A/N: No need to tell me, I know I haven't put up a new chapter for my story. And I know I could just go off on some bullshit topic of how my life is way too fucking busy, but that's basically what is, that and a few things that are private. But again, I apologize for my hiatus. I just couldn't get the idea for this story out of my head, so I decided to write it, thank god it's a oneshot or I'd have two unfinished stories on my hands.
Disclamer: This story is fiction, but has some real-life elements that may offend some audiences. I do not support war, yet I thank every member in the service of the military and their families, you people are the reason we have the freedoms we have, and thank you to the families who sacrifice and have to work harder than most. Thank you, always. And if this story does offend anyone, please let me know, and I'll either change it or ultimately erase it. I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, and it's universe, title, and characters all belong to Hajime Isayama.
During the night, Eren could hear many things. The bushes blowing back and forth in the midnight wind, the metal roof above him constantly creaking, and even the sound of gunshots and shouting penetrating the silence of the night. Just a normal night for him.
He paused in his book, reminiscing on the fact that the main character was very much like himself. His father was a doctor in the Army, constantly saving lives more than he could count. He thought back to when his own now-dead father, Grisha Yaeger, told him the story of how he met his mother.
He was serving somewhere on the outskirts of Baghdad, in a little medical tent, with meager supplies to keep people alive and even less strength to keep going. He remembered his mother telling him how she was hurried into the tent, in labor not only with a child, but a bullet resting in her abdomen. He thought about the look on his mother's face every time she talked about how he looked like an angel sent to save her and Eren. He recalled himself getting taught medical skills and knowledge from his father, something his father thought useful and worth further practice.
"Man... I can't believe he's really gone."
Flashing forward to when he was about nine or ten, seeing all the sights clearly in his head that fateful day like he was still there. His parents never did talk much about what was going on, and with them not being able to take Eren to the U.S., he had to stay with his mother, a fairly safe person to be with, when compared to others.
But back to his memories. He could see the soldier standing in front of his mother, obstructed from his view just so to where he couldn't see his face. He saw the man pass her a piece of paper, and say, "I'm sorry." He hugged her, stepped back, nodded to Carla and Eren, just a boy at the time, politely. Then he closed the door and he could hear footsteps receding and then a vehicle driving away.
He shook his head, trying to get out of those depressing thoughts and focus on happier notes. His mother was doing well for her and Eren, being able to support them both and was currently at some sort of gathering she didn't fell the need to specify to Eren. She would be gone tonight and tomorrow, only getting back the night after tomorrow, her level of trust towards him was unintelligible for Eren.
He heard the wind stop, as if everything happening was frozen in time, he could hear not other sounds except for his breathing, the fighting seemed to have stopped. He relaxed and went back to his book.
It was still silent ten minutes later, and he silently thanked it and hoped it would be quiet the entire night.
All of a sudden, squealing tires could be heard, followed by gunshots. He heard them getting closer and closer to his home, almost like one force was attacking a retreating one. He closed all the windows, locked the doors, and shut the blinds, and then hurried upstairs to wait it out. He heard that same source of the skidding tires explode, and he kept his head down and then hid in a closet.
He heard orders being given in Arabic and English, but deducing that the English-speaking force was the one retreating. He heard multiple footsteps run to a wall outside his house, followed by more orders and more shooting, some bullets going through the house, narrowly missing him by mere inches.
He peaked out of the closet and downstairs at the door. And almost simultaneously, He saw a man in combat uniform get pushed through the door, breaking it down instantly. Another man charged as fast as the other man came through, clearly being a radical.
Surprisingly, Eren hadn't been seen by either man, and with all the shooting going on and the shouting, it might not be a stretch to say they thought the house was abandoned. The first man reached for his sidearm, shooting the attacker through the the top of his neck and out through the back of his head, sending blood and bits of brain matter everywhere.
He flinched in horror, but didn't have enough time to yell as a woman with glasses and was pushed through a window, and onto the floor. As soon as this new attacker came through, the man fired his gun again, killing the soldier.
The situation was purely chaotic, he could hear cries for help coming from outside the window, giving Eren the notion that one or more people were injured and were outside, hiding against a wall. The gunshots were still being heard by him, and he saw the man get up, pull the woman up, and they both ran outside, the man dragging the two injured members of his fireteam, his helmet dropping in the process, and revealing his black, messy hair. The woman seemed to have eliminated all hostiles due to the sound of the tiny explosions guns made when they fired disappear.
