Author's Note: So, this is gonna be more of a transitional chapter so I can figure out pacing for the rest of this story. Let me know what you guys think! Big thanks to Emprexyl and Guest for your reviews!

Emprexyl - Ahh that's super helpful! Thank you! I'm gonna mess around with the pacing a little bit and see what feels more natural.

Guest - I'm so glad you like it! Really appreciate you! And yes, poor Erwin is always left out in the cold. -sob-

Chapter 6

Year 843:

"Does it hurt?" Cassandra asked, putting her hand gently on the swollen bump. Beth gasped and Cassandra immediately retracted her hand, fearing she had done irreparable harm. The blond laughed and grabbed her hands.

"No, sorry! Your hands are just freezing!" Beth pulled them to her face and breathed on them, rubbing them together vigorously. It was a pleasant sensation. Cassandra's hands were notoriously cold. Zeke would often complain about them. When she was especially frustrated with him, she would lay them across the back of his neck, sending a visible shiver down his spine and successfully grabbing his attention. He would put aside his studies and his work and agree to tell her stories. Zeke always told the best stories: fantastical ones, ones with heroes, and knights, and princesses locked away in tall towers under the guard of evil magic. She missed his stories. "Alright, try it again."

"Are you sure?" There was a clear hint of concern in her voice, even if her face failed to show it.

"I'm sure." Beth replied with a gentle smile. She knew her friend all too well by now, and her lack of emotions didn't bother her much. She knew Cassandra was a kind, caring person. Cassandra moved both of her hands to Beth's stomach and rubbed them over the firmed thing. "If you want to feel the baby kick, move your hands lower." She guided them to her lower abdomen and they waited patiently. Cassandra jumped visibly when she felt a tiny, yet forceful, amount of pressure against her palm. Beth laughed at her. "That was the baby." she explained. She tilted her head, eyes alert as she stared at Beth's stomach with hands cautiously approaching the bump once again. "You remind me of my cat. I've really missed you, you know. I'm glad you're home for a while, even if it is just a week." Cassandra gently laid her hands on her stomach once again and felt another kick. It was strange but wondrous. There was a tiny human living inside of her friend.

"Beth…." She had been made aware of pregnancies. She had seen pregnant women in the internment camp before. "How did you get pregnant?" But she wasn't quite sure what caused them. Would it happen to her, too? Was it like her period? Where she would wake up one day in a panic over the blood? It had terrified her. She had rushed to Zeke's bed and shaken him until he woke. She had explained her ailment through sobs and asked him if she was dying. Zeke had been far more frightened than her. Their grandparents had caught him trying to carry her to the hospital in the middle of the night. He had tears in his eyes as well, and he stuttered trying to explain the unbearable pain below her stomach and the blood that was gushing out of her. Their grandparents had laughed and it had angered him. 'Zeke! It's her menstrual cycle!' their grandfather had explained through chuckles. 'She's fine, I promise! It happens to women every month once they mature.'

"Um…probably my wedding night. I'm not sure. It happened pretty soon after we were married." Beth hypothesized.

"How do you know it was your wedding night?" Cassandra inquired.

"Well, I don't, but the timeline matches."

"Did you eat something?" she asked innocently, looking up at her friend.

"What?" Beth didn't understand the question.

"To get pregnant." Cassandra pushed.

"No, I don't believe in any of that stuff. We just did it the old-fashion way." the blond proudly declared with a smirk.

"What's the old-fashion way?" Cassandra returned her green eyes to Beth's stomach, patiently waiting for another kick. Beth let out a small laugh followed by a moment of silence, presumably in which Cassandra was supposed to laugh.

"It's sex." she explained plainly.

"Sex?" Another curious look from innocent green eyes. Beth's jaw dropped.

"You haven't learned about sex, yet? You're sixteen." She thought about how quickly the end of the year was approaching. "Almost seventeen!" Cassandra shook her head. "Do me a favor, ask Keith and let me know what his reaction is. Then I'll explain it to you!" Beth said with a mischievous laugh.

"Okay." Cassandra replied.

"What's sex?" Cassandra asked, breaking the lone sound of utensils scraping against bowls of food. A small moan escaped Keith as he accidentally inhaled a few grains of rice. He coughed loudly, trying to force them out of the wrong pipe. It took him a few minutes, and when he turned back to Cassandra, meeting her innocent green eyes, he found himself getting angry.

