When I grow up I want to be friendly.

"Ssh or the brats will hear us." Levi whispered in Elizabeth's ear, continuing to thrust with speed into her.

They had locked themselves up in that small, narrow cabin, he being dragged by her with the first excuse that came to her mind, just to be able to jump on him. Literally.

She didn't know what was taking from her but she found herself terribly aroused. Every moment was good to jump on him already, but for a couple of weeks she had felt a tireless thrill towards him. And always in the least opportune moments.

They were all outside, enjoying the smell of salt, the warmth of the sun and the wonderful panorama that stood out before their eyes; but all that made Elizabeth want to...

Well, yeah, that.

She rushed to her lips as the cabin was closed behind her husband and he let himself be carried away, perhaps a little blinded, by those feelings for her. He too had noticed the great libido she had at that time but, in addition to not disturbing him in the least, he did not consider it something to pay particular attention to.

Levi turned her over with a fluid gesture, limiting himself to undressing only what was needed the most in order not to undress completely and risk even more, but that thrill, he had to admit, was terribly exciting. The possibility of being caught doing such a thing, even if there was nothing wrong with it, gave an unstoppable thrill to the thing.

And if, on one hand, he wanted to prolong that feeling as much as possible, on the other he just wanted to hold Elizabeth to him and hear her moan loudly. But obviously they couldn't do it in that little cabin, so he was forced to silence her with one hand, sinking his teeth into her shoulder so as not to let himself go of the same moans.

She was warm around him, adapted to him almost instantly and ready to welcome him. She responded to each thrust with the same vigor, accepting and returning all those sensations, until the pace picked up.

With his right hand he lightly pressed against her lips, dictated by his own instincts, while her warm breath tickled his palm as if looking for a crack to be able to throw out all the voice she had.

She felt the warmth of his skin, despite their clothes still covering them. She felt the desire to undress completely and to be able to rub their skins against each other but they had limited themselves to taking off their jackets, allowing only a few buttons of their shirts to be undone to leave a few wet kisses. All that stuff bothered her but, in the end, she was able to really focus only on the sensation of Levi moving wisely inside her, now aware of every point to push her to the limit.

His left hand pulled her against him, making a slight mark on her snowy skin, seeking greater penetration, deeper and deeper, almost no longer coming out as he moved. He bent her a little further, thus increasing the depth as well and feeling her tremble completely, evidently on the edge.

He couldn't tell how long they had been inside there, maybe just a few minutes, but in a faint flash of clarity he remembered that he had to hurry or someone would get suspicious.

Her feigned malaise, or at least Levi hoped it was completely fake, also aroused concern in the other guys.

He increased his speed thus, making a strangled sound come out of her throat suddenly as her breath nearly ran out. Faster, deeper, almost animal-like.

He could feel her writhing, demanding more and more. Anything he could give her, she wanted.

Levi released her mouth only to better harpoon her hips with both hands, helping himself in the thrusts, with her completely bent forward and leaning against a piece of furniture that was supposed to contain medicines, but he paid no attention to them.

The sight of that firm and toned backside was breathtaking and the sight of himself, in that act, only helped to make him lose control faster, pushing as fast as he could until he made her cum, while she had to put her hand in front of her mouth so as not to make any sound.

Levi was at the limit, if the desire to prolong that moment as much as possible was strong, he knew he had no more time, and with his heart beating madly he let himself go to the last push before pouring into her and holding back a moan.

They remained still in that position for a few seconds while they caught their breath, before giving her a way to clean up and settle down.

Elizabeth turned to him, who was closing the last two buttons of his shirt, and approached him kissing him quickly on the lips.

"Are you sure everything is okay?" he asked in a low voice, hearing the footsteps of someone nearby.

Elizabeth handed him the jacket, waiting for him to put it on before reaching behind his neck. She gently rubbed the tips of their noses only, slowly breathing in his scent.

"You didn't seem to mind." she muttered maliciously before kissing his lips once more quickly. He immediately returned the kiss and took her again by her hips but more sweet this time, just hugging her lightly and enjoying her closeness.

"In fact, I don't mind. But anyway you seem more..."

Before Levi could finish the sentence a light knock interrupted them before Jean entered the room.

The guy looked slightly into the cabin used as a passenger infirmary, noting that there was nothing strange. Connor was sure they were having sex while Sasha believed in Elizabeth's malaise, but his eyes could only agree with the girl: they were in perfect order, with the Vice Captain just a little weak but still too quiet to be a couple who just had sex.

"Em, how are you Elizabeth?"

