The morning came in shafts of light that speared down slowly through the canopy of leaves. Reiner woke up with Jean holding him back against the trunk of their unlikely savior. His body ached, but the cut in his arm was healed over smooth. That's where he found the other boy's eyes. Staring, as if transfixed by the fact that it had closed itself up.

He remembered stories about humans being weak, and not stitching themselves back together fast enough sometimes. That tended to be why they died so easily, if he recalled correctly.

It was eerily quiet until he stretched his ears further, and heard Bert whimpering. "Hold still," Annie hissed before there was an odd, wet noise, and Bert gasped. "Went pretty deep, didn't it?" she asked. Bert made a sound of agreement, and Reiner heard something small, and metal fall to the forest floor beneath them. He assumed it was the bullet Jean had lodged in Bert's shoulder. That's when he looked down, and saw Eren in the tattered remains of his clothing, passed out, and human on the ground.

He looked beat up, and bruised, like he'd been fighting to the last minute before his body gave in to exhaustion. Reiner grimaced, and pushed Jean's hand off him.

"We gotta get this idiot home, and make sure he didn't make too much of a mess," he said, sliding out of the branches, and scooping Eren up into his arms. He still felt weak, but not too weak. It wasn't enough to make him unable to stand even under the weight of the possibility of there being two dead bodies waiting for him when he got home.

Marco slid down out of his tree like a snake, alighting on the ground with barely a crunch, but Reiner heard the steel of his pistol move through the air and train on his back. His lips curled up into a snarl as he turned around.

Jean jumped down as well, standing unarmed, and looking nervously between the two of them. Anxiety filled the air, smelling heavy, and bitter.

"I'd like to know who killed Carla Yeager just as much as you would," he bit over Eren's head where it rested limply beneath his jaw.

Bert's massive, black wolf leapt to the ground, hackles raised behind Marco. Annie seemed small beside him, golden fur catching the few rays of sun that managed to fall through onto the forest floor.

"I think you already know," Marco said. "But more importantly, you're going to give me Eren. Right. Now."

Reiner pulled Eren tighter to his chest, curling down around him. "Like that'll ever happen. Eren needs to be with his own kind now so he can learn how to control himself."

"There's no controlling a monster!" Marco shouted. Reiner watched him thumb the safety, eyes wide, breath caught hard in his throat.

Bert growled loud and low as Marco's eyes flicked from Eren to Reiner, and back again. He swung around faster than Reiner could properly register, and pulled the trigger. The shot rang loud in his ears as the bullet bit into Bert's neck, dropping him on the spot.

"Bertholdt!" Reiner called just as Marco yelled for Jean.

Reiner felt the boy hit his shoulder, tackling him to the ground, and wrapped himself around Eren's unconscious body, trying to cradle his head. His temple bounced on the dirt, and he skidded, still holding tight to the new turn. Jean sat up, straddling his side, and began showering his head, and neck in punches.

Bert was whining in a terrifying, gurgling way. Reiner could hear his legs scrambling on the ground. They'd made it to the morning. They'd met their promises to one another. How ironic that it would be then they would finally found themselves nailed into the ground.

"Get Eren!" Marco shouted, turning and catching Annie full across the chest. Her jaws opened, and snapped a centimeter from the boy's throat before she shifted back, and bounded onto her feet. Reiner saw her drop into stance, and knew it was over.

He pulled his shoulders up around his ears, and closed his eyes against the fists hitting his face. He had to protect Eren. There was no telling what Marco and Jean would do with him. There was no trusting them. They were humans. They were hunters. They were monsters.

He listened to Bert bleed, and Annie swipe Marco's legs out from under him. Then she was on Jean, catching him in the face with a shin.

"Get the fuck out before I call up the mountain!" She screamed. "Run! Run now!"

Jean stared at her, nose bleeding, and Annie threw her head back, letting out a howl. Her voice echoed far through the trees, tumbling around corners, and vibrating into their ear drums.

