He should be a dead man, all things considered.

When Tybur declared war on him and his home, Eren resigned himself to fight to the bitter end as the devil of the earth, the arch-enemy of mankind himself. It was with this in mind that he brought ruin to the Marleyan city of Liberio, that he slaughtered the warmongers of Marley that first brought war to Paradis.

He tried so desperately to abandon his humanity, to become the monster the world wanted him to be. Maybe he could have succeeded in his desire to discard everything about the Eren Yeager that once was, the Eren Yeager that was kind to his loved ones and sympathetic to all the innocent peoples of the world, if it hadn't been for Mikasa Ackerman.

Seeing Mikasa for the first time in so long reminded him of all that he left behind, forced to leave behind because of a cruel world. He had wanted to build a home with her once the titans were destroyed and humanity within the walls finally had a future. It was a naïve and overly optimistic dream that a piece of him desperately wanted and yearned for, even as he waged war upon the people of Marley.

I have 4 years to live, I don't have the luxury to live the rest of my days peacefully. The thought echoed in his mind like a mantra as he escaped the jail cell the government had imprisoned him in their suspicion. The MPs, as useless as ever, believed him a puppet of Zeke and were intent of having him be devoured and his titan powers transferred in a desperate bid to maintain control. The delusional bastards hadn't even realized that they were never in control to begin with.

The lot of them had already been drinking Zeke's spinal fluid for years and letting one of Yelena's cronies cook and serve them food and drink, fools that they were.

The island was running out of time, he was running out of time.

His friends would not understand. No, they could not understand. They still clung to the naïve hope that a peaceful resolution was possible, that the problem would just solve itself one day. He truly envied them for their unshakeable faith in the goodness of mankind. He once thought he lost that faith the day Wall Maria, but in retrospect maybe he never had it to begin with.

Maybe he was the monster instead, to justify the death of millions by claiming self-defense.

It came as no surprise when Marley launched a pre-emptive strike on Shiganshina and stood in his way, not just since the future was already witnessed at the award ceremony years before. After all, the nation of Marley held no reservations about waging total war against Paradis in the past. He didn't expect any better from the likes of them.

So he did what he does best. He fought, tooth and nail. He cleared a bloody path to make contact with Zeke and entered the realm of the PATHs. The power of the Founding Titan and the Rumbling was within his grasp. He had won.

It didn't feel like a victory.

All he felt was disgust. In Marley. In Karl Fritz. In himself.

When he touched Ymir Fritz within the PATHs, he discovered the truth about the curse of the titans. He had learnt how it began through her perpetual slavery and nightmarish love for the first King of the Eldians, how it spread from mother to daughter in a vile attempt to carry on its power and he had learnt how the curse could finally be lifted.

He would have to die, and by the hands of Mikasa Ackerman. The only way the world could be freed of the 2000-year old tragedy that plagued it would be to sacrifice his own life in the midst of the Rumbling. It felt fitting, in a way, death would be the least he deserved for his crimes against mankind, besides to what value was the life of a monster like him compared to the innocents of the world?

He was doomed to death in a mere half a decade anyways, at least now something of value could come from the death of a bastard like him.

So, he steeled his heart, abandoned his humanity and made the titans of the walls begin their death march against the world, his abominable Founding Titan form leading the charge.

With the power of the co-ordinate he crushed the once vaunted military might of the outside world. Their great industrial and technological supremacy, once the scourge of Paradis Island, gone in mere days. Innocent and guilty alike both fell en masse to the power of the Colossal Titans. He could feel the pain of the Eldians he trampled through the power of the Founding Titan, their terror, their regrets, their very last thoughts. It made him sick to his stomach, the monstrosity of his deed. Still, he would not and could not stop. Not by his own volition, at least.

Or so he thought.