The blonde smiled at him, pulling away from her husband and reaching for her jacket and hat so she could wear them. Her shirt was neatly tucked into her pants, pressed against her skin until it was perfectly wrapped. Her hair was tied in a meticulous braid that ran down her right shoulder, with a few strands left free around her face but still well combed.

Yes, he was sure of it. Sasha had won that bet.

She put on her jacket and hat, while Levi began to study the boy holding back a mischievous grin. It was evident that he was studying them in search of something that could incriminate them but if there was one thing that his wife was good at was doing things without being discovered. There was a reason she was a skilled scammer.

"I feel better. Levi gave me I didn't understand what but it worked."

"Who would have thought: the great Elizabeth Blossom stretched out from her first boat ride." Jean chuckled, allowing himself to get comfortable just because he knew they weren't fighting. The blonde laughed in response, rolling her eyes.

"Don't make me think about it, thank goodness I didn't eat as much as Sasha or by now I would have emptied myself of my soul too."

"Then I'll give you some good news: we've arrived."

A sense of wonder struck everyone when, in front of them, it was possible to see land.

It felt like a world so similar to theirs but completely different.

The port was full of life, so different from theirs. There was the smell of the sea but also of food and flowers, everyone walked intent on doing their own thing and the constant shouting created an almost surreal atmosphere. Here and there there were food stalls that made Sasha's eyes light up, among fruits and vegetables easily recognizable to foods completely foreign to them, which aroused their curiosity.

Sasha and Connor were definitely the ones most attracted to anything, while Jean tried to maintain a greater decorum; Hange studied everything with her keen eye, while Eren looked around as if it were all new and known at the same time. And Mikasa and Armin were visibly worried about his silence, but also amazed by their surroundings.

"If we don't stop them they're going to try to feed carrots to that lumpo of iron." Levi exclaimed, trying not to attract too much attention but hoping that if Elizabeth would ever give him a child, it would never have behaved as they were doing at that moment. He understood the astonishment but they couldn't be recognized that way...

"Haha oh please..." Onyankopon laughed, stopping when he saw the three really buying a carrot with the intention of giving it to a car.

The new thing everyone was excited about was ice cream, a complete discover for them. Connor took some for Elizabeth, remembering his previous malaise, or at least that was what Jean had told them, and also feeling a little guilty for thinking that about them, so he handed some to the their Vice Captain allowing her to taste it.

Elizabeth accepted it with a smile, tasting it and feeling its cold chill her temples for a few moments.

"It's freezing cold."

"It's ice cream. It's made with milk, fruit and ice." Onyankopon answered, smiling affably and mentally complimenting the woman's decorum. She made a great appearence, although she wore a simple suit, she did it with class, so as to attract the attention of several people enchanted by her figure. She had such delicate features that it was really hard to imagine her as a soldier, and even he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

Elizabeth handed her ice cream to her husband, urging him to taste it. Levi liked it right away, even if he found it far too cold and let her finish it, without saying anything.

"After all that talk about blending in..."

"It's fine, no one's going to think we're those island devils." Hange answered the Captain, feeling so light. It was all new to them and her eternal curious soul wanted to discover every corner of that place. She was fascinated by it.

"Hey there son, you want some candy?"

A man dressed as a clown approached them, handing Levi a lollipop, perhaps mistaking him for a child due to his height. Elizabeth refrained from laughing, while he glared at her already thinking about how to take revenge for her affront. Did she have so much fun? Well, then he would enjoy when she will be completely under his touch. "Wow, you look so cool. Are you kids playing gangster?"

Elizabeth gently sent the clown away, urging everyone to set out before Levi lost his patience.

"Know that I will make you pay for it." he whispered with his wife within earshot so that only she could hear him.

She gave him a mischievous smile. "I can't wait."

Walking through the crowd, Levi saw a child take the bag from Sasha's pocket, without her noticing it, and immediately, and instinctively, grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him.

"That's not your purse."

But that exclamation had the power to attract some merchants and passers-by, who immediately stopped around the child, encircling him in anger.

"A pickpocket!"

"Another immigrant, huh?"

"How did you come here?"

"He can't understand us."

"I bet he snuck onto a ship."

That sentence made everyone shiver. They were secretly there, hiding on that ship and posing as Marleyan so as not to be identified.

Between those who wanted to throw the child on the dock, those who wanted to cut off his hand and those who still wanted to hang him, Elizabeth realized for the first time how much cruelty there was in this 'new world' they were discovering. Yes, he had done something wrong, but it wasn't a good reason to do those atrocities to him. She could not, then, avoid asking herself, how much they must have made suffer the Eldians...