Reiner heard car alarms begin blaring in the distance. He heard dogs barking, and howling, and throwing themselves against gates. Eren woke up, green eyes wide, and pushed hard against Reiner's arms desperately.

He held tight to the boy as he looked over at Bert, now human, clutching hard at the blood spurting out of his neck, eyes wide. He felt sick. It had been a long time since he'd seen a member of his pack so injured, and the need to be by Bert's side was something that thrummed through him stronger than the pulsing of his own heart. He couldn't though. Eren was still unreliably effected by the moon, and by Annie's call.

Jean lurched to his feet, hands held up before him in surrender. "No more fighting! No more fighting, I promise," he said. Annie's narrow eyes fixed on him.

"Tell that to your mate," she said. Marco was clutching his ribs, breathing hard, kneeling on the ground. "Go now, before our elders get here," she said deep in her throat. "If your scent is still on the wind by the time they taste it, you'll find yourselves hunted for the rest of your lives."

It was a bluff. A complete bluff. Perhaps the dogs, and the coyotes had heard her, but there was no way that the village had, and on the off chance that the wind was right to carry it all the way up, it was likely they would think nothing of it. The bluff was working though.

It was working well enough that Jean scrambled over to Marco, and hauled him up by his arm. "No!" Marco protested as Jean pulled him away. "No, we can't go back empty handed!"

"It's not worth this," Jean argued. "It's not worth dying! I don't know about you, but I want us to live!"

"This isn't over!" Marco gave them. One last angry warning before Jean started to drag him away.

"Take Eren," Reiner said then, gathering himself to his feet, and shoving him into Annie's arms. She clutched his shoulders, and held him still as Reiner scrambled over to Bert.

His knees ached when they hit the ground, and he reached out to the other boy. The blood was still pooling around his fingers, dark, and red when Reiner began trying to add pressure, afraid that it would cause the blood to well up in Bert's throat, and make him choke. He checked Bert's mouth, and found that the walls of his esophagus had already reconstituted. A relief he wasn't able to linger on long.

"It'll heal," he promised. "It'll heal. Just give it a little time," he said softly, holding on tight. He could feel the skin trying desperately to stitch itself back together beneath his palms. Bert's eyes were still wide, unfocused. He latched onto Reiner's wrist, and held tight, smearing it with red. "I love you, okay? I love you, and you're gonna make it."

Bert tried to nod, but it only made everything worse. Blood raced through Reiner's finger as he panicked. "Oh shit! I need something to stop the bleeding! I need something to stop the bleeding! He's not healing fast enough!"

He heard Jean, and Marco come to a stop, and stare on for a moment as he bore down harder on the wound. The bullet had gone right through. In one side of Bert's neck, and out the other, narrowly missing his spine. Reiner rocked softly as he pulled the other boy into his lap.

He didn't want to cry, but he couldn't see a good outcome for this. He bit down on his lip hard, and took a deep, steadying breath through his nose. And then Jean was next to him, pulling bandages out of a pouch on his hip, and pushing at Reiner's hands.

He growled for a moment before he realized what the human was trying to do, and let him. There was a certain nervousness about putting Bert's life into someone else's hands.

"Why?" Marco asked.

"I can't. I just can't, okay. They're not doing anything wrong, and we know it. You've gotta get over everything, and realize that right now," Jean said. Bert started at the feeling of unfamiliar hands, holding tighter to Reiner's wrist.

Annie was doing something behind them, and he heard her voice pitched low, speaking to Eren, though he didn't have the mind to make the words out.

"Besides," Jean said as the bandages began to stain. "There's clearly a lot we don't know. This could be beneficial. Maybe we could- I don't know. Maybe we could help them rather than just assuming they're all lost causes. We could help. That's why you hunt, right? To help?"

There was a pause before Marco was there too, kneeling down on Reiner's other side, and nodding. "Alright," He said softly. "How do we fix this?"

