Eren's bones were brittle and weak. His breath rattled in his lungs, his throat sometimes so dry, he'd fall into a coughing fit from inhaling too fast. His skin felt thin and stretched. His heart that sustained him for a full one hundred and thirty two years, the one that once pounded with a strong beat, was now a weak thump. Sometimes, he'd sit and lay his hand over his chest just to make sure it was still there. His vision was blurred, he could barely make out the faces of his family. His ears weren't so bad. Nothing like they were in his youth though.

His sense of smell hadn't gone though. Both a boon and burden in his opinion but it was pleasant to have at least one of his senses working with him. Warn him if someone in the house left the stove on, if Hana was about to burst into his room, when the grandkids were over.

However, Eren was still alive. His brain hadn't turned to mush and he hadn't started babbling, thank goodness. He was still alive and even though he couldn't move around on his own anymore, even though most of his friends and family had come and gone, he was alive to see the growth and prosperity of his children. Then his grandchildren, his great grandchildren. He was around when his first great great great grandchild was born. He couldn't have asked for a better gift after the shit he'd gone through in the beginning.

Eren had been present during the climax of two different eras, watched old fall and new rise, technology boom and society shift and change until it was almost nothing like it was before. What a life he's led.

One day, Eren did not fully wake from his sleep. The last thing he remembered was Hana with her husband, both laughing as they told him a story about Alex and Lisa's new child and how they were going crazy. Eren fell asleep chuckling with them, his throat sore after telling stories to rambunctious little ones about his days in the army.

He must've fallen asleep because there was nothing after that. At the moment, he could distantly hear Hana's frantic cries and Carla's soft voice, whispering soothing tones to her daughter.

Then Carla was whispering to him. Or her voice was just too quiet for him to really hear.

"Papa? Papa, are you okay? Can you hear me? It's Carla, it's your daughter. Can you open your eyes for me Papa."

Eren couldn't, he couldn't open his eyes. They felt incredibly heavy and his eyes burned from the strain of staying awake for so long yesterday. Everything in Eren was tired.

Instead of opening his eyes, he picked up his hand. It was like a lead weight. Was he feeling like this yesterday? He wasn't. It wasn't nearly as hard to move then. He grasped blindly for where he hoped Carla was.

Another hand with a stronger grip wrapped around his. Carla's voice came back, Hana's shouts, a few more that added to the jumble of noises, but Eren could no longer make out what they were saying. If his senses were dulled before, they were almost gone now. He noted that he couldn't actually tell if Carla's hands were still smooth like Hana's or wrinkled like his. Memory told him they were still smooth.

Was Eren dying? Hana's shouts were gone now? Why? His grandchildren were all loud ones. The day they were quiet was...

"Papa?"

The only word that he could hear now. Everything else ran together. Carla must've been close if he could still hear her.

What could he say, now that these were most likely his last moments? He'd spent years ensuring he had no regrets left in life. He accomplished the goals he set out to do and he lived prosperously, doing nothing in the last fifty years but helping his family grow and thrive. What could a man that has it all possibly say to their only daughter on his deathbed? Something that Carla couldn't already know?

A thought came to mind. He was present for his great great great grandson's birth, as he was for every Jaeger child's birth. It was a momentous moment for him, one that really hit home how old he really was. Eren wouldn't be there for the rest of them though.

He wondered if there was any strength in his arm as he tried to pull the hand closer.

His throat almost didn't work for him, but with a breathy whisper, he said, "Grandpa Eren is proud of you all. Don't stop moving. Keep going. Keep fighting…"

Eren couldn't fit on the last bit he really wanted to say. I love you.

However, she was his child. She was also one hundred years old. He didn't have to say it. The last thing he could feel was a hand on his cheeks and a wetness in his shoulder before all reality simply vanished. Eren fell away into oblivion with a smile.

There was nothing for a long time, or what felt like a long time. He was simply consciousness that drifted in nothingness. In order to pass the time, Eren sifted through his memories, reliving the brightest and happiest moments.