His friends had all but figured out the truth of why he didn't use the full reach of the Founding Titans to strip them of their own autonomy, the truth that he wanted to be stopped. That would not do, he thought. He had to ensure they kill him to bring an end to the curse two thousand years in the making and so brought them into the world of the Paths to provoke them into an all-out battle.

At least, that was the idea. The plan, in practice, was derailed rather spectacularly by the very same Mikasa who should've been the one to carry out his execution. He should have expected it, in hindsight. She had always been superb at defying his expectations in the best possible ways from the day he met her.

He had meant to sever all ties between the two of them, and truly would have, as the rest of his loved ones were making their grand, naïve claims about being able to forge a lasting peace with the world and begging him to stop the path of the Rumbling, Mikasa had stayed gravely silent.

But when she spoke, she managed to surprise even one who held the power of a god.

I love you, Eren. You're my beloved, my most dear. Please… please come back to me.

Those words stopped him dead in his tracks. None of his memories ever mentioned anything of the sort. Were they memories false, somehow? It was impossible. How could something as important as that possible have escaped his notice?

She loved him, even after all the atrocities he had committed. It was unthinkable how one as kind and pure-hearted as Mikasa Ackerman could love the devil of the world. She wanted him to come back to her, and her alone. She wanted to bear the burden of his sins with him. For 4 years, he had been bearing the horrors of his memories all by his lonesome, and in the end it swallowed him whole. It made him a true monster, born of the hatred of the world. A wave of clarity washed over him, even with his fragmented mind experiencing the horrors of the past, present and future all at the same time. At that moment, he finally understood.

What the hell am I doing?

I have to tell her the truth.

With a snap of his fingers, he had forcibly removed the rest of the so-called "alliance" from the Paths until was just the two of them. Just Eren and Mikasa. Then, he had told her everything, from his intent to prop up his friends as the saviors of the world to his plan allowing himself to be killed to appease Ymir Fritz and end the curse. He told her he wanted her to live a long and happy life after he was dead and gone.

She had responded exactly as expected then, by punching him in the face and laying him out on the sands around them. It hadn't hurt at all, but what did hurt was the heartbreak in her eyes as she looked down at him.

Just as he told her his truth, she had told him hers. She didn't give a damn about any Curse of Ymir being broken so long as he could not experience it as well. She didn't care about being a saviour of the world if her heroism was built on fraud. All she wanted to live out the rest of her days with him, in peace and far from the conflict of the world. The words of his mother echoed through his mind, words telling him to take Mikasa and run.

Take Mikasa and run, huh?

Well, if that's all she wanted, then who was he to possibly refuse?

With a single command, the march of the Colossal Titans was halted. Regenerating his body and leaving his skeletal abomination, he walked off, in search of the meeting place he and Mikasa had agreed upon. A quaint little hill situated on a prairie nearby, with a large oak tree growing from its summit. A sight very nostalgic to the both of them.

It was simple enough to implant false memories into the heads of his friends with the power of the Founder. That they had defeated the devil of Paradis and had given the world a second chance. Of course, it was impossible to alter the memory of Captain Levi, but he had let him off with an ass-kicked as he promised and agreed to keep his little secret, at least for the time being.

The damage of the Rumbling had necessitated that the world sign a peace treaty with Paradis, although how long that peace treaty would last was unknown to him, his memories of the future now useless to him.

His reunion with Mikasa was subdued, punctuated by I'm sorries from the both of them before he had told her of a place he had seen in the memories of Eren Kruger, a small mountainous region in the south of Marley called Schwyz. In the past, Kruger had lived in a cabin in the alpine hinterlands, a safe house away from the oppression of Marley. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the place Mikasa lived before her parents were cruelly taken from her. When he told her of this far-off country, the excitement in her eyes was palpable, no doubt thinking that she could finally have the life she yearned for with him. He really had no idea what she saw in the likes of him, but if she wanted to be with him that badly, then he vowed to do everything in his power to make her the happiest girl in the world.

