No Time to Mourn

The sun was high in the sky by the time Eren finally awoke. He groaned as he raised his hand to his aching forehead, then, as he suddenly remembered the events of the prior day, his eyes snapped open and he bolted upright. He immediately realized that was a mistake, as he held his head and let out an even louder groan. "What the fuck did they inject me with?"

"Eren?"

The young man's head snapped to the left to see Mikasa in the cot next to him, then Armin over on one of the sofas. He groaned again in pain and dizziness. "Okay. No more sudden movements," he whined. "Makes my head wanna explode." He then looked at his two friends. "Mika, Armin, are you two okay?"

Armin sat on the edge of his seat, staring into the cup of coffee in his hands. "I'm okay. They just used chloroform on me. They just held us in this little dark room with a bucket to piss in. We never saw nor heard anyone until Huntress showed up to get us out."

Mikasa was actually in tears as she looked at Eren. "I'm just glad you're alright. I can't believe I'm so useless!" she snarled. "I'm so completely powerless against them! I can't even protect you, Eren!"

"Training with The Commander would help that," Levi suggested, still sitting on the floor against the wall. "Your powers are similar to his, so I think time spent with him would be beneficial. You should ask him." He finally moved to get to his feet. His legs were stiff, and his ass was numb from sitting on the floor for so many hours without moving.

"Are you okay, L- uh, Raven?" Eren asked.

"I'm fine. Just some smoke inhalation," Levi replied.

"He scraped up his right elbow pretty bad and sprained his right ankle," Armin tattled, receiving a glare from Levi.

"How about you, Eren. How are you feeling?" Levi asked as he sat himself down on the sofa across the coffee table from Armin.

Eren stood slowly and stretched. "I feel like what some of my classmates describe as a hangover. My head is pounding." He moved over to sit on the other end of the sofa from Levi.

Erwin had come into the room and he carefully picked up Mikasa and set her in one of the lounge chairs. "It's good to see all of you awake."

Hange, Krista, Ymir and Huntress came in and sat down in the sitting area as well. "I'd like to introduce all of you to the Scouting Regiment's newest member, Huntress," Erwin introduced.

Eren's mouth fell open as he took in the new Super, without her mask on. He barely managed to refrain from blurting out her name, but clearly Armin and Mikasa recognized her too. The girl waved shyly to them all. "Hi. My real name is Sasha Blouse. It's an honor to be invited to join you all. I won't let you down."

"I can't believe Potato Girl is a Super!" Eren gasped.

"Potato Girl?" Hange questioned.

"Oh, no," Sasha groaned.

"Yeah. On the first day of high school, Coach Shadis was drilling us all in gym class and she was standing there in formation eating a potato left over from lunch," Eren explained.

"When Coach called her out on it, she offered to share it with him. She thought he was jealous," Mikasa continued, a faint smile on her face at the memory.

"He had her run laps until school let out for the day," Armin finished.

"And no one's ever let me live it down," Sasha groaned.

"Well, for the benefit of Armin and Mikasa, let's all introduce ourselves. They are all going to be here for a while for their own safety, so we might as well all get to know each other," Erwin said. "I'm Erwin Smith. You know me as The Commander."

"I'm Codex, but my real name is Hange Zoe."

"I'm T-BAB; that's Totally Bad-Ass Bitch. My real name is Ymir."

"I'm Faerie, but my name is Krista Lenz."

Everyone in the room turned to look at Levi. "Levi. A.k.a. Raven Knight," he said flatly.

Eren looked around the room in worried confusion. "Where's Hound and Static?" His answer was a silent room of sad faces. "No. That can't be," Eren said, sounding almost panicky. "They can't be dead." Tears began to run from his light green eyes. "It's all my fault! They died because of me! If I hadn't left and gone to Titan, if I had just told you what was happening instead of going alone, they wouldn't have died trying to save me! I just wanted to protect my friends, but two people died anyways. It's not fair!"

Levi moved quickly to sit right next to Eren and took a hold of the younger man's wrist firmly, but gently. "Listen to me. You're right; it's not fair, but it is not your fault. There isn't a person in this room that would have done any differently than you in your situation. I would have made the same exact choice you did had I been in your position. I have done the same as you, but it cost me my two best friends. The fact is, had you not gone, you would have lost Armin and Mikasa. You took the risk and they are both alive because of it. There was no ideal solution, but you would have regretted it forever had you not tried. We can never know the outcome of our decisions before we make them, and once we know the outcome, we can still never know if another decision would have had a better or a worse outcome. All we can do is make the choice that we believe we will regret the least."

Eren began to cry, and he leaned over against Levi's shoulder. Levi shocked all in the room when he placed a comforting arm around the younger's shoulders and rested his chin atop the student's head and allowed him to cry. "You did the right thing, Eren," Levi assured him.

A few minutes later, Eren calmed and stopped crying. "I'm sorry, guys. I don't mean to be such a crybaby." He then noticed the red, puffy and watery eyes of almost everyone in the room. Even Levi's silver eyes looked a little watery.

"Don't be sorry," Erwin said. "We are all grieving. But we are also at war. Eren, what can you tell us about your captivity?"

"They seemed awfully stupid," Eren stated.


30 hours ago

Eren woke up to find himself sitting in a hard, metal chair in the middle of an empty, windowless room. His wrists were cable-tied to the arms of the chair, and his ankles to the chair's legs. The ties were all pulled too tight and dug painfully into his skin. He'd walked through the sewers to where they'd directed him. He'd immediately been darted, and he'd passed out.

"Well, well, well; looks like sleeping beauty had finally awakened," an obnoxious, nasally male voice sneered.