There were so many years to go through. He went back to the time where Carla Jaeger, his mother Carla Jaeger, still scolded him and pulled his ears when he told a lie. His father in the background, hiding his smile behind a newspaper. He watched as a young Eren pulled two familiar faces through a crowd, running and laughing.

Those young faces grew to become more recognizable, the man and woman he grew up with and braved many obstacles in life with. He visited the mistake he made and the heart he broke, but it was a wondrous little girl that came from those dark times, grew to become someone great.

Then Carla, his daughter, had children of her own.

Eren reached the end of his life. When he looked up, he realized that he was no longer just consciousness in nothingness but actually a physical someone who was somewhere. Looking down at his hands, he noted their smoothness, lack of scars and calluses. They were smaller and pudgier than he remembered.

Before him were still his memories, but now they were physically captured in a sparkling river that twisted across a sandy landscape. Face of his loved ones passed by as the water continued to flow.

There were branches, little streams that broke off from his life, filled with memories he didn't recognize. Alternate paths, he assumed. Ones he wasn't interested in. Afterall, he lived life with no regrets. There was nothing he wanted to change.

Eren looked away from the river. The sandy dunes didn't allow him to see far in the distance so with one last look at both smiling Carlas and his long dead best friends, Eren turned away and kept walking.

Making his way over one dune, he ran into another river. Unlike his, he couldn't see much into it. Only glimpse and flashes. He gathered one thing though. It was literally a world with flying cars and Star Wars-esque vibes. It had about a thousand more branches than his river did as well. With a grimace, he walked away from it.

Eren wandered for a long time. He noticed that the rivers included him in many of them. Some were Armin's life, some were Mikasa's. None of them really looked like his Armin and Mikasa though. Small details that set them apart. In some cases, the river belonged to someone he remembered meeting in passing or someone he didn't recognize all together. He didn't bother sticking around those for long.

At some point, he crossed a river that was his again. However, he could see nothing but one memory in it. Small versions, the childhood versions of him, Armin and Mikasa, laughing and smiling. The branches were all blank and there were nearly as many of them as in any of the other branches.

That lone memory coursed down the river before it reached a pool and dissipated. It was actually the end of the river. Eren watched for a while, to see if anything else would appear. Nothing. Strangely, it was the same smiling memory that eventually made its course to the pool again. Waiting only brought the same result.

Wandering around for a little while longer brought him to the realization that none of the other rivers had pools at the end of them. They simply ended. He made his way back to the river with the pool and single memory. Instead of walking forward though, he walked back, towards the beginning. He passed the smiling memory many times but nothing else, walked through small streams that were devoid of life and kept going. He felt no fatigue, did not need water or food, simply kept going.

For a long time, that's all Eren did. It took longer to reach the beginning than it did to sift through the memories of a dozen different rivers. He made it though. Eventually, he reached it.

He didn't exactly know if it could be considered the beginning though. Before him, at the base of the river, was another pool. The water was obviously flowing from the pool. That same memory that dissipated at the end would form here.

Eren considered the stupidity of entering the pool. He'd avoided touching the memories of the rivers thus far, knowing, instinctually, that doing so would cause something to happen. But he was curious. This river, unlike the others, with only a single image in the flowing water, caught his interest. He could not gleam the kind of life this version of him lived, did not know who else existed in the waters except his best friends, wondered why the same memory continued as if on some kind of loop.

"Curiosity killed the cat," he murmured to himself. He'd already lived once. What was there to lose? He waded into the water, the level reaching all the way up to his shoulders. It felt cool, refreshing.

Then the memory came and when it reached him, he once again fell into oblivion.

When Eren next felt consciousness, his once dulled senses were overwhelmed and the first thing he did was cry.

"Here, Carla. This is our son."

"He's beautiful. My baby boy's beautiful. What should we name him?"

"How about Eren? Eren Jaeger."