Then the woman came back in, tending to the two wounded, both appearing to be women. Then the man came over and helped each of them up and onto a table, and then he cursed under his breath just loud enough for Eren to hear.
"Damn... Hanji? Go back out and see if you can salvage any equipment off of Petra's body, I'll see if there's anything in this place..."
"Are you sure Levi? They could still be out there, and she was in the middle of the jeep when we got hit!" She clearly voiced her concern.
"Do as I say, the longer you complain, the less time Ymir and Krista have." He glared at her.
"Alright, alright!" She grabbed an M4, and went outside.
Levi then grabbed a flashlight and his pistol, reloading then going upstairs, while grabbing his helmet on the way. "She wasn't supposed to be with us... Things just happened to fast and she ended up with us..."
While Eren was watching all of this, he was able to tell many things. One, that man, "Levi", as he was called was clearly the one in charge. Two, "Hanji" was probably the second in command, and the acting scout for the team. Three, the other two women, the taller, dark haired one, and the smaller, blonde women were both injured badly.
The brunette had wound in her right shoulder and her left calf, not serious wounds but still ones that needed to be treated or she could die by blood loss. The smaller woman had a shrapnel wound in her upper left thigh, both ladies' wound pouring out blood. Some minor treatment had been done, large pieces of gauze were over all three wounds, but they were clearly soaked with blood. "Petra" sounded like the medic, probably not from the team, most likely getting separated and then forming up with Levi's squad. By the sound of it, she had died when their jeep exploded due to the engine exploding or a rocket.
As he looked upon this scene, he had to hold himself back in order to not vomit. But he realized that Levi had already searched the first floor, and when he came up to search the second floor of his house, the closet he was hiding in would be the first place he would look.
He tried not to be too frightened, as he heard the footsteps getting closer. He wrapped his hands over his head and curled into a ball, a sight that would be considered funny in another situation, due to his tall, eighteen-year-old figure. He relaxed and felt the footsteps stop in front of the door. "Well, shit..."
The door opened, and he felt the light shining on him, and the man standing over him gasp just a little bit.
"As if this day couldn't get any worse..." The thought could almost be seen on Levi's face.
"Hands in the air! Stand up, slowly!" He barked at Eren.
Doing as he was told, he held his hands above his head and opened his palms, and rose, slowly.
"Step out of the closet, And walk down the stairs!" He held the gun to his head, not pressing it against his temple but enough for it to make him want to piss his pants, then he stepped back and into the hallway to allow him movement to the stairs. He bound Eren's wrists behind his back and walked down the stairs and into the living room, coming into the view of the two wounded.
Then, Hanji came back in, to seeing her superior holding a gun to some boy's head. She was a little wary of Eren, and tried thinking of how much he witnessed.
"Hanji, did you find anything?" He asked, not blinking an eye and speaking in a cold, precise tone.
"J-just some plasma and gauze.. What's with the kid?" She asked like he wasn't there, trying to make sense of all of this.
"I found him in a closet upstairs, go and try to stop Ymir and Krista's bleeding."
"R-right." She then went into the dining room, where the injured women were on the table, and went to doing her best towards stopping the bleeding in their wounds.
Eren could feel the man's intensity from a meter away. Levi, knowing for sure there were no enemies in the area but they had no way of getting back towards their base, tried to think of what he should do in this situation.
"What's your name?"
"E-Eren, Eren Yaeger..." He dared not look towards him.
"Huh, could this be Grisha's kid?" He stared him down, trying to remember if this was the son of his deceased friend. "It doesn't matter right now if he is or not, I need to make sure that he isn't another fucking terrorist."
He kept his gun trained on him. "How the fuck do I know that's who you really are? You can't prove shit right now, so start talking!" He said, trying to see if he would lie.
Eren was terrified, and if just one bit of that was just showing on his face, there's no telling how much he was keeping inside. "I-I promise! I've done nothing wrong!"
"How the hell am I supposed to know that, brat?!" He picked him up and held him against the wall, his stare seemingly penetrating Eren's soul.
Eren was now looking down the barrel of Levi's gun. "You can search the place! My dad died when I was a kid, and my mom is off somewhere!" He instantly regretted that last sentence.
"For all I know he could be lying and actually be bad... Or he could actually be telling the truth... The bit on his dad dying does fit the bill some... But the part on his mom being somewhere is too little detail to pass it up unnoticed." His glare never faltered as he held him against the wall.
Eren's eyes were clearly showing fear, and with him and Levi in one room, while Hanji was trying to save the other two, forced Levi to make a choice. His grip lessened on Eren and he made sure to be as serious as possible.
