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[the smile on her face only gets bigger. she goes from shaking and struggling for control to just... beaming against 2B. they already are more than that. and it's not just because of who anna carries within her chest; she can tell that. she can tell it by the way 2B says her name. it is because of who she is, who she is. she breathes out and for a second it feels like she's going to start crying. she sniffles.]

God. I needed to hear that right now, 2B. [she pulls her head back, and her hand moves through 2B's hair as her touch gets gentler. she's halfway cupping the side of 2B's face, the smoothness of her skin not lost to anna's ruined fingertips, and anna is smiling, and things are going to be okay.] Thanks for seeing who I am. Even if you don't know everything about me yet. [a small pause.] I can tell you more, if you want.

[ what does she do? she doesn't do a thing, she doesn't know if she could if she tried, when the inside of a palm still warm enough to feel the curvature of her cheek holds it, allows her to set in it. anna's eyes glimmer with a veil of wetness and 2B sees it. 2B's hand wavers to lift, and when it does— her fingertips rest upon the top of her hand that touches hers. nothing bad happened after she did, but she couldn't lie to say that this amount of intimacy was frightening.

it doesn't scare her away, this time. ]

I'd want that.

[she sees that 2B eventually succumbs to the parts of her that anna would insist are human. the soul, literally, or the heart, metaphorically, or whatever it is. but in this moment she feels like the two of them embody a twilight of existence, android and human both at once, and she's content with it. relieved. grateful.]

Well then. [she doesn't move her hand away.] My name is Annalise Amarande Lehmann. Born in 1992 in Germany, on Earth. In 1995, my sister, Beth, was born, and I love her so... so much. [she doesn't dwell.] In 2018, I met A2 for the first time when her soul started resonating with mine across ten thousand years. I still don't know the reason why she picked me, or if that's even what happened, but I think I have a couple ideas. She... saved me, really. [there's laughter on her breath when she admits it.] She kept me moving forward when I thought there wasn't anything else to live for.

[ the information is burned into her memory. annalise amarande lehmann. 1992, germany, earth. beth. 1995. contact with A2 soul fragment: 2018. ten thousand years apart. the why of its happening was no longer important. A2 was there, and would not do something she did not agree to. ]

If it weren’t for A2— I wouldn’t have been at rest. We have that in common. [ 2B pauses, and there’s something her fingers were so close to, before the pads lightly graze the side of her face. ] And your eye?

My eye.

[this one takes a moment. the corners of anna's mouth drop a little, a quieter smile tinged with far more regret than there probably should be. this is the most honest she'll end up being about it, she thinks. more than just going over the facts and hoping those will be enough. she takes her hand back and slowly reaches up to the band of her eyepatch, then removes it, careful not to bump 2B's hand while she does. she lets her hair fall into her face, then brushes it off to one side. both eyes open again, and underneath the eyepatch is the black-and-silver seaglass eye that she's kept with her for years now.]

I went on a trip down below the layers of reality, into a place where nobody really knew what to expect. I found a secret, hidden laboratory where I found out that people had been experimenting on soul magic for... years, maybe. Maybe longer. I found souls of people I recognized from my memories—Kainé, No.4, other people who just shouldn't have been there. [she thinks 2B's had been there, too, but she can't recall.]

I... got into a fight with a creature that was trying to kill me. A giant brain. I don't really remember how I killed it, but I did end up killing it... maybe it's one of those times that A2 saved me again, you know? But when I was on my way out of the lab, it had one parting shot from behind the grave, and it just... it got rid of my eye. It's like it wrote my eye out of existence or something. [she feels tension in her shoulders. she breathes in, and out, and in again.]

I had friends to help me recover, but it still... it's still scary, you know? Losing parts of my body like that. When I already have so little of my original body left. [she pushes her hair back again. it's a nervous gesture and god is she feeling the nerves. not-rose's question still echoes in her head, and she repeats the words quietly.] How many organs can I even lose before it doesn't matter anymore? I try not to think about that too hard. I can talk about how me and A2 work together and get along just fine, but there's always going to be part of me that's... afraid that one day I'll just stop existing the way everyone knows me.

