In the same military lounge, the four sat together, speaking quietly. They sat in the same order with the same uncertainty. The coffee table had no coffee this time either. The sun held a warm yellow hand to the uncurtained window.

Hanji leafed through papers clipped inside a confidential folder. "The result of the drug is quite incredible," she said, her one eye digesting the writing, telling them about it. "In some cases, his memories even rewrote themselves to bridge existing fragmentation. According to Eren, his mother was never eaten by Dina. He's reconstructed this trauma with a false but gentler scenario. He remembers his mother succumbing peacefully in her sleep and now his father is off traveling the interior, bringing healthcare to those areas with the greatest need."

"He believes his father's still alive."

"That's correct."

Armin sat forward on the sofa. He stared vacantly and thought. His eyes went away, lidded. They came back to involve Mikasa. Silently he threaded her into the network of his intricate thinking. "I think we should try to uphold these false memories and, however we can, shelter Eren from the past. For the time being, we can let him lead a normal life."

"What makes you so certain Eren could ever lead a normal life?" The three faces turned to Levi, looking at him to listen. The scenery outside was filled with sunshine. The window cast them in gold highlights. "Sometimes people arrive in this world carrying something monstrous inside themselves," Levi said, knowing better than anyone. "And there's no cure for a monstrous nature. It's only a matter of time before it bares its fangs again."

# # #

The garden dreamed in a damp shimmer of heat. Soft dirt lay under their feet. Tender plants leapt and twirled and spun out their shining green life and shining green respirations. All through the warm noontime, Mikasa and Eren strolled side by side and admired and felt the flowers and breathed the wild aroma and imagined they were far away, exploring distant lands. The glass windows bottled up the sun. Dark moons of sweat soaked their shirts. The small hairs on Mikasa's nape were beginning to curl and glisten. Eren lifted the hair off her damp neck, holding it away.

"You don't have to join me on my walks every day, you know," Eren said, feeling a little guilty. "The climate's pretty uncomfortable after a while. The humidity's . . ."

"How about the fountain?" Mikasa said.

"The fountain?"

"What do you think about cooling off there?"

With each step soft on the black dirt, they ambled to the heart of the garden. Crystal water sang through pipes and flutes and cried clear cool rivers. Sitting on the edge of the fountain, Mikasa removed her shoes and submerged her feet. Eren rolled up his pant-cuffs and did the same. The water soothed their boiled soles and spread a relief into their calves. Soon the halo of heat radiating from Eren's crown evaporated. Pure streams of thoughts seeped upward in his mind and flowed in slow currents. He drifted, carried along. It was a slow and pleasant kind of thinking. Then all of a sudden the water rushed forward, sucking him with it, plunging him down deep cataracts where his memories had been chopped off.

"There are blank spaces in my mind," Eren said, with a sense of dread. He watched Mikasa's hands dip out handfuls of water, rinsing her legs. "I haven't been able to remember anything about you."

"Don't strain yourself trying to dredge up the past. For things to have turned out this way, it isn't a bad thing. I've enjoyed these daily strolls through the garden."

Eren washed his face. He used his shirt to wipe his stinging eyes.

"Soon the Military Police will allow me to go into town with an escort. They're running low on supplies and need me to pick up a few things."

"You're not their errand boy."

"For now I have to do whatever they ask." Eren turned, the sides of his face still trickling water. "I was wondering, if you're available, instead of going on our walk, would you want to go into town with me to pass the time?"

Mikasa's mouth was fixed shut.

"Are you needed here or something?"

"No," she said.

"You sound unsure," he said.

"I'm probably not needed."

"Who are you, exactly?"

Mikasa tilted her head.

"What I mean is, for example, the others look to Armin for his intelligence and keen judgment. They constantly seek his input during military and political discussions. So, his time is occupied by those matters. But what about you?"

"My specialty," Mikasa said, slowing down to find the exact words she needed, "is slaughtering titans."

"I'm a titan, though."

"Your power is necessary to the survival of this island. I'm here to ensure you stay alive. As long as you keep close to me, your safety is guaranteed."

Something hurtled up in Eren's mind like a jabbing knife. He clapped a hand over his eyes. "Ah." He massaged the throbbing ache. A blue vein ridged his temple.

"Eren?"

"Sometimes I get this pain, like a pressure trying to make itself known." His face relaxed as the inexplicable torments faded.

"Eren." Mikasa leaned slightly closer, growing suspicious of him. She looked into that depth behind his eyes, as if she were trying to see flashes of the inexplicable psychological torments and understand what they meant for him. "Are you keeping something from me?"