"Kid, if you're really who you say you are, I need to know if I can trust you. Also, are you familiar with any medical techniques?" "This'll be risky, but it might be worth it..." Levi kept his hand on the ziptie connecting Eren's wrists.
Eren tensed up. "I-I know some, not some really, but a great deal actually-" He cut himself off, realizing he was being a little full of himself.
"Kid, I want you to be very clear when you answer this, do you know how to operate?" "Here's hoping he can." The man never wavered his expression.
Eren looked at him and wondered what caused him to come to that question. "Y-yeah, my father taught me basic surgery. L-like getting bullets out of people an-" He was pulled off the wall and into the kitchen, where Hanji was, currently doing a piss-poor job of helping the two ladies on the table, everything else had been cleared off onto the floor.
"Hanji, how's Ymir holding up?"
"Terrible, she got hit the worst, and she won't last long."
"Go find some tweezers, or anything like that, this kid might just help us out."
Hanji glanced at Eren for a second, then went off to look for anything that could be used as surgical equipment. Levi cut the tie, and looked right at him. "You so much as try something and I won't hesitate to end your life." He then walked over the blonde girl and did what he could, even if it wasn't much.
Eren stood over the brunette, now identified as Ymir. He reached for a few cloth napkins and tried to stop the bleeding in both holes in her body, when in a burst of final strength, she pulled Eren by his collar towards her and said in a tone barely above a whisper.
"K-keep.. Krista... s-safe.." Ymir then slipped into unconsciousness.
Levi noticed this, and looked up at Eren, just as Hanji got back, with a pair of tweezers, some gauze, and some alcohol, hoping it could help somehow. She brought the things over to Eren, both soldiers looking at him now, though their thoughts were undetermined.
Eren was still hunched over from when Ymir pulled him to her, but Levi pulled him up to face him. "Whatever you're going to do, Eren, do it fast." He said, speaking his name for the first time that night.
"R-right." The terrified boy stood over her body. He used the cloths to slow the bleeding as much as possible, then he began cleaning the wound, using as little gauze as possible to clean the first wound, then he suddenly halted himself, getting pulled aside by Levi. "The hell's stopping you?!" He said, shaking him.
Eren pushed away his hands and began to scrub his hands in the sink. "Do what I did and keep the bleeding to a minimum on the other wound I haven't treated." "I can't let emotions cloud my decisions, everything has to be thought out. My actions could very well decide their fates." He walked back to Ymir, and took the tweezers in his right hand, and held them just above the wound in her shoulder.
He paused for a moment, then inserted them, trying to find the lead in her bone as quickly and painless as possible, but it never is that easy.
Ymir jumped up, pushing the tweezers further into her body, making her cry out loudly in pain. Without having to tell him, Levi held her down. "Keep going, I'll hold her down."
He nodded and gently prodded around until he found it, and latched onto it, Ymir crying out even louder, forcing Hanji to reach a hand over from helping Krista and cover her mouth so no one outside, if there was anyone that could hear her. "Hold on a little longer..." Hanji whispered.
Finally, Eren was able to pull the metal out, making her yell out loud, then relax a little from the sudden release from pain. He set the slug down on the table, and went to her next wound. "Keep the bleeding to a minimum, and stop it if you can." Levi nodded and did so, Hanji still trying to comfort and help Krista, who was currently reaching over to Ymir's figure, tears slowly falling from her eyes.
"I need to go fast... or either of them won't have a chance..." Eren thought, ready to get the next bullet out of her leg, the hunk of metal barely missing her shin. He cleaned the wound quickly, and applied the same process he used on her first wound to this one, and did it a little faster and painless than before, Ymir only making a strained face during this.
Levi looked over, as did Hanji. "That brat really did it..."
"Put gauze on the wounds and apply pressure, stop the bleeding."
The two conscious soldiers did as he said, too worried to stop and risk another drop of blood hitting the floor.
Eren turned to Krista, but once he looked closer, he saw that it wasn't just one piece, but one very large piece of shrapnel with two or smaller ones around it, he thought it a miracle that none of it collided with bone, but something else was wrong.
He examined where one of the shrapnel pieces had gone in, and looked at the entry wound, but found nothing. Instead, he found a small pool of blood coming from the back of her thigh, where the missing shrapnel piece had gone through, long gone by now, probably stuck in a piece of concrete somewhere. "If it went through the inside of her leg, it very well could've hit the femoral artery... It's a miracle she's still alive. If she had just been an inch slower.."