[ it brings her pain. it brings her fear and in one quick moment, 2B had wished she didn't ask. that was, perhaps, before she realized the importance of anna telling her anything at all. her hands come back to her lap in waiting, watching, analyzing both the other woman's words and what was left of a socket filled with glass to damper the emptiness.

tentatively, once anna has finished speaking, her fingers rise again. she does not touch what's within it, but rather what was around it. ]

That can't happen.

[ she knows she could hardly relate all that much when she was born expendable while anna was born unique, only to be made expendable if her organic parts were taken from her. maybe she could begin to understand whilst standing on the opposite side of that fear and dipping her toes into the thin threshold that kept them apart. ]

You'll always be Annalise Amarande Lehmann.

[ with certainty. with complete confidence that that was the truth and nothing more or less. now, 2B takes anna's hand, and gives it a guiding pull from the fingers. it looks as if she wants to show her something and is asking permission in a silent way. ]

[anna has heard this from a handful of people before; she shouldn't be surprised to hear it coming from 2B, as well. but she has such a strange connection with the android, one that couldn't ever be simple, one that makes even the simplest things surprising in their own ways.]

Maybe.

[the word is quiet, like she's not sure of herself. like she wants desperately to believe it herself. she doesn't stop 2B from doing what she will with her hand. with their hands. she wants to know what there is to show her; there's anticipation in her eye and a hum within her chest.]

[ her hand leads anna's to her chest, closer to the center of her body and right below her collar bones, and there she gentle presses anna's palm in—

and there beats the way a heart would. an actual, organic heart, not filters or pumps with gears and spigots. buh-bump, buh-bump, buh-bump, and so on. when her chest expands to breathe, it rides the oxygen with fresh pulses. it's naturally different from their mechanical organs, but on the other hand— it's not so different, is it? ]

[she should have noticed. she should have seen this. has she just grown so accustomed to her own body, the way she operates, the sloppy amalgam of human and robot that she hadn't seen the same thing in 2B's own designed elegance? she gasps quietly when she feels the pulsing of a human heart there, and she looks up with her eyes wide.]

Who... did someone do this to you? [she doesn't know what else to say, really. she knows what YoRHa hearts should be.] Did it hurt?

[ when 2B shakes her head, it is part of a lie to shield pain from anna's eyes. how she got to that point, yes, it hurt. she exploded from the inside. she lost many parts and much blood. she would have died. for a cause, maybe, but she was pulled back from the brink. ]

Woe used my soul to destroy a beast. It was successful until she returned it. [ there is such a small, quirking twitch of her lips that subsides when 2B tries to press her lips together flat. she had consented since the very beginning, even though she did not know exactly what she was consenting to. to help them. to save them. and— well. the details were gritty. the fingers brush over the top of anna's hand as she still holds onto her. she is not jittering with anger or fear. it is . . . calm gratitude. ] —She saved me, with this.

[ her, something replaceable, was saved as something that wasn't, as anna once said. it took that, and robby, and the man dead in her arms, to truly understand and conclude: ]

I don't want to facilitate my death. Not anymore.

[even when it's said in the way only a YoRHa unit could say it, anna feels the intent behind those words hit her like a brick to the sternum. she is crushed with relief, with happiness, with love. because she remembers the first day that she told herself she didn't want to die anymore, too. and suddenly, everything that woe had done to anna seems like it doesn't matter. in the end, she had saved 2B's life, and that almost makes everything else worth it.]

You sure know how to give me stuff to think about. [there's a laugh like a breeze at the edges of her words.] I'm glad. I'm glad you want to keep living. It's the hardest thing in the world to do sometimes, but it's so important. [she can't stop herself; she's smiling.] I'm so happy for you, sis.

[ this would be soft, if— 2B didn't look partially confuddled at the last word used, to address her. pod catches on, does a search, and vocalizes the information:

it is a human slang term for 'sister', pod adds, to ease her doubt and mild confusion toward the word used. but that— that just makes her eyes go a touch wider. she has no word to add for the coming moments, until she asks: ]

. . . You would call me your Sister?