They managed to slow the bleeding, and get Bert back to the gas station with Jean and Marco's help. Reiner eased him down into the bed, and swept his hair off his forehead to check his temperature. He was freezing, and sweat slicked, but his breathing was steady, and the bandages weren't getting any darker.

Marco lingered in the door way, biting his lip, and looking around nervously. He looked out of place dressed in all black like he was, chest, and legs strapped with weapons, his bow slung over his back.

Annie had talked Eren down. Calmed him, and eased him into a chair in the kitchen so that he could work through whatever it was that had him so addled. Jean was the one who they tasked with finding Armin and Mikasa, assuming he would be responsible with his own kind. Reiner listened as he moved through the gas station. He heard Annie's bedroom door open, and Mikasa's voice speaking softly.

"I'm fine- No he didn't bite anyone- I'm worried about Armin."

"Where is he?" Jean asked.

"Under the blankets. He's very photo sensitive, and there are just too many windows."

Reiner stopped listening, turning his attention back to Bert. "You mind leaving?" he asked Marco. "I need to warm him up, and no offense, but I'd rather not have to lie down with you so close."

He saw Marco nod out of his peripherals. "I'll go help Annie," he said softly. "I think Jean's got everything under control."

Reiner watched the door close before he stripped Bertholdt of his clothing, and pushed the cots together. He piled all the dirty clothes by the door, including his own, dropping the weapons still in their holsters beside them, and climbed under the covers to wrap himself around the other boy. Healing took care when things got too bad. Touching could help. Calm, safe contact, and warmth.

His mother had told him that when he was young, and his father had been gored in the stomach by a wild boar on a hunting trip. She'd done the same thing then, tucking him into bed, and wrapping her body around his.

He cradled Bert's head against his chest, and took a deep breath. Cauterizing the wound wasn't really an option because it might burn the artery shut, cutting off the blood supply to Bert's brain. He couldn't stitch it for the same reasons. This would be something he just had to wait out. Bert felt unnaturally cold, and still. He was normally such an active sleeper, but now he lay like a rock, his shallow breaths the only thing that moved him.

The worry in Reiner's stomach was like an all encompassing pit, that tried to suck him deep down into it, but he didn't let it. He thought instead about possibilities, and tomorrows, using the future to darn the potential threat of loss.

They would go home together, and bring Eren with them to be with his own kind. They would be rewarded for that, and maybe it would be enough of a deed for everyone to overlook their obvious malfunction. Maybe then they wouldn't have to lie, and settle down with women they didn't love in separate houses, and have children by them in a farce of a life.

He fell asleep to those thoughts at some point, Bert warming slowly in his arms, breaths becoming stronger, and more steady as time went by.

When he woke again, the sun was setting, and Bertholdt was a damp inferno beside him, sweating to try and cool his body against Reiner's skin. He peeked beneath the bandages, and found that all that remained of the bullet holes were a couple of pink scars.

They'd had a lot of close calls in the last twenty four hours. Too many. He pulled himself from bed with that thought, and slipped into a pair of jeans before he found his way to the kitchen. Eren was sitting with Jean and Marco at the table as Annie leaned up against the counter beside Armin. Mikasa separated herself out from the group by pacing, watching everything like a hawk. Jean and Marco were still dressed in their dirty, blood stained hunting gear. Likewise, Annie had foregone changing.

Reiner's entrance brought everyone's attention to him, and broke the silence with the sound of unoiled door hinges.

"Morning," he said jokingly as an attempt to lighten the mood. Both Annie, and Mikasa glared. He coughed into his hand awkwardly at that. "Bert's doing better now. He's definitely gonna make it." That at least eased Annie. "He's still sleeping though, so I ain't gonna wake him."

"So what's up with y'all?" he asked finally.

"Eren's going to murder every last werewolf in existence," Annie said matter-of-factly.

Reiner gaped at her, and then the small boy at the table. That statement raised a number of questions. Chiefly whether or not Eren knew about them.