While the other two were stopping Ymir's wounds from bleeding further, they looked over to Eren, still unsure of him.
He placed one of the few clean pads of gauze where the shrapnel had gone entirely through behind her, and set her lightly back down on the table, then made sure to clean the tweezers, not wanting anything to get infected.
He first looked for the two smaller pieces, and got them out with trained ease, but the largest piece would be the hardest, as it was the farthest inside, and was keeping veins and arteries from pouring blood out of her shoulder, so he needed to be careful, because if he made the slightest mistake, all his effort would go down the drain and he'd have to work harder to save her.
"Damn it..." Biting the bullet, he put it back inside of her shoulder, and was about to pull it out when Ymir shot up in pain, crying out and shaking in agony. Levi came up behind her hand held her down. "Do it! Do it now!" Ymir was now on the verge of crying, and couldn't take the pain for much longer.
After a few hours, Ymir and Krista had finally gained full consciousness, and were on the roof, keeping watch. Hanji was with them, contacting their command, and giving them their situation report. Eren was cleaning off the blood, and Levi was trying to salvage whatever he could without going outside.
Levi had set everything down, and walked over to where Eren was, and picked up a wet cloth and started scrubbing silently. "I take it nothing ever happened here..." Eren looked at the watery blood stains. "No. Your house came under fire as this group went through the city, yet encountered no enemy forces." Levi had cleaned off a good portion of the blood in the kitchen, then went to disinfecting and drying all the surfaces that did or could've come into contact with them.
When Eren joined him, the two finished quickly. "That'll be your story, we clear?" It was clear that Eren wasn't supposed to have been there. "A-alright..." The tired man stared at him, analyzing, then propped against a wall.
The silence was agonizing, then Eren stirred, taking his eyes off the pockmarks in the floor, and moved to the sink. He filled a kettle with water, and set it on a stove, and lit the burner with a match. Levi looked up for a moment to ensure Eren carried no malicious intent, then went back to staring at the floor quietly. Levi didn't have time to mourn Petra's death, but he couldn't shake the sight of her desperate look but a moment before the explosive collided with their vehicle.
Eren reached into a cupboard and pulled out a medium-sized terra-cotta container, and placed it on the counter. He paused for a moment to try and make out the muffled voices from the ceiling, but he couldn't understand anything. He reached into a drawer, pulled out a spoon, and placed it next to the container, then lifted the lid. He positioned himself against the opposite wall from Levi, wondering what he could be thinking about.
He waited until the kettle was done boiling to first put an amber-brownish powder in the bottom of the first of two cups, then filled them both to the brim with hot water, and let the rest continue boiling on the stove. He stirred to contents lightly, and covered the container, and held out one cup to Levi. The much older man took the cup, his hands shaking erratically.
"Never in all my life did I expect to be a member of the French Foreign Legion."
A sort of mocking smirk crossed his face. Eren looked up inquisitively, but sipped from his cup in silence. "They said I had two choices. Army, or prison. Of course, no one wants to go to prison, and I'd rather not be in the same room with a bunch of pampered brats.." He went silent, letting Eren fill in the blanks. The two shared their drink in silence the rest of the time, making eye contact every now and then. Eventually, Levi finished his cup, washed it in the sink, and grabbed his gun and left. The silence was deafening for a moment, then Eren finished his own cup, and washed it.
He stared at the floor for a few moments, still a little in shock from the previous events earlier that night. He checked the clock, 12:57 AM. Light footsteps traveled down the stairs from the roof, and in came Krista, the petite blonde.
She limped a little when she walked, the patch at the top of her leg spotted with dried blood. Her hair hung off of the top of her head in tiny strands, her helmet and gun in hand, still wearing all of her clothes and gear. The two looked at each other in silence, then Eren went to the fridge, pulling out two cold bottles of strawberry soda. He pried the top off of one of them and handed it to her as the carbonated drink fizzed, creating a rising bit of foam at the top, before settling down.
She took the drink reluctantly, wincing as she leaned against a countertop, taking a swig. Eren sipped his own bottle of the reddish-pink, sweet liquid.
"I'd like to thank you for saving me.." She seemed as if she had prepared this in a way, but he held his hand up to stop her. "If it had hit the inside of your leg, then I really would have saved your life, but you would've had a much slimmer chance and you wouldn't be walking. I understand you think I saved your life in a way.. But I really didn't. I only prevented you from being physically impaired..."