"That's going too far! I have my purse back, it's fine!" Sasha broke in, but no one paid her any attention. On the contrary, they all claimed how dangerous it was to find 'Ymir's subjects' around. That knowledge sent chills to the Vice Captain. They were truly hated.

Of course, they too had suffered atrocities, but could a child really be made to suffer for the mistakes of the parents? And on this same perspective, could an entire race really be hated for the mistakes of their ancestors?

Levi became impatient. The talk made him nervous, so he hurriedly took the child under his arm.

"Hey, what are you doing?!"

"Who said he's a pickpocket? I just said that this wasn't his purse'. The purse is his older sister's."

"Yep, they've got a real complicated family situation. Isn't that right?" added Hange, giggling nervously. Everyone was starting to lose their cool and no longer knew how to behave. The dirty blood talk had hit them deeply but at least Elizabeth had to keep a cool head, she owed it to all of them.

"Y-yes, I'm sorry about my little brother." Sasha murmured, her heart pounding with fear.

"You expect us to buy that?!"

"Come on gentlemen, do you really think we could defend a kid who tried to rob us?" Elizabeth interjected, stopping in front of the crowd that had formed, her arms crossed and a calm smile on her face.

The man looked her up and down for a moment, looking down at her who was very short compared to him. Indeed, compared to everyone. She was the shortest of the group, she hardly looked like an adult.

"If you are particularly naive and good-hearted, yes." he replied, while the Vice Captain's team watched them carefully, some astonished by that reaction. She was playing with fire...

"The good of heart don't live long, you should know better than me." she answered confidently, without even thinking about it for a moment. She always had the answer ready but that was beyond their imagination, she was pretending to be one of them, without saying it and without showing any emotion.

"You are right indeed..." added a man who seemed to be really thinking about it.

"The little boy is with us. My husband just wanted to point out that he had the wrong purse. He is the smallest in the middle but he is at that particular age where he tries to attract attention. I don't think he is to blame." the blonde asked, tilting her head slightly to the side and looking at the man. Those eyes were terribly piercing, they seemed to dig into his soul and eventually he gave in.

"Oh, then I apologize."

"We will take care of punishing him."

"How the hell does she do it? "whispered Jean, next to Armin who, for a while, opened his eyes wide, remembering his first meeting with her. she was a woman who was far better off not being an enemy.

And in a few moments she too had managed to unravel a situation that could have ended very badly.

The encounter with the Azumabito was quite revealing. Kiyomi revealed to them many details they still did not know and, for the first time, they understood how far racial hatred towards them was going. People were afraid of their power and would hardly help them.

Even if they came in peace, no one would listen to them.

Levi felt overwhelmed.

These speeches heard at the port made him fear even more for the life of his wife and his team. All the people he loved could suffer terrible torture if they ended up in the hands of the enemy; he didn't even dare to think what they would do to them. They didn't want to hear anything, they just wanted to exterminate them as if they were a terrible insect infestation.

The image of Elizabeth being tortured passed before his eyes for a few moments, starting to make his temples throb and pushing him to rest his forehead on his hand and his elbow on the back of the chair. It was a huge amount of information, but he had no idea what was going to happen. The only certainty he had was that they were forced to fight again.

For a few moments he concentrated on the two weeks they had spent in the house given by Erwin, on how quiet and happy they had been, in love like the first day and with no thought on their mind. A normal quiet family in the process of being created. But that image still could not be defined complete. On the other side of that door was the rest of the world, with all its fallen comrades. All the people he cared about were dead. And he was beginning to fear that Elizabeth would end up the same way.

Already in Shiganshina he had almost lived it, by Floch's mistake, of course, but he still didn't forget that pain. The feeling that they were about to launch themselves into a bloody war showed no sign of abandoning him and he had no intention of sacrificing Elizabeth as well. He had lost too many people, he couldn't lose her too for a hatred based on past and ignorance.

As Kiyomi finished speaking, everyone noticed that there was one person absent from roll call: Eren.

As they began to look for him they parted ways. Hange stood talking to Kiyomi again while Elizabeth felt she had to move. She could no longer stand still and Levi's headache, combined with the nightmares that had haunted him the previous nights, made her worry even more. He was fine, she was sure of that, but she also knew how much he was hurting and she couldn't allow it. Yet she had made a promise to Levi three years earlier and still intended to keep it; not even the lack of information would stop her.

She didn't know what to look for or where to do it, but her legs, almost inertia, carried her to a library. The door was locked but a lock had never been an impediment to her. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and began to move it inside the lock until she heard it click.