"Did someone at the Survey Corps ask you that?!" he demanded, wanting to know what loathsome man would dare try to take advantage of her. They would be punished swiftly and severely.

"No." Cassandra replied, turning back to her food. "My friend Beth is pregnant. She said she did it the old-fashion way: sex." Keith cleared his throat uncomfortably, taking a gulp of water. It didn't help matters any. He went back for the rest of the glass, finding himself woefully ill-prepared for the conversation. She was getting older. He should have known to discuss it, but to him, she was still the small child he had discovered outside the walls: sweet and innocent. Had she really grown so much in four years?

"Um…well, it's…." He scratched his chin in thought. "It's an act between two people." He reached for an example, but there wasn't quite anything like it.

"An act?"

"Kind of like kissing." he explained. "But it's not kissing." Cassandra's eyebrows twitched in confusion and she tilted her head at him. "It's like…o, boy." His palms were sweaty. "When two people love each other—" He stopped himself from the careless cliché. "Why don't we ask Dr. Yeager?" he finally offered.

"That's okay." Cassandra replied, turning away again. "I don't want to bother him. I can just ask Beth." Keith felt uncomfortable. He was glad to have the burden lifted off him, but suddenly uneasy at it being placed on a girl he did not know. What if this Beth was promiscuous? What would she tell Cassandra? No, it should be someone that he trusted to appropriately warn her of the dangers of sex.

"Keep your voices down!" Keith hissed at the hysterical women. Their laughter refused to subside, and he suddenly regretted ever mentioning the matter to them.

"I'm—I'm sorry, commander." Nanaba stuttered through her fits of laughter, doubled over and holding her stomach in gleeful pain. "It's just—" The snickers began again, exploding into uproarious sounds that forced her to kneel on the ground.

"Okay, okay…." Hange said, wiping a tear from her eye and desperately trying to catch her breath. She began chuckling again. Keith glared at her. Nanaba finally stood, her face red and hair fallen forward. She pulled it back, tucking the blond locks behind her ears and took a deep breath, a wide smile still firmly planted on her face.

"I'm sorry, commander." Nanaba continued her previous failed attempt at communication. "I just didn't expect our first assignment back from our week off to be this."

"I really need her to hear it from someone I trust." Keith explained. "Someone who can warn her about all the dangers."

"Someone who can tell her how scummy all the guys around her are, and how she's too precious for this world, so no man will ever be good enough for her?" Hange extrapolated with a smirk. Keith wanted to deny it, but it wasn't that far off from how he felt. He had truly come to see Cassandra as a daughter, and he loved her like his own. It didn't matter that she had been some nameless thing outside the walls. She was his kin now. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see a single man as worthy of her. Especially no one in the Survey Corps.

"Don't worry, commander. We'll set her straight!" Nanaba replied with a rough pat to Keith's shoulder. Hange gave him a smile and a thumbs up as she followed her colleague out of the mess hall and to Cassandra's office. "Hm? She's not here." Nanaba said, glancing around the room.

"Probably checking in on Erwin. Let's try next door." Hange speculated. The pair made their way to Erwin's office, knocking only as a formality, but entering well in advance of Erwin's expressed permission.

"Come in." he said with a small glare toward the women who were already at his desk. Cassandra stepped down from a chair she had been using to reach the dust on the high shelves of Erwin's office. Nanaba smirked at the sight. Erwin would truly be lost without her. She had taken up every annoying task that he hated. Cleaning, cooking, organizing, filing, even reviewing reports. She had become his backbone, freeing him up to focus on more important tasks.

"Cassandra!" Nanaba called in a sing song voice, throwing her arm around her much shorter squad mate.

"Good afternoon, Nanaba." Cassandra replied in her usual monotone voice.

"Hey, I'm taking her for a while." the blond stated to Erwin over her shoulder, in a much less cordial tone. "So, Keith tells me you've yet to learn about the birds and the bees!" Her voice regained some whimsical quality as she led the young girl out of the room.

"I know about birds and bees." Cassandra responded innocently. The door shut behind them.

"What's going on?" Erwin asked with a raised eyebrow. Hange uncrossed her arms and turned to Erwin, leaning over his desk with an uncontainable grin.

"O, nothing! Just that Keith asked Nanaba and I to educate his precious little Cassandra about sex."

"Sex?" Erwin asked, further pushing up his brow.