His blunt words seemed to strike her hard, and she quieted up again for a while, as the two stood their silently, eyeing each other and sharing a drink. "Then I guess I should be thanking you for that.." The woman stood at about four feet, ten inches, and looked up at him. She didn't seem to much older, what by four years, at least. She smiled a little, and handed him her empty bottle, and limped for a little to leave, when she turned back to him, grabbing the handrail to the stairs. "So thank you." She turned around and headed to the roof.
He washed out the bottles, disposing of the caps, and set them next to the already drying cups on a towel next to the sink. Some more talking was heard from the roof, and it was quiet again. He peered out into the street at the burning vehicle, the flames dying down very little every so often. He felt a pang at his emotions, feeling anguish for the woman who's corpse must've been burnt and destroyed by the flames, still lying in the wreck of metal.
He closed the curtains again, double-checking to make sure the other curtains were obstructing the windows as well. A few minutes later, some shuffling and whispering broke the silence, and two heavy pairs of footsteps thumped down the stairs.
The woman with brown, messy hair and glasses supported a much taller brunette, Ymir, and set her down in a chair. Hanji checked her bandages before she was waved off by the younger woman, and she left to another room.
She grunted, being uncomfortable, and looked up at Eren. He was taken aback by her look. "Got anything for the pain, kid?" Sweat trickled down the side of her freckled nose from her forehead. He reached into the fridge again, pulling out a bottle of beer and uncapping it, sliding it to her. "We have this." He didn't feel like ingesting alcohol, so he got some water and sat down with her.
"So.. the guy who saved my life... and hers.." She looked away, straightening herself. "That was you?" She wiped the sweat from her brow, wincing from moving the areas where her wounds were. "Y-yes.. I-I didn't save anyone's life, I just got the meta-" She set the bottle down, cutting him off. "Kid, you need to learn when to stop being humble. You saved my life, and for that I'm grateful, got it?" She smirked a little as she chugged the rest of the bottle, setting it down in tipsy enjoyment. "A-alright, you're welcome." He took her bottle and washed it out, recycling his bottle of water and drying off hers and setting it with the other bottles and cups.
Hanji came back in, letting Ymir drape her arm over her shoulder, and pulled her up slowly, and took her back to the roof, and came back down. She readjusted her glasses, and sat down. "I understand you're not to talk about what happened here, am I correct?" She immediately established dominance, staring him down. He nodded quickly, intimidated by the woman. "I won't tell anyone, honest!" She nodded and relaxed into the chair.
"We weren't planning on stopping here, but we'll be on our way in the morning." She smiled a little and rubbed her chin. "I would've thought a boy like you had friends.. Where are they?" She flicked her eyes up from examining her sidearm, at the boy, well, to her he was a boy. "Isn't that a little prying?" His friends, Armin and Mikasa, lived across the city, and he didn't know why she would ask about them. She stood up from the table, and walked around to his side, pushing the back of his chair, so she could push just a little more and he'd fall back onto the floor.
By now he was terrified, and was surprised when she simply said nothing, and pulled him back. "I'm sure it's fine, I probably was a little too prying. You did save Krista and Ymir, after all. I should probably give you some credit.." She smirked, sitting on the edge of the table. "None of this was ever intended, but I guess this whole war was never intended.. Well.. those idiot enough to intend all of this should be dead. No one deserves this."
Eren nodded in agreement, and Hanji played with his hair, and looked into his eyes. "I don't know shit about you, but I was hoping to get to... But it seems like that won't happen. We'll leave quietly, and make sure no harm comes to you." She smiled, gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and left, going back upstairs.
He was still confused as to what had just happened, touching the cheek she had lightly kissed, but he assumed it was her trying to be kind. He shrugged it off and fell asleep.
When he woke up in the morning he found the house spotless, and the soldiers gone. He sipped a cup of tea, wondering when his mother was going to get home.
TWO YEARS LATER
The dust from the desert coated his clothes the moment he stepped out of the truck, being pushed with the other recruits for processing.
When he passed through, and he and everyone else was standing to attention, four soldiers stood facing him and everyone else. He tried not losing his composure at realizing it was Ymir, Krista, Hanji, and Levi. He relaxed a little as the drill instructor yelled at the recruits around him, and his mind faded to two years before.
Ymir and Levi gave him cold smirks of acknowledgement, while Krista gave a light smile, and Hanji.. Hanji waved a little..
Beaming.
A/M:Yikes hard to believe it's been a while, but I finally finished this story, what after I started this like 8 months ago... man.. Anyways, please be sure to comment, and I'll try to keep writing when I can, and I'll see you wonderful people around! Anyways, this is TheNatertatertot, signing off! :)