Eren looked around the dimly lit room and noticed three people, all wearing the distorted masks that Titans wore. The one standing in front of him spoke again. "Alright, Jaeger. Let's get straight to the point. Where's the key?"

"What key?" The question earned Eren a painful slap across the face. "I'm serious. Is it a literal physical key, a code key, a card key, a password, what?"

"You know damn well what key," the Titan snapped as he again slapped Eren hard. "The one your daddy left you."

Eren snorted angrily. "That bastard walked out on Mom and me when I was eight. Didn't even have the decency to say goodbye or tell us why; just left and never came back. I don't even know if the fucker is still alive anymore!" Eren's face showed the genuine hurt and anger he felt towards his father for not explaining what was going on and leaving without even saying goodbye; for leaving his mother to handle such a dangerous situation.

This time, instead of a slap, he received a fist to his jaw. "Where is the key?"

"Are all members of Titan this stupid? I don't know about any key! Whatever it was, Dad probably took it with him!" Eren spouted.

There was another fist; this time to his ear, which was left ringing.

"The only keys I have are to my apartment and the university, and they were in my right jeans' pocket." Another blow. "Damn it! Think about this for a minute! If this key is so damned important that a bunch of assholes like Titan wants it, you seriously think anyone would leave it with an eight-year-old child?" Another blow. "Fine. That's it. I don't know what you're looking for or why and I'm done wasting my breath trying to reason with you ignoramuses." This time a sharp blade swept across his chest, drawing blood. Eren yelped but said nothing more.


Present

"I don't know how long they went at it, but it hurt like hell," Eren said. "It was weird, because I could swear I saw steam coming from my wounds and they closed up right before my eyes. I'd say I was hallucinating, but none of those cuts is visible on me now . . . unless I imagined the whole thing and was never hurt."

"No. You were hurt alright. I saw the wounds on your wrists from the cable ties, and your clothes were all ripped and covered in blood around the holes," Levi confirmed.

"Huh. Maybe that's why they talked about getting blood samples. I couldn't really hear what they were saying, with my ears ringing so loud and them talking so quiet, but it sounded like they wanted to check my DNA. After that, they injected me with something and kept asking me for 'the key' over and over again."

"Did they think that maybe the key was Eren's DNA?" Hange wondered.

"I suppose it's possible," Erwin agreed. "You and Beringer took blood samples. Perhaps we should have him check Eren's DNA."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Armin chimed in. "If Titan is looking to get this 'key' so badly, then having Dr. Beringer look at Eren's DNA could be dangerous. They might attack him to silence him or take him to work for them. I know I'm not a medical student, but I've seen DNA tests run before. If you can get me the equipment, and secure access to a sequencing program, I can run the tests here."

Hange's eyes widened in excitement. "I can easily get you access to a computer that can do sequencing! We never have to leave this building! I have all the chemistry and equipment we need! I can hardly wait to see what makes Eren heal so fast!"

"Down, Four-Eyes. You're scaring the patient," Levi drawled.

"Hange, what were you able to discover about the key that belonged to Carla Jaeger?" Erwin asked.

"Nothing unusual about it; no electronics, no microscopic encoding, no magnetics. It's just an ordinary gold key. And I mean solid gold, so it's probably just a piece of jewelry." Hange had gotten up and walked over to their station, where they retrieved the key, still on its silk cord and brought it over to Eren. "I even examined the cord. It's just plain silk." They handed it to Eren. "Here, sweetie. This belongs to you."

Eren took the key, fingered it lovingly as he thought of how his mother always wore it, then placed it around his own neck, under his shirt. "Thanks, Hange."

"Was there no mention of what the key is supposed to be for?" Erwin asked.

"No. I don't think they even knew," Eren replied. "They never clarified what kind of key they were looking for. It could be a code, a phrase, a card, and actual key or even just a formula of some kind. Maybe it's just figurative – not really a key at all. Maybe it's a gene sequence to activate some hidden human trait. Maybe there's more than one key. Maybe-"

"Easy, kid. You're overthinking this," Levi told him. "Hange, did you find out anything about the old Jaeger residence in Shiganshina?"

Hange immediately lit up. "Yes! Just like the old factory sector of Mitras, Shiganshina has hundreds of miles of tunnels running beneath it that most people know nothing about. Satellite imaging – I won't bore you with the details of how I hacked into a government satellite – shows the entire network. You can actually see the difference between the sewers, drains, subways and the old tunnels. The basements and foundations were never destroyed, just filled in when the strip mall was build. One of the tunnels passes directly below the block Eren's house was on below the level of the basements. However, there is a chamber below and to one side of where the Jaeger basement was. There appears to be a stairwell that led from the basement to the chamber. Needless to say, with the strip mall there now and the basement filled in, that entrance is no longer accessible. Good news, though. The chamber looks like it's also accessible from the tunnel system."

"Can you provide an accurate map of the tunnel system?" Erwin asked.

"Of course, I can," Hange replied as if the man had asked them the most ridiculous question in the world. "We gonna go check it out?"

"Levi and Eren are going to go check it out," Erwin clarified. "The fewer people that go, the less attention we draw. Besides, I want you and Armin to work on sequencing Eren's DNA. Levi, I want you to drive down to Shiganshina with Eren to see about accessing that chamber. I want to leave no stone unturned."

"That's a two day drive, Eyebrows. I could fly us there in one night," Levi protested. "Save us having to stay in some shitty motel."

"Flying is too high profile. You're the only Super out there with real wings, so if you were spotted by anyone, they'd know it was you, and Titan will know Eren is with you. No. Driving is the best bet. Hange will change out your plates and VIN number and adjust the appearance of your car."