like this.”

He’s right, and you know it. The stakes are too high, and all the events from the night had done was put that into perspective. You knew that it was only a matter of time before things escalated. Is it really worse than you imagined it to be, or was it always going to be hard to watch no matter how it happened?

It was bad, but you already knew that. Until now you were able to rationalize a million different reasons as to why you bottled up your own feelings. It only made things worse for everyone.

You let out a defeated sigh as more tears roll down your cheeks. “All I’ve ever wanted is to make Annie happy.”

He puts his arms around your shoulders.

“I know you do, but we clearly haven’t been doing any favors for her lately,” he says, surprisingly gently. “Something needs to change.”

“So what are we supposed to do, then?”

“I have no idea,” he admits, “but right now I think we should sleep. It’ll be hours until the sun comes up.”

“You’re tired?”

“Down to my bones,” he nods wearily, “and so are you.”

He’s right. Your eyes feel like sandpaper, but you groan in reluctance.

Papa nods sympathetically, and re-wraps the blanket around you more snugly. “Lie down, Y/N, you need the rest.”

He sits down in the chair a few feet away with his arms crossed. Immediately he closes his eyes and goes dead silent, and it genuinely seems like he’s already fallen asleep.

You feel too guilty letting him sleep without saying something more. Surely he knew how much you appreciated him, and especially so after tonight… the part of you that was raised right can’t bear to not show some kind of gratitude beyond what goes unspoken.

“Thank you for your help tonight… and I’m sorry.” Even though you try really hard to keep your voice even, it breaks anyway.

Papa sniffs. “Of course,” he says, “I’m sorry, too.”

You know that if you look up and see him crying that it’ll push you over the edge again. So badly you don’t want to break down again, that when more tears inevitably come, you just let them drip down into your hair as you stare blankly at the ceiling. Something deep inside of you aches.

“I don’t want to lose the two of you,” you mumble in the midst of your existential dread.

Papa doesn’t say anything, and for a moment you think he’s fallen asleep. Then you hear a heavy sigh float across the room followed by the comforting rumble of his voice.

“Get some sleep, kid. We’ll both still be here when the sun is up.”

You nod. After a few minutes of silence, you roll onto your side to look at Annie and push her hair out of her face. For a long while, you sit there staring at her and thinking.

It makes you feel better to know that Papa is just as clueless as you are. You don’t want to be alone in this struggle. And even though you still feel absolutely horrible, you also feel slightly less alone. It was too much to handle on your own.

All you wish is that she didn’t have to fall so low.

In the end, if you sleep again that night at all, it’s so fitful you don’t even realize it. For a while, you close your eyes just so they won’t get so dehydrated.

You wish you’d slept. Maybe it would have made you make better choices.

At some point, birds start to sing and the sun begins to rise, dusking the windows and casting a pale light in through the bathroom. It’s around then that you start pulling yourself together and shoving everything down.

It’s too much, too out of your control. Maybe there’s nothing you can do for her anymore, but you’ll be damned if you let yourself break down in front of her. It’s the worst possible choice you could’ve made, but you unhealthily rationalize that it’s better to put up a front.

It doesn’t even occur to you at the moment how hypocritical it is, and when it hits you later you just bottle it up even harder. It makes you feel like shit – you know how it feels to be lied to and it’s not something you’d ever bring upon her. And even though you recognize it’s an issue, it feels like the right move.

But this is different, right? You’re doing it to protect her, and it never occurs to you that maybe Annie had thought the same thing

By the time she begins to stir, you’ve plastered a fake smile on your face so convincingly that even to you it feels genuine. You don’t know what to do, but making her feel guilty can’t do anything but make the situation worse. Even if it’s to your detriment, you’ll keep pushing through.

#please yell at me. please come into my inbox and insult me/call me names tell me that i'm evil.#i think i will die if this gets posted and there's a quiet reaction #i told y'all i was nervous about this one. aaughg h please come vent to me i need reassurance this chapter (don't we all? sorry by the way)#anyway so part of why i spent so much effort trying to get people to care about papa in the past couple of chapters #is so that y'all won't read this chapter and be convinced he's completely irredeemable. he is soooooo flawed but im fixing him 😠#and im not done fixing him yet #TLDR TALK TO ME #annie-isms #the road not taken #trnt annie #cottagecanon #writing for my wives #annie leonhardt #annie leonhardt x reader #annie leonhardt imagine #annie leonhardt x you #annie x you #annie leonhart #annie leonhart x reader #annie leonhart x you #annie leonhart imagine #snk x reader #aot x reader #snk #aot #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #annie leonhardt headcanons #annie leonhart headcanons

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