"Working with Eren", as Hange had phrased it, proved to be a far more exhausting and far less exciting than Antonia had pictured it to be.

After Sawny and Bean had been killed by an unknown soldier, Eren had become Hange's centre of attention. Needless to say, Antonia felt sorry for the teenager.

While Hange, fortunately, did not plan on torturing the young cadet the way she had the late Sawny and Bean, she was more than eager to discover the possibilities and limitations of his shifting abilities.

She could not really blame her squad leader for her tireless effort of attempting to find out as much as she could with the limited time they had before the next expedition. After all, they were supposed to show that Eren could be a valuable asset to humanity in only a few weeks.

Hence, she sat next to Hange as she interrogated Eren for hours, tasked with meticulously taking notes on anything the boy answered.

How fast do your wounds normally heal, Eren? Do they heal faster now than they did before you shifted into a titan? Did you ever break a bone? What do you remember about your transformations? What is the last thing you remember from before? How did you feel before you transformed? What do you think triggers your transformation? How did your body feel when you woke up after your last transformation?

Hange's sheer endless stream of questions did not amount to much. Antonia soon felt herself grow tired of waiting for things worth writing down.

The young boy who was seated in front of them seemed to grow more and more frustrated with each question he did not know the answer to. His wide green eyes looked anxious, and he bit on his chapped lower lip whenever Hange asked him another question.

Antonia felt sorry for the kid.

In the end, she had only filled one page with the few definite answers Eren could provide. He had never broken a bone in his body, and he thought that his wounds used to heal at a normal pace before he first shifted into a titan. He didn't really remember anything about the transformation, but he was somehow sure that experiencing physical harm triggered the transformation.

"Alright, Eren, I think that's enough theory for today. I think tomorrow, we'll start with the experiments. I'll discuss things with Levi."

If Eren had been relieved to hear that Hange would stop bombarding him with questions, he quickly tensed up when he heard Levi's name.

Without further ado, her squad leader left Antonia alone with the troubled-looking boy whose gaze was now fixated on his hands as he began to pick his cuticles.

Now it was Antonia's turn to chew on her lower lip as she tried to conjure up the right words to say.

"I'm sorry for today, Eren. Hange means well, but she can be intense."

She watched the boy's eyes widen, apparently her attempt to say something comforting had not succeeded.

"You don't need to be sorry," he said, his eyes still averted, "I understand how important this is. I'm sorry that I couldn't be useful."

Antonia suddenly realized that she was talking to a teenager. A teenager who was carrying a tremendous burden and who they had been entrusted with.

"Don't say that. Of course, you were useful. You see, we're just getting started with collecting data. This…", she gestured towards her notes, "is just a first. We'll ask you similar questions after your next transformation and see how everything progresses."

While he did seem less tense, he did not seem entirely convinced by her words. Apparently, she was bad at encouraging teenagers. Although that conclusion seemed too generalizing to her. Perhaps she was bad at encouraging people in general, regardless of their age.

"Can I ask you a question, Antonia?"

"Sure."

"You're friends with captain Levi, right?"

Antonia tried to keep a straight face while her stomach did a somersault. Were they friends? Did it look they were friends?

"Yeah." She decided that any other answer would have been awkward, although she could not imagine that Levi would ever call her a friend if anyone were to ask him. At the same time, she was rather sure that no one would ever ask him anything like that.

"Do you think he…", Eren's voice was laced with uncertainty, "Is he always… Never mind."

Antonia gave him a crooked smile.

"He's always like this, yes. I'd say he's not the most sociable person, but he is a good man," she offered, hoping that she had deciphered Eren's questions more or less accurately.

The boy looked at her imploringly, as if he wanted to assess whether he could trust her judgement before, for the first time today, a shadow of a smile formed on his face.

"This is genius, Hange," said Antonia as she looked at the old dried up well in front of them.

Her squad leader smiled at her praise.

It was simple, really, yet it would have never occurred to her. With Eren shifting in the well, it would be much safer for the special operations squad to cut Eren out of his titan's neck in case he wasn't able to control himself.

Next to her, Moblit produced a hammer and some thick wooden stakes out of his backpack. Levi dropped the corded ladder next to him unceremoniously, startling the young man ever so slightly.

She watched as Moblit, now kneeling on the ground, began to hammer the stakes into the ground under Levi's scrutinizing eyes. A film of sweat became visible on her comrade's forehead and the movement of his hands became hectic.