[ sister in arms, is what 2B retorts to understanding the most easily. the concept of having a sister, a family . . . she didn't know what that was (but it didn't mean it couldn't exist). ]

[god. right. YoRHa wouldn't know that, and 2B doubly wouldn't—and anna's face goes red as she realizes that she'd said it out loud. embarrassing. mortifying. she freezes under pod's explanation and only reactivates once 2B actually says something, but she looks away while she's responding.]

I mean... yeah. Our bodies are mostly the same model, and I know that the B series was, like, mostly built on combat data from the A series, so it kind of makes sense, right?

[she can't bullshit tubes like this. she sighs and looks down to her lap, and though she gets through her next sentence quickly, each word is painstakingly clear in her ears.]

And you look almost exactly like my actual blood-related sister.

[ was this how jackass would look at 2B and see . . . something that peeled at remembrance? it was A2. 2B knew the details now, and even when she had first recognized the feelings on the other android's face, she didn't press or pinch her brows. she simply pretended not to notice. she's unsure if she could do the same with anna, now that she has completely spelled it out for both of them.

there are many things that keep them entwined. not just one story. ]

Do you believe Beth would have received my soul fragments, if given the chance?

[it's a simple question with an obvious answer. right? so why is it so hard for anna to come up with the right words when she's confronted with it. she can't even look directly at 2B while she thinks. while the silence reigns between them.]

[she isn't sure what she's worried about. she never wanted any of this to happen to beth no matter how prepared she'd made herself for that possibility. and with every one of rose's sisters who had ended up on the app, she'd braced herself more and more. braced herself for the time that she would see the face that's in front of her right now for the first time in a decade, maybe losing parts of her humanity, maybe being plagued with memories of killing and death and existential crises. and there was always the chance that beth wouldn't recognize her anymore, too. especially after she'd lost her eye.]

[the open, heavy quiet is going on for too long. she thinks that might be enough of an answer on its own, but there's never been a silence she hasn't ruined by talking.]

I spent a few months absolutely certain that it would happen. My ex, she had five sisters, and by the end of things four of them had started changing. One after another. I think if we had more time, it would've gotten the last one, too. [she looks up with an expression tangled up with such nostalgia and regret and fear and want and love that she wouldn't be able to decipher it with a map.] I never would've asked for it to happen to her. But if it had, I would've supported her through every last one of your memories.

[ she was glad, on one hand. she hand intrusted her memories to A2 because she could handle them, but to wish them upon beth, on anyone else— it would've been a challenging choice to make. was that why, it didn't happen? or was that another jab at god, and time not being enough to get to that point?

she wouldn't wish her suffering upon anyone, but already certain that anna would've been there— ]

It looks as if we'd find each other no matter where we'd go. [ whether that's entirely true or not, it looked closer to possible. what mattered more was 2B facing anna today rather than through the mystic, faraway veil of her memories. ] I'm glad I have the chance to meet you. Today.

[ and with a soft inhale, her hand on top of her's, ]

I would be honored to call you my Sister.

[anna thinks, however briefly, of the concept of bonds, the ritual that she's been too frightened to do with kainé. she looks at 2B, at the woman who would have become and forever is her sister. she doesn't know what to say; she blinks slowly.]

I have a couple siblings here... but they're found family, you know? People I'm close to and who I feel... responsible for. But you and me are different. We... I don't know. It feels like we have the same blood.

[she holds 2B's hand, and breathes, and tries to stop herself from overflowing with emotion. but she looks at the face of this android, listens to her voice, and she sees beth. she hears beth. and inside her chest something stirs, mixes with the emotions in her human brain, and she knows that 2B is right.]

We were always going to find each other. We're sisters in a way that's complicated and hard to explain, but all I know is that... [dammit. why does she have to be dealing with emotions right now? she swallows and it feels heavy; she's definitely not starting to cry.] All I know is that I've got 15 years of being a big sister to catch up on and I'm going to be the best one to you that anyone in Trench has ever seen.