Of all the responses he expected from the normally stoic and taciturn Ackerman girl, he hadn't expected her to rise to her tip toes and capture his lips with her own in their first kiss.

I'm sorry, Ymir, but I'm not about to die just yet. Not when she still needs me. You're going to have to find someone else to bring you freedom.


He had wasted no time transforming and making a dash for the Schwyz border, Mikasa cradled in the arms of his titan and guided by the memories of his namesake.

It was even better than he had imagined with beautiful snow-capped peaks, dense pine forests you could wander in for hours, sparkling rivers and waterfalls and flowered hills as far as the eye could see. Of course, the best part was the company he shared it with as he had teasingly told Mikasa on the first day they arrived, earning himself an adorable blush in the process. It seemed like an earthly paradise, an ideal world the two of them could have a future in, even if that future was only 4 years long.

The cabin too was seemingly waiting for the both of them, well stocked with funds, preserved foods and even some well-fitting clothes for Eren. Everything else they needed they purchased from a nearby village a few miles away, untouched by the Rumbling and living in blissful isolation from the endless wars and politicking the rest of the world was so mired in.

The two of them had settled into their new domestic life with unparalleled speed, falling back into the same habits as when they were just kids living together in Shiganshina. They would hunt, fish, and cook together just as they had before Wall Maria fell that day, with some changes. In his guilt for beginning the Rumbling and trampling over the lives of millions he had found work assisting the local doctor, using the medical knowledge he acquired from his father's memories, eager to heal for once in his life rather than destroy.

Mikasa even managed to get him involved in their newly rekindled hobby of gardening, starting when Eren, returning from one of his fishing trips with dinner in tow, stumbled upon a grove of purple bellflowers in a nearby clearing. Recalling how much Mikasa loved those flowers even as a child, he stopped to pick a handful of the exotic blooms in an impulsive flight of fancy to give as a token of his love.

"Beautiful flowers, for the most beautiful girl in the world." He had said to her, to his own unending embarrassment, pulling the improvised bouquet of bellflowers from behind his back. If he could cringe to death he certainly would've. Still, she adored it, both the flowers and those unbearably sappy words of his. The giddy smile and scarlet blush that adorned her face as she searches the cozy cabin for a vase to hold the flowers in.

"Oh, Eren, they're so lovely. Thank you." The flowers were nice looking to be sure, but even on the best of days they weren't even remotely as beautiful to behold as Mikasa Ackerman smiling at him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. And all it took was just a couple measly flowers.

The very next day, he had visited the florist in the nearby town of Freiheitstadt to purchase seeds for aspiring gardeners. Purely coincidental, of course.

It was ironic in a way, how after all of his struggles for freedom and the pain Eren had endured to achieve that, that he would finally find the closest thing to contentment he ever felt in his life by giving up the fight, for once in his life. Even better still was how happy Mikasa was at the arrangement, despite his lifespan slowly ticking away. He had always been mystified by her rare, soft smiles, even being willing to punch an abnormal titan bare-handed to preserve it, but ever since the two of them began their new life together he had found himself turning into a lovestruck fool at an alarming rate.

Even more bizarre to him was how quickly Eren had adapted to the role of Mikasa's lover. While the two of them were travelling together he had taken to his newfound relationship with the same enthusiasm he held for his other passions.

He wasted no time experimenting with kisses and lewd touches at nights, eager to draw out those moans and whimpers from the supposedly stoic Ackerman he was now addicted to hearing. Still, Eren would force himself to be as gentle and as cautious as possible with her, knowing her innate shyness and troubled history. The last thing he would ever want was to ruin the best thing that ever happened to him because he couldn't settle down. He'd hurt her far too much already.

He probably would have been just as awkward too, if it weren't for some of the memories he inherited from the Attack Titan being "less than innocent".