Poor Moblit.

Wordlessly, Levi squatted down next to him and took the hammer out of his hands. Not even a minute later, the ladder was secured tightly.

The black-haired man stood up and turned around to address the survey corps newest hope.

"You ready, Eren?"

The boy nodded firmly, apparently eager to prove himself.

Antonia offered Moblit a hand which he gratefully accepted. Once he was fully up, he brushed off some grass blades that were stuck to his knees, stealing a glance towards Hange, as if to make sure that she had not been watching him.

Hange's eyes, however, were glued on the boy whose head was about to disappear out of their sight as he made his way down the ladder.

"I'll fire a signal flare when everything's ready, Eren!" Hange's shout echoed down the stony walls.

Meaning, when we are at a safe distance, Antonia thought.

"Alright, thank you!", the boy's thin voice answered.

Thank you, Antonia repeated inwardly and sighed.

She felt as nervous as the cadet sounded. What if Eren's titan was somehow able to get out of the well? Would they have to kill him? Would they even be able to?

Her eyes shot towards Levi. She trusted in his abilities. Yet she really prayed that it would not have to come to that.

"Let's get moving," the black-haired man muttered. Antonia wondered if he was equally tense. She had noticed that he was more tight-lipped than usual today. Although none of them was particularly chatty today.

Once the four of them were as far away as Levi deemed sufficient, he briefly nodded towards Hange who already held the flare gun in her hand.

As they watched the green smoke – the colour of hope, Antonia thought dryly – draw a crooked line across the flawless blue sky, she held her breath.

Agonizing seconds passed and turned into minutes. Slowly, the traces of green faded away and only the smell of a fired gun remained in the air.

"Maybe he didn't see it?" Hange mused loudly.

"That's not it,", Levi sounded as indifferent as he looked.

Antonia exchanged a look with Moblit who had raised his eyebrows in worry. She assumed that she herself looked equally uneasy.

"We're not dealing with the most reliable guy…," Levi added before making his way back to the well. The three of them followed swiftly.

They found Eren in a pitiful state. It took the boy almost ten minutes to climb to the top of the well. Once had had gotten closer to its opening, she could see that he had ripped the skin from his hands when he bit himself.

As soon as the cadet was within reach, she grabbed his lower arms, stemmed her upper legs and hips against the well, and tried to use a combination of strength and body weight to pull him up.

"Wait." Antonia tried her best to ignore her body's response to feeling Levi's body against her side. It was not an ideal time for wobbly legs.

Levi's hand brushed against her left and wrapped itself around Eren's right lower arm, right above his wrist. He immediately held most of Eren's body weight. She moved her hand around Eren's other arm, assuming that using both her hands might balance out the difference in strength.

Slowly and steadily, they managed to get Eren out of the well.

"Are you alright, Eren?" she asked once he stood on solid ground again.

"I'm sorry," the boy could not meet their eyes, "I can't turn into a titan."

"It's alright," she said and felt Levi burn holes into the back of her head, "it was just a first try. We'll figure it out."

"Toni's right, Eren, we'll figure it out," Hange came to her support, "let me check your hands… Moblit, do you have any gauze?".

As her squad leader and Moblit led the boy away, Levi grabbed her shoulder and, with light, yet somehow rigid pressure, forced her to turn around.

She did not need to look at his face to know that he was angry. The irritation was palpable in the air around him. Yet, the way his eyebrows were pulled closely together, and his eyes were squinted, was more expressive than the mask of indifference he usually wore.

It was fascinating and terrifying. Antonia tried to slowly exhale in order to calm her nerves and reminded herself that she was not the reason for his wrath, although she sure felt like its target. Moreover, she tried to ignore the hand that still remained on her shoulder and the fact that it made her feel like she had just missed a step when walking down the stairs.

"You're angry." She stated the obvious.

"No kidding." He muttered lowly. "It's not alright. If the brat cannot transform, we won't be able to close the wall and get back any of the territory. We don't have time to coddle the boy." Antonia felt his grip on her shoulder tighten "If he doesn't transform, the military police will pick him apart. Either way, our efforts to get him into the survey corps will go to shit."

She slowly rose her hand and grabbed his fingers that now exerted a slightly uncomfortable pressure on the already tense muscles of her shoulder. His skin felt warm and dry, and somewhat rough.