"That's right. Apparently, she has no idea what it is." Of course, she didn't. Goddesses have no need for such a thing. The bit of information only further solidified Cassandra's mythical standing in Erwin's mind. He returned to his paperwork, scratching away at the lines in front of him. "So, of course, we were contracted to tell her how precious her virginity is. How it should be protected from the leering and wandering eyes of malcontent men. It should be held for the man she marries." The scratching stopped and Erwin gave Hange another confused look.

"But…neither you nor Nanaba believe that." Erwin had never come across more sexually liberal woman than as those in the Survey Corps. "Did Keith not know that?" Hange gave him a mischievous smile, bringing her index finger up to her lips as a sign for him to keep their secret. He chuckled at her. "You're so wrong."

"I should join them before things get too out of hand. See you!" Hange gave him a small wave and wandered next door where Nanaba and Cassandra sat in two chairs facing each other. Hange sat up on the desk next to them, bringing her foot up and resting her elbow on her knee.

"So…the penis is inserted into the vagina?" Cassandra looked down at her lap, probably trying to visualize how such an event would occur. "Doesn't it hurt?"

"Not if the guy knows what he's doing." Nanaba replied. "That's why you have foreplay."

"Foreplay?"

"Yea, actions you take to stimulate the body properly for insertion. It helps the guy maintain his erection and it helps the girl lubricate her vagina so it can stretch properly."

"Maintaining an erection takes way less effort—" Hange started.

"If any." Nanaba interrupted.

"If any—" Hange agreed with a nod. "than keeping a vagina lubricated. So, don't ever let a guy skip out on foreplay." she advised.

"What is it?" Cassandra asked.

"It can be anything that you like, from kissing to hugging to caressing. More commonly it's whatever you do when you masturbate." Cassandra stared back in confusion. "Don't tell me you've never masturbated." Her eyebrows twitched slightly and she shook her head. "Well, next time you're in bed, just put your hand between your legs and start rubbing. You'll figure it out." Nanaba waved off the concern. "So, it's usually stuff like rubbing your clitoris, which is a small sex organ, about the size of a pea, under the clitoral hood near the top of your vaginal lips." Cassandra nodded, taking mental notes. "It can also include fingering, which is when someone using their finger to simulate what you typically would with a penis. Then, there's oral sex." Nanaba figured the name was descriptive enough, not bothering to go over the details of it.

"Who are you supposed to have sex with?"

"Someone you like. Someone you trust." Hange explained.

"Family members excluded." Nanaba quickly added, remembering the less than familial relationship between Cassandra and Keith. She was sure the commander would have her head if a mix-up like that occurred.

"Why?"

"Well…." Hange tapped her chin. "It could be for many different reasons. You could do it just for fun because it feels good. You could do it to show the other person how much you like them and how much you care about them. You could do it to have children."

"O, yea! Thanks for reminding me, Hange." Nanaba smacked Hange's leg. "Don't let a guy orgasm inside of you if you don't want to get pregnant." Another confused tilt of her head. Nanaba nodded understandingly. "Guys release semen when they orgasm, it's this thick, sticky, white stuff. It can get you pregnant, so insist they pull out."

"Do girls—"

"No, they don't have semen. They do orgasm though."

"What does it feel like?"

"O, man." Nanaba leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Amazing. There's no describing it. It's just the best." It peeked Cassandra's curiosity. "Try masturbating and see if you can make yourself orgasm. It's usually good to know what you like before you hop into bed with a guy and expect him to figure it out. They can be pretty clueless."

"Okay…." Cassandra stared down at the ground, trying to organize the information in her head. "Do you just ask them?"

"That's usually a good way of going about it." Nanaba confirmed. "Or you could seduce them, if you're too embarrassed to ask."

"How?"

"Little things. You could wear something that exposes your body like a low-cut top or a short skirt. You could touch them gently." Nanaba leaned over and brushed her fingers across Cassandra's cheekbone before tucking a lock of her long, black bangs that framed her face behind her ear. "You could push your pelvis against them when you hug. There's all sorts of things you can do to hint sexual interest." Cassandra nodded. "Can you think of anything else, Hange?"

"Hm, not really. O, just don't ever do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable—which is why it's important to pick a partner you trust. You don't want to get hurt." Hange said.

"Yea, if you don't like something, tell them to stop." Nanaba agreed. "Other than that, if you have any questions, let us know." The two women stood, waving goodbye and leaving Cassandra alone with her thoughts. Someone I like…someone I trust. She had someone in mind.