The night they had found their little cabin was the turning point in their relationship. Surprisingly, it was Mikasa that made the first move, defeating her own awkwardness and all but demanded that the two of them make the cabin truly "theirs". Before the two of them had made do without going "all the way", Mikasa too shy and Eren too afraid of hurting her. Still, despite being both hardened soldiers, they were still at their core young, in love and eager to make up for lost time.

Neither of them got any sleep that night, and Eren finally understood that freedom means nothing if not shared with the one you love most of all.

Their utopian life in the mountains had continued for years, Mikasa building a home just like the one she had always dreamed off and Eren following in his father's footsteps as a doctor and honouring his mother's last wish for him to protect Mikasa. Of course, there was guilt involved with the atrocities Eren had committed in his battle against the world and abandoning their friends to pick up the pieces of the world but neither of them could find it in their hearts to regret it.

It was two years after they had first deserted their responsibilities and ran away when they received news of the successful end to the hostilities between the nation of Eldia and humanity. Even a place as out of the way in the mountains as Schwyz could not escape the end of a 2000 year long war. There, in the newspaper headlines, was a picture of the brave peacemakers who "stopped" the rumbling and made it all possible.

And most peculiarly in that picture stood Reiner Braun, Annie Leonhardt and Pieck Finger, all alive and well one whole year after their supposed "expiration date".

Eren's demise in 4 years was an inevitability, and they both knew it. The two of them had understood that Eren was living on borrowed time and strove to make the best of the little time they had together without fear of the unknown. But now, with the 3 warriors that by all rights ought to have been dead a year ago, the fear returned with a vengeance, fear that could only come from the audacity of hope that the two of them could finally have a future together.

The very next day on his hunting trip, Eren had "accidentally" sliced his hand with a knife. Focusing his energy as he had hundreds of times before, he attempted to regenerate the shallow wound, trying desperately to not get his hopes up as he awaited the telltale steam that followed the shifter's healing factor.

A minute passed. And then another. And then another. The blood still flowed freshly from the wound.

Eren cried.


His eyes snapped awake and he immediately rose from his slumber, as usual. It seems that no matter how much time passed, his military training and habits would never leave him. Although, he always had the uncanny ability to wake up at ungodly hours in the morning with a spring in his step. It wasn't like he even had work to go to.

The clinic wasn't open on Sundays, so he had nothing in particular to do besides share a lazy morning indoors with his beloved. Speaking of which, she was noticeably absent from her usual place in the mornings peacefully snoozing and cuddling up to his side with her arms wrapped around his chest in a tight hold. She may not have her supernatural strength anymore, but she still had the ability to hold him down as if he would disappear if she ever let go.

As if that would ever happen. He wasn't going anywhere, not anymore.

He was torn from his musings by the sweet smell that comes with baking emanating from downstairs, as well as telltale humming that he knew intimately for more than a decade now.

Oh, so that's what she was doing.

He wasted no time carefully opening the bedroom door and stealthily made his way down the stairs into his beloved's territory, the kitchen. There she was, evidently baking a quite delicious smelling cake and humming to herself, lost in her own little world. She hadn't noticed him yet. What would Instructor Shadis say about such sloppy spatial awareness, especially from such a prodigy.

That gave him an idea.

Putting all his training to good use, he snaked his arms around his woman and pressed a soft kiss to her neck, drawing out a squeak of surprise and a scarlet blush on her cheeks.

"E-Eren!" Never gets old.

She playfully swatted at him with her free hand, showing off the only piece of jewelry she ever wore. It was a solid gold band around her ring finger that matched his, a band that marked her as one Mikasa Yeager and one of her most prized possessions alongside a certain red scarf of hers.

"Something smells good, what's the occasion?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten again!?"

"I just want to hear you say it." Mikasa rolls her eyes, but she can't hide the amused giggle and acquiesces to his childish antics. She sighs, turns to him and takes his lips in her own in a passionate kiss. Pulling away first, she whispers to him.

"Happy 24th birthday, Eren…"