[ this might be the most anticlimactic shit ever, but it's what actually gets 2B anywhere close to a chuckle in her life. anna was just— she didn't know. the things she said sometimes didn't make sense (fifteen years? was beth fifteen years old?), but they're endearing. they're endearing, but most of all, they are true. they are genuine and the reason for how, even as 2B tries, she can't contain all of the smile already on her lips, attempted to be covered by the fall of her silver bangs over her eyes and cheeks. ]

I'm three years old.

[ 2B feels the ripples of emotion from anna and it tickles her in a way that feeling never has (paleblood perks haven't been catching her so off guard anymore, but they have been leaving her more sensitive and prone to dipping a touch harder into whatever emotion came strongly). they were always going to find each other. they have something strong and unyielding that it has led them here, to this moment, sitting next to each other even when they were thousands of years apart. she supposes that she could take back her desire to once bitch slap god into death for forcing her to live through that awful cycle of death for absolutely nothing. maybe it wasn't for "nothing", at all.

Their hands still link. if this is what it was like to have a sister across time . . . she squeezes it, for the first time, to show that she truly is on board. she feels the same. soul sisters, blood sisters. maybe that's it. ]

[see, there are a lot of emotions happening right now. there's the acceptance and joy of finding a sister in 2B, and the idea that even if this is still some level of found family, is it, really?, and maybe they really do have the same blood running in them in some weird, fucked up way. (there's the looming regret when she realizes she's trying to force someone who isn't beth into beth's place in her life, too, but at least with 2B it feels a good deal more natural.) and then there's the incredulity that explodes out of her in a laugh.]

You're three years old? [she had never really had a good idea of timelines, which was one of a few things that the way she had merged with A2 had failed her.] No way. So... is that just you, or is that the entire B-series? Because I was, like, certain that all of A2's stuff happened, like, decades before you came into it.

But it was three years. [she sounds amazed.] Wow. Okay, that... that makes a lot of it make a lot more sense.

[ something something insert yorha history and timeline information here because i am on mobile and yoko taro is hardly condensed with his story telling smh. although 2B doesn’t know more than she had learned at the time she met A2— a lot of her true information was redacted. she only followed the order to terminate on site.

which wasn’t a good call, but the more we learn. ]

There’s something else I want you to know.

[yeah well apparently there's gonna be even more YoRHa timeline garbage in the anime that we're both gonna have to watch once it comes out anyway. anna is not the only one who doesn't know shit about the YoRHa timeline. but she is the one who's listening intently here, and when she hears that there's more, she nods readily.]

Yeah? Go for it.

[ you could tell 2B is trying to hide how tight her lips are from trying not to smile so much when she dips her head and shadows behind her hair. it’s too bad for her— it’s still palpable in her voice. ]

I won’t be stationing in Prufrock for much longer. [ after kaine helped her out with her memory monster problem, it’s been hard to go back, made her realize something, and today . . . May have solidified it further. ] I want to be somewhere closer. To you and Kainé.

Really?

[anna doesn't seem totally surprised, but the expression on her face feels vulnerable anyway in how genuine it is. she feels younger, hearing that. hearing that her sister wants to live closer to her. everyone she loves coming closer together.]

We're in Cellar Door, and... I mean, yeah, there's always places to move in around here. The music doesn't get too loud at night, and it's a really nice neighborhood. [she keeps her smile on her face.] We have some lunar tears growing outside our house if you haven't had the chance to see them yet. And... yeah. Yeah, please, move into the neighborhood. I'll help you find a place if you need one, and you know we'd love to have you around.

[ this may be the first time she’s doing something for herself. the first time she chooses and has the ability to choose. she’s choosing her clothes. where she wants to rest, who she wants to be with. duty was not the only thing that defined her, and it did not make her. it was only a fraction of too much she hadn’t explored. ]

Alright.

[ there is also one thing that she may deliver to anna at some point throughout their house hunting: i want a tree.

let’s not question it. ]

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think this may be a good wrap! (so I may attack musical lesbians)