"What?" Eren reacted almost in a recoil. His eyes widened. Then he looked down at the fountain and the pool of water below him and saw the strewn image of himself on the surface, knowing it was himself, never recognizing it as himself. "No, there's nothing." He touched the watery echo with a fingertip. The reflection marbled away, vanishing.

"I'll go with you into town," Mikasa said.

"You will?"

She nodded. "By the way, I noticed you look thinner. Has the Military Police been giving you enough meals?"

"Yes. They've been fair to me. You don't need to keep asking."

# # #

Eren's bedroom was in the deep underground cellar of the fort. A ceiling was put over him, made of insurmountable layers of earth in case he decided to try to explode free, instigate an earthquake, and die in the process, splatting himself between boulders, crushing anyone else in orbit. In his own sleeping darkness, an image was dissolving swiftly as he began to waken. He pulled at the image, growing sorrowful when the white void tumbled away into nothing. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling in a frozen stupor, as if he were hoping to adopt the qualities of water and by being motionless and serene enough, the image would show on the motionless serene surface of himself. Something rolled off his cheek. He touched it to learn what it was. He extended his hand above his face, examining the dew-tipped finger. Gravity pulled at the center, making the drop heavier. It fell to his face again. For a while, he watched the movement of the vein in his wrist.

Eren raised up. He looked around himself. The sheets were tangled from tossing and turning in a restless sleep. Stains caught his attention. Identifying what it was, he cringed. Hastily he began removing the bed sheets. The door opened just as Eren bundled the sheets, piling them in his arms. A Military Police officer brought clean clothes for him to wear.

"What, did you have an accident in your bed?" said the officer.

"Why can't I keep my own clothes? Isn't it more trouble for you to bring me new ones each day?"

"Why do you assume anything belongs to you?" The set of clothes were dropped at Eren's feet. "Get dressed."

Eren got dressed while the officer watched. The shirt was too big. The pants were too short. Eren gathered the linens in his arms again. He started to the door, past the officer. Cold eyes followed; the mouth moved, forming a smile. The door never shut.

Eren went up a flight of stairs, still underground. He turned. He reached the laundry room and went inside. Somebody was already doing their laundry. Eren walked over. Jean moved his back and arms, sorting his laundry into two baskets.

Eren came into view and without looking away from what he was doing, Jean said, "Laundry again? Isn't this the third time this week?"

"I get cold sweats during the night."

"From night terrors?"

"Who knows?" Eren peered around the pile in his arms. "You told me Mikasa is someone special. What did you mean by that?"

"If you have to ask, you're beyond help."

Eren thought about this. He held onto it for later. "Each morning when I wake up, I can almost remember seeing someone leaning close to me. I feel they might've been smiling in a way that was important. But as the dream slips away, all I can do is wonder who they are." Eren looked to see if Jean was listening. From Jean's quiet sorting of clothes, Eren thought Jean was probably listening. "It has to be her that I'm thinking of, right?"

"Don't tell me that's why you're washing your sheets every other day."

"What?"

Jean was almost finished with his sorting. He took up a last shirt and stuffed his nose in it. He gave it a hard deep smelling and judged it. "Is there anything else you can remember?" He tossed the shirt into one of the baskets.

"No, not much," Eren said. "Sometimes I think I can see a little house, standing alone, miles outside any town or village."

Jean knew something about this. It showed in his expression. "That sounds like the lodge where Historia is living."

"Historia?" Eren turned his eyes inward. He looked inside his mind. "Is that supposed to be someone I know?"

"Considering she's our queen, yeah." Jean felt sorry for Eren about this. It showed in his expression.

Eren wrenched his mind apart. He screwed his eyes shut and splintered his face with lines. His mind was dark and lost.

"Hey, add your sheets to the basket." Jean's voice spoke behind a thick curtain and moved into Eren's ears muddled. "I'll take care of them for you."

"Thanks, but I got it." Eren twisted his face, concentrating, until his ears began to ring.

"Just give it to me. You're making me feel bad."

"Why? I said I got it."

"Look, hand it here. I'll—" The sheets were stolen from Eren. Eren flicked his eyes open wide, desperate for the sheets, jerking out his reaching hands. Jean held one sheet open. He snapped the wrinkles away. Stretching it by the corners, he stared. "Are those blood stains?"

Eren cringed like he'd done when he was all alone in his underground bedroom. "Can we keep this between us? The blank spaces in my mind never give me any rest. Maybe I'm not the person I used to be, but what if who I am now still isn't good enough? I don't want these vague feelings to dominate every impression I have of myself. I don't know who I am, and I don't know who they want me to be."

Jean made a sound between his teeth. Then he sighed and threw Eren's sheets into one of his laundry baskets. "Even though waking up with blood in your bed isn't normal, I won't say anything. At least try to figure out why it's happening. Don't just brush it off." Jean clapped a stack of folded linens to Eren's chest. "For now, you can borrow my spares. Don'tget blood on them."

