View source for 2023-11-15: What Could Have Been

{{Cutscene
|cast=Anita Rosetta
|location=Goragon - A possibility just slightly different
|date=2023-12 ??
|summary=Enveloped in Goragon with everyone else at Mt. Fuji, Anita stumbles upon a possibility that's plagued her thoughts before - a world where she never lost her family in that tragic shuttle incident. It's bittersweet... but at the same time, provides a valuable reminder.
}}
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&emsp;A family cries together on the couch of their new home as news of a tragedy, suppressed up to this point, finally breaks out on their television. A colony, gassed by the Titans...


&emsp;It had been their home. They had fled, apparently just weeks before event - a last-minute change in the travel itinerary seeing their shuttle evading the Titans' patrol. The daughter is young, but not so young that she doesn't realise what she's seeing, what it means. The weight of this revelation etches itself into her heart forever, how close they came to meeting a similar fate. She cherishes her family a little more, after that - though the weight of losing everyone and everything else she had known so cruelly causes her to become a little withdrawn.


&emsp;But, life goes on.


&emsp;Making new friends is difficult at first, at her new school. But with some gentle encouragement, though she remains generally quiet and subdued, she slowly starts to fit herself in. Bit by bit, life starts to feel normal again.


&emsp;She doesn't find the love of machines she might have had, had it been nurtured, but she still finds a love of art. She becomes a painter. She never quite manages to spin it into a career, but she doesn't mind that.


&emsp;She never joins Londo Bell. She isn't a fighter, and she's never driven anything more complex than a bicycle. Her parents are quietly relieved that she has no interest in the military, even after everything.


&emsp;Growing unrest sees the formation of the Three Ships Alliance. Having no love for the Federation, she supports them quietly from afar - but never makes a move to join them. Despite that she speaks in favor of them when prompted, occasionally resulting in tension and some broken friendships, and though she laments that, the usually quiet woman stands firm in her resolve.


&emsp;One day, she meets a mechanic from a passing ship. It's a chance meeting, at first, but then they meet again, and again, and again, until meeting begins to feel like second nature. Meetings with a friend slowly turn into dates and, eventually, a proposal. Her parents attend the ceremony, of course...


&emsp;...And it's the happiest she's ever been.


-----

&emsp;Anita Rosetta stands in the void of white, surrounding by golden cubes burning with a a single character encompassing an individual possibility. She stares at the cube she'd just witnessed, floating weightlessly before her - and at the same time, impossibly heavy in its weight.


&emsp;A wry smile crosses her face.


&emsp;"...Heh. How cruel. Showing me that..." She mutters, shutting her eyes tight and looking away as if to hide from it the tears forming at the corner of her eyes. Its brightness is blinding from its warmth.


&emsp;She'd thought about it before, of course. What would've happened if the Titans never intercepted their shuttle? If her family were never killed, her body never mangled... Where, who, would she be? But it's another thing to see it. What could have been. A happiness she'd never had the opportunity to know, dangling in front of her. A life without fighting. It's there - reachable, possible. If she had had the choice, back then... would she have chosen that one? Or the one she resides in now?


&emsp;...She's not sure she has an answer. She's not sure she ''can'' answer that. There's no right or wrong answer. But there's one thing she does know. ...She knows what she has ''now'', how she feels. The friends and people she's met. Rena. She's glad she's in this world, the one where she was able to meet them. She's glad to be there with all of them. She's happy there's another Anita out there who found happiness... but she's okay not being her, when she has so much already she could never give up. She has Rena, and Eight, and everyone, now.


&emsp;...But, as cruel as it is, to be faced with that possibility... she's thankful, too. Thankful for the chance to see her family again one last time, to see their faces, to hear their voice. And now she leaves them behind once more... in search of what she'd found for herself.