"As if a lock could stop me..." she whispered to herself, entering and closing the door behind her. A myriad of books, all bound in different ways, stood before her eyes, while a strong smell of paper and ink filled her nostrils. There was a large lacquered wooden table in the center of the room, it was all in such meticulous order that she almost wondered why. There was not a single book out of place, it seemed almost an unused room, as if no one dared to put their hand on that sanctuary. She didn't even know what to look for but she let herself be guided by her instinct.

If that crap that Kenny had injected into her could do any good, then now was the right time to find out for good. She let her hand run along the books in religious silence, careful not to make the slightest noise as she scanned everything with her eyes. She felt her heart beating fast until she found a particular book, bound with exceptional care, and hand-written. That particular book had evidently been hidden from attention, and what better way to do that than to hide it right where no one would be looking for? There was no print on the pages and the handwriting was almost perfect. And a word drew her.

Ackerman.

"Here you are." she whispered once more

She began to carefully read what appeared to be the story of the Ackerman family, how they were born and how they were designed to protect the King.

"Apparently something went wrong with them too. How nice are experiments eh..." she commented sarcsharply as she turned the pages delicately. They were old enough and weakened by time, she certainly didn't want to risk breaking them. However, she couldn't even steal it and read it at another time. If it was being held so well it was important and its absence would be noticed, which would link the theft back to them and lose the trust. They certainly couldn't lose the Azumabito clan when they were the only ones willing to help them.

So, we were right and we were wrong at the same time...

It was not Levi and not even the power of the Titian itself that gave birth to the experiment on themselves, but the sheer curiosity to know how they were created, how their power was born and if it was possible to replicate it on someone who did not have Ackerman's blood in the body.

Everything took shape in her mind in an instant and she had to figure out how to talk about it to Levi.

Of course, it was not easy to tell someone why anyone who bore his surname had been persecuted almost to the brink of extinction. However it was the only way to let Levi know anything about his origins so she recorded all the information she could and left the room quickly, as if she had never entered it.

As she turned the corner of the corridor she found Levi and Hange talking in low tones, a conversation from which she immediately sensed Eren's disappearance as a subject. Evidently they hadn't found him yet.

"Where were you? You disappeared without us even noticing." the Commander asked noticing her serious look. Levi seemed to have realized that she had done something and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Not now and especially not here." she replied seriously. "Eren?"

"We do not know yet."

When they found him, the sun had already set. The boys were all in what, they were told, was a camp of people who had lost everything for the war. Elizabeth smelled a strong smell of alcohol and thought that perhaps that must be the only way they could not succumb to sadness. But she also feared that for some it might just be a way to finish earlier and without thinking about it.

The boys were all completely asleep in a tent, lying on the ground and with bottles around them, as well as strongly smelling of alcohol too.

"Did they get drunk?" Levi asked sarcastically, wondering how they could have done such a stupid thing in enemy territory. Especially Eren who was the person they were looking for the most in that place...

"Come on, they're still young. Let them drink every now and then." Elizabeth smiled giving him a light shoulder and smiling to see them all together and quiet. It was always a good thing for her to see, it made her happy.

"Excuse me."

The same child she had helped that morning was now standing in front of them, looking at her with a mixture of fear for Levi's impassive gaze and gratitude for her.

Yet Elizabeth knew well that behind that icy gaze hid all the sorrow in having understood the living conditions of that child. He had done the same things to survive and worse.

"Hi."

Elizabeth dropped to her knees, using a tone so sweet that Levi's breath caught in his throat. At that moment he was not seeing the Vice Captain with a child she had helped but his wife with a possible child of theirs. And he wished with all his heart that that scene would become real. It was so good to see that he hurt.

"I wanted to thank you for today, you saved me." murmured the smallest.

"It wasn't a problem, but next time try not to get in trouble again." she smiled, stroking his head gently before he returned that smile.

"All right."

Hange waited for the child to leave, looking at it all with a smile.

"Someday you will be a great mother." the Commander murmured, setting aside their roles to address her best friend. Those two were the only people she had left and she wanted all the best for them.

What neither of them expected was to hear Levi's words, who was still deeply touched by that scene. There was no one awake and no one who could listen to them, so he could afford to tell her what he thought and be more human.

"She's right, you know."

What shocked the team was, then, to see all the hatred that even the Eldians themselves had towards them. The association for the protection of the people of Ymir blamed the inhabitants of Paradis for every cause of their ills, accusing them of having taken refuge on their island to leave them alone to suffer, thus completely isolating them from the rest of the world. They were all against them and it wasn't going to be easy to get out of it.

And then came the coup de grace.

Eren's letter.