# # #

HQ had plenty of empty rooms with plenty of empty tables and plenty of windows to let in fresh air. Eren and Armin had chosen one to meet for lunch. Leaning on the edge of a long empty table, Eren waited for Armin, patient as time went by. A coffee pot and a few platters of food had been set and sealed, retaining their freshness and temperature. When Armin showed up, Eren opened the window and uncovered the platters. Armin sat wearily at the head of the table while Eren set a plate before him and dished him out a couple helpings of ham and rice.

"You look worn thin," Eren said, noticing Armin's pale face. "Maybe I should've brought a bottle."

"No, I'm not very good at drinking. And it's still the middle of the day." Armin gestured at the meal. "Thank you for doing this. Most days I can't seem to fit in a time to eat or I have no appetite. My mind's stretched to its limit. It was easier when humanity only existed inside the walls." Against the open window, the sheer curtain lied motionless, stirred by no outside current or draft.

"Is there anything you need me to do?"

"No. You've got your hands full, too."

Eren sat by Armin's right side and put his elbows on the table. "Not really. My days are slow and dull lately." He rested his cheek in his palm.

"What about your memories? Aren't you working your hardest to get them back?" When Eren didn't reply, Armin said: "Don't you want to remember Mikasa?"

"Yes. But the energy to keep hitting at the brick wall inside my mind is starting to run out." A hand was constantly near Eren's head, ready to check every once in a while if he thought or felt or imagined or remembered anything at any point. Each check was always in vain. "Besides, Mikasa won't ask me to try to remember. She says it's okay for things to be this way. Each day I lose motivation to keep trying to grasp the mountain of things I don't understand. It's easier to let it all go."

"Mikasa only says those things because she's kind and puts other people's feelings above her own."

They sat in silence while Armin ate. Eren touched his head, monitoring his thoughts, thinking about them as they materialized from black spaces.

Eren reached across the table. "Coffee?" Armin thanked him and put a cup under the pitcher for Eren to fill. Armin added milk and sugar. It bloomed up and made the color light and creamy. He stirred it with a spoon.

"Forming attachments doesn't come naturally to Mikasa," Armin said, "and so the number of attachments she was able to develop were few. To avoid being alone, she became dependent on those people closest to her and she fiercely protects them with her life." Armin held his coffee cup with both of his delicate hands. He looked down into the cup, not drinking the coffee yet. "After you lost your memories, I'm sure she felt a strong sense of loneliness closing in. It weighs on her more than she'll ever openly admit. For you, it's like being told you lost something you don't remember having. For her, it's like being left behind by someone she's shared a connection with since childhood. Every day, she's patiently waiting to be found again."

# # #

It'd almost been a half hour, but the rain never lightened. It was only coming down harder, drumming the glass ceiling. The greenhouse beams ached and trembled. Outside the garden, a yellow silhouette stood, hazed by the falling rain. Mikasa strode out of the building. Instantly her clothes seeped through and sealed to each line of her body. Mikasa put a shield over her eyes to keep her sight clear. Her feet sucked to the mushy grass.

"What are you doing out here, Eren? You'll catch a cold."

Eren had his head up with the sheet of raindrops hitting his serene face. "It feels good," he said, his eyes closed. He parted his lips. "Have you ever tried tasting the rain?"

"No."

"You should try it."

"What's it taste like?"

"I don't know. It's hard to describe."

Mikasa tilted her head back and closed her eyes and opened her mouth. She sipped the heaven's wine and savored it. The rain made them the only two people in the world. Suddenly the driving rain was held off her, but she could still hear it steadily striking the grass. Mikasa fluttered her eyes. Eren's soaked head was bent over her, watching closely for something inside her face. The rain gushed around them. His wet hair and face rolled water on her cheeks, as if he were crying on her. Each fine drop was warm like tears, too, from having touched him.

"What's it taste like to you?" he said.

"Like — how I imagined the sky might taste. Smoky and sweet . . ."

Liking her answer, Eren backed away and the rain showered on Mikasa again. For a long time, they didn't move, their heads craned back, feeling and tasting the rain.

"Tell me about a memory I would've liked to remember at a time like this."

Mikasa traveled from memory to memory, unpacking its contents and comparing it with the rain. Old memories floated up and hung in front of her. She watched one and told Eren what she could see. "Just outside our hometown, there was this hill you liked to play on. I'm not sure what started it, but one day you took off into a run, starting to race up that hill. Armin and I ran after you. When you got to the top, you turned back to wait for us and for a long time, we played up there together."

