EDIT: (7/30/2013) FantasticG has been wonderful enough to translate this into Chinese! Here's the link for it: teiba. baidu p/2493828880. Don't forget to remove the extra spaces.

"As I handed her the bag, the old scars on my wrist throbbed with buried memories."

― Maggie Stiefvater, Linger

…

"Daddy?" A small hand tugged on his. He looked down to see his daughter looking up at him with those big grey eyes. The look she was giving him that meant that she wanted something, and that she knew he wouldn't like it. In the end, however, Eren knew that she always got what she wanted.

"What is it Ada?" He resigned himself to his fate. She was just like him, Mikasa claimed, never keeping her mouth closed when it was good for her. He found that he couldn't argue with her on that point, as Ada always got in trouble with her teachers for talking back to them. The same as Eren at her age.

Another tug on his hand brought him back to the present with his inquisitive daughter.

"What's this?" Ada ran her tiny hand over the bumpy ridges on the side of his hand and Eren could have sworn that he felt the scars throb as she did so. He hadn't thought about the scars on his hand for such a long time, and looking down at it now brought back memories of panic and desperation.

Know your place, you damn monster.

You mentioned something earlier about how using some manner of "Titan's power" might enable us to recapture the town…

We don't know when this guy's gonna go berserk on us… We should just kill him while we have the chance…

Eren!

"Daddy!" He blinked and found himself being viciously tugged to the ground by his daughter. She had a scowl on her face that looked both cute and intimidating at the same time. "You started daydreaming again!"

"Oh," Eren blinked again. "What did you ask me?"

Ada's frown deepened. "I asked you what the bumpy thingy was," she pouted, skimming her hand over the scars.

"Oh," Eren said again. How should he answer this question? "Well, they're called scars and people get them when they're hurt. After they heal, sometimes a scar remains." Ada nodded and spent a few seconds in contemplation of what she had just been told.

"Daddy?" she asked again.

Eren tried not to sigh. "Yes Ada?" he said.

"How did you get hurt then, if you have the bumpy thingy?" Eren looked at his daughter's open face and was reminded of how he had gotten into so much trouble asking so much less.

"Ada, you're going to get into trouble one day for asking so many questions," he said.

Ada pouted again. "Daddy, you still haven't answered the question."

This time Eren actually did sigh. "Ada, did you not listen to what I just told you? But," he continued, "I got this scar by biting my hand."

Ada looked at him incredulously. "Why would you do that?"

"It was important at the time," Eren said. He looked down at his daughter, who was disappointed with the answer he had given her. "Now we have to get home quickly or your mother will begin to worry."

Ada brightened up and skipped ahead of him. "Come on Daddy, I'm going to beat you!" Eren watched her laugh as she ran towards her home.

His daughter was so young and happy and wonderful and he thought, This is what so many died and fought for all those years ago. Giving her a life free of fear from the Titans was more important than any vengeance and deserved every sacrifice he could make.

So maybe someday, in the far future, he'll be able to tell her the whole truth about his scars.

A/N: I figure that Eren's hand would have scarred from the ridiculous amount of times that he's bitten his hand to become a Titan, if his regenerative ability was ignored.

Ada's mother is Mikasa, if you didn't guess that.

The italics in the middle are all quotes from the manga.

When I first came to this fandom not too long ago, there were a grand total of five stories. Now, there are over one hundred and fifty. This boom in the fandom just really surprises me.

My beta did not read over this, so all mistakes are my own.

Feedback makes my day, whether negative or positive! Thanks for reading!