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"Sort of?" It's not said in a very sure way. "I'm his CO, Erwin. I, and all the people of Eldia, will be seen as responsible for this. And I wonder if there's a time when I could have caught it... turned him back from this path... we used to be pretty close. But how close can we have been if this is happening?"

"Of course they'll see you as responsible. They're looking for someone to blame. But it sounds to me like he made choices you'd never have agreed with, and he made them without your knowledge. You'd have stopped him if you could, but you couldn't, because you didn't know. Other people might not see it that way, but they're scared and hurt. Feeling that way doesn't make them right."

He gives a one-shouldered, what do I know? shrug.

"Of course, the consequences won't go away either way. But dealing with them's going to be hard enough without feeling responsible for them."

Ford's blamed himself for a lot of things that turned out to have been someone else's decision, and thinking of everything he couldn't prevent as being his fault put him in a very bad place and led to some very bad decisions. Hange sounds like she's in a better place, but...maybe it'll be worth something to hear it? And, if not, it's just sympathetic words over whiskey, which aren't so bad.

"Anyway, I think you're doing a great job with what you've got, which is a situation nobody would ask for."

"Thanks." It's genuinely nice to hear. Things are pretty bad at home, Hange hates her position and feels inadequate for it, praise is rare. "His decisions are his decisions... unfortunately, it's not possible for me to just ignore them, you know? What happens because of what Eren decides could impact everyone in the world. So I wish I had caught it somehow, because I still have to deal with the fallout now that it's happening. I'm really hoping that once he's removed from the situation where our people are threatened, he'll return to his senses. It'll be impossible for it to even seem necessary that we commit genocide to survive. Lots of my people are behaving horribly, to be honest. The pressure of the situation has gotten to them."

Of course she can't ignore them, and he understands wishing you'd caught things sooner. Ford wishes he'd done a lot of things differently, would have if he'd known - lots of fallout he would rather not have had to deal with. But he hadn't known, and so here they are.

"You really care about them," Ford remarks, gently. "You're still fighting for them, even when they're behaving horribly. They're lucky to have you, you know." Taking care of people even when it's hard is an Admirable Person metric Ford's internalized. "I hope it works," he says, with sincerity. She clearly cares about this Eren maniac, questionable as his choices are, and Ford really hopes Hange gets what she wants.

After a second Hange smiles back.

"I hope things work out with you and Bill as well. It sounds like you've weathered a lot together and faced worse things than this." And put each other through worse things than this, on Bill's side. "Bill's changed a lot since he got here, right?"

"More than I ever thought was possible," Ford confirms.

"From that alone, your chances seem good. If you need to step back a bit, he'll have people around who care for him too. You're not solely responsible."

"That's a relief," says Ford. "I spent half my life thinking that I was, and...it's really nice to feel like calamity won't strike the minute I turn my back."

"Fuck." Hange turns sideways in her chair, so she can roll her head way back. "That's the dream, isn't it?"

Ha ha. Look at her, turning upside-down to make a point; Ford's charmed. He gets it, though. Leaving survival-at-all-costs mode is something that has only been possible since he graduated, since Bill decided on his own not to destroy inhabited planets, since the consequences of what Bill does when Ford isn't looking have been consequences Ford can accept and live with. It's been a difficult emotional adjustment, but now that he's got it...he's so glad.

"That it is."

"I honestly can't wait. I can't wait to not be at war. I can't wait to not be afraid my people will be crushed in a genocide, or that we'll commit irredeemable crimes out of despair and fear... I can't even imagine it."

Her people have lived under sustained stress and warlike conditions Hange's whole life! She sits straight again.

"Sorry to load all that on you. I know you're under stress too."

"That's okay," he says, and means it. "I'm glad I could listen! Keeping burdens like that all to yourself isn't easy. But you'll get there, Hange, I'm sure of it."

"I really hope things work out with you and Bill. I understand... it'd be hard to let him go after he was important to you."

"Thank you."

Could he let go of Bill? Frankly, Ford feels that yes, he could. He could go on surviving in a world without Bill in it, especially if he had his family. He doesn't feel like he needs to dog Bill's every move in order to protect the universe.

But he doesn't want to. Ford wants the kind of future that has both his family and Bill in it, even if the two don't overlap, the kind he and Bill talked about. This romance -- this is it. Nothing else is going to quite compare to what he and Bill went through. While, in many ways, that's a good thing, it also means finding another romance that packs the same punch is not going to happen. Life with Bill in it is harder, sure, but when has Ford ever done anything because it was easy?

(Stealing portal parts from C.S.O. doesn't count. Ford would have built it from scratch if it had been viable.)

He gets a little lost in thought for a moment there, gazing into the middle distance, drink in hand. He's visibly distracted.

"Another shot for 'em."

Distracted: she can tell.

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