Eren visualized the scene, helped along by the rain. His hair was longer while wet. The big white T-shirt he wore was sopping and translucent.

Mikasa said, "It's hard to tell which memories are important, and I don't think I could tell you myself which ones are the most important. But for Armin that memory is a reminder about why he wants to live out the life he's been given. He never felt there was a reason for his existence. If it weren't for you, he might've already been swallowed up by his own feelings of worthlessness. Something as simple as racing up a hill to meet you at the top allowed him to accept the selfish desire to continue living . . . if only to feel that small happiness once more."

Eren smiled with his eyes closed. He drank raindrops from his lips.

# # #

The image rapidly faded in the dark before Eren could grasp it with his mind — and then it was gone, leaving Eren to study the backs of his eyelids, haunted by the same question every morning. Who?

Fully awake now, Eren whiffed an odor clinging to him like a cloud. He sat up, recognizing the odor without remembering the word for it, merely recalling the sickening feeling it provoked, and clutching the bedding, he dreaded what he saw. He grew cold and appalled at the thought of himself without knowing the truth about anything, lost in this fragmented confused reality.

At last, he leapt up and started to strip the mattress. He didn't get very far before the door bashed open. The same Military Police officer as always walked in, carrying today's set of clothing which looked a lot like yesterday's set of clothing. The officer stuck his neck out and distended his nostrils wide open.

"That smell— What have you been doing in here?"

"Nothing."

The officer followed his sense of smell like passing a rope through his hands, pulling himself to the end of it. It led him to the tangled blood-spattered sheets. "Nothing, huh?" The officer exchanged his cold soft eyes from the bed to Eren three times. Eren kept his head low. The officer shoved his tongue between his teeth. "Such a ridiculous experiment. Brainwashing? Useless. What could they ever hope to accomplish with a damn pill?"

"The medicine's working," Eren said, never raising his eyes. "My memories are still inaccessible to me."

"So, what you're saying is, as long as there's even the faintest shadow of yourself still in there, that deranged consciousness will find a way out and choose violence."

"I didn't hurt anyone. I'm locked alone in here all night. How could I—"

"You pleasure in the sight of it." The officer spoke in something like a whisper and rimmed his bottom lip with his tongue again. His eyes were cold and repulsed. "You like it so much you had no choice but to use your own body to satisfy that sick mind of yours. Are you content with just this?" He tore the bloody sheet off the bed, out from under Eren's fingers, draping it like a spoiled flag from his hand. "From what I know about people like you, a monster's never content." He hurled the sheet away. Eren let it softly contact his chest and fall, keeping his head low. Without looking up from the floor, he perceived the soft menacing eyes feeling him down, turning him out, touching him some more.

"Get dressed," the officer said. "The doctor's waiting to begin your therapy."

# # #

Before the morning Eren had been discovered, late in the previous night, this had occurred:

Making sure nobody noticed he was up walking the halls, Jean snuck around corners and stole into Armin's bedroom, unseen. Soundlessly he shut the door and put a finger to his mouth, silencing any questions. He leaned back on the door and slanted his ear. Armin watched Jean listen to the sounds on the other side, in the hallway. Feet tapped, growing louder. Low chattering voices floated by. They felt the silence cover the hall again and settle. Jean locked the door.

Armin tugged his sleeping shirt over his head and waited for Jean's explanation. Jean muted his footfalls and seemed to glide over the room, never contacting the floor at all.

"Something strange is going on," Jean said in a restrained tone. "Eren's been waking up with blood in his bed."

Armin listened to Jean and listened for other presences, everything secret and cautious.

"He's afraid if the Military Police learns of any abnormalities in his behavior, they'll erase his entire memory."

"Where did it come from?" Armin said.

"He doesn't know."

"Is it his own or somebody else's?"

"He doesn't know that either. But he's locked alone in that room underground every night. There's only one possible source for it. Right?"

A wrinkle formed between Armin's eyebrows. "Self-inflicted, then?"

"Do you think he would do something like that?"

"The medication has a numbing effect. What other reason would Eren have for spilling his own blood into his bed during the night?" Even as Armin said it, it gave little impression he believed in what he was saying.

"The only people who have access in and out of Eren's room are the Military Police." Jean grew even more restrained and fraught, like they'd be caught at any moment. "While everyone else is sleeping, they could slip into Eren's room and no one would know it. It's just a hunch, but . . ."

"Going off a hunch isn't enough to request a formal investigation. But I've been feeling uneasy about the Military Police's intentions since they took over. We should conduct a private investigation of our own. Until we have more evidence to suspect the Military Police of foul play, we'll keep this under wraps. And—" Armin locked Jean with his eyes. "Please don't tell Mikasa."