Her action seemed to throw him completely off balance – well, maybe not completely, but she watched his eyes widen in surprise, and, after a few seconds, he drew his hand away. But in her books, it seemed like a comparably strong reaction, and she tried her best to disguise the fact that her heart had just skipped a beat.

"Sorry." He averted his eyes for a moment before putting on his usual aloof expression. The only trace of his anger remained in his steely eyes. She wondered if he in fact felt less angry or if he had just reminded himself to mask it more thoroughly.

"Don't worry about it." She attempted to sound reassuring and relaxed, hoping that is would never occur to him that she had enjoyed the physical contact.

Antonia wanted to tell him that it was alright to be angry and that his worries were valid. That he did not need to mask his emotions. But she was rather certain that he would not appreciate being coddled by her.

"You're right. Eren has to transform. For everyone's sake and especially his own," she watched him squint his eyes ever so slightly as he waited for her opposing argument, "but we also have to accept the facts. We know that Eren is able to transform because he did it twice in the span of one day a couple of weeks ago. Today, it did not work despite him almost biting his hands off. That means, our experiment was missing something that Eren experienced in Trost. I'd say, we're close, but we're just missing a piece of information."

"Being close is not good enough," he replied to her monologue. Antonia wanted to roll her eyes at his stubbornness, but she was wise enough to not act out on that impulse.

"I guess so. But Eren's doing his best. And Hange, Moblit and I as well. I think we're all aware of the urgency."

And you're also doing your best, she thought.

Instead of an answer, he just sighed.

"Let's go back," she smiled at him, "maybe the others have made some tea."

"What are we missing?"

The way Hange was hanging upside down from the branch reminded her of a bat. She assumed that her squad leader hoped that a rush of blood to the head would increase her focus. Although Antonia imagined that, if any of them asked her, she would say something about 'putting things into perspective'.

However, neither of them seemed tempted to ask. Her squad had assembled around and on the branches of the tree, in whatever position they deemed the most comfortable – or the least uncomfortable. Time seemed to pass as slowly as they all wrecked their brains for ideas.

Antonia sat cross-legged on a particularly thick branch and leaned against the trunk, not too far from Hange. She could not help worrying that her squad leader might at some point begin to feel dizzy and fall down headfirst. Moblit, possibly motivated by a similar train of thought, had chosen to sit on a branch below the one that Hange was hanging from.

Lauda and Nifa, on the other hand, were sitting in the grass, absentmindedly staring into the sky. From the corner of her eye, she could watch Nifa rip out some grass blades and daisies as she tried to keep her hands occupied. Lauda used his fingers to comb through his ponytail. Rashad, who was sitting somewhere above her, nervously moved one of his feet up and down.

"Maybe we should just repeat the experiment," Keiji's voice grumbled from above.

"And have Eren just eat his hands this time?" Abel immediately replied. She could not fully locate him, but she assumed that he must have been somewhere further up on the opposite side of the tree.

"Don't his limbs grow back?" Keiji asked, but immediately backpedalled, "I know, I know, you're right."

Antonia did have an idea how they might get Eren to transform, but it did not seem like a good idea to her.

"Maybe he needs to think that his life is in danger," she uttered in one breath, trying to get the words out as quickly as possible.

While Keiji hummed in approval, she could feel the other's eyes on her. Antonia was rather sure that they did not like the idea. Avoiding their eyes, she inspected the bark of the branch she was seated on as if it was particularly interesting.

"We can't just throw him into a dangerous situation," Nifa said calmly.

"But if he just thinks that he is in danger…" Lauda began.

"What is Eren most scared of, besides titans, I mean?" Hange interrupted him.

A few seconds passed before Moblit quietly said "Captain Levi."

Hange's loud laughter rang through the air.

"Poor Eren. But yeah, that might just work. Good work, everyone."

Their squad leader managed to successfully shoot the grapple hooks of her gear into one of the branches above her – without hitting any members of her squad – and slowly let herself down to the ground.

"Let's ask Levi if he's onboa-"

She was interrupted by the deafening sound of an explosion.

Through the leaves, Antonia saw a lightning bolt. Immediately, she made her way to the ground and began to run as fast as she could.

As she rushed towards the source of the noise, Antonia was glad for the fact that she, while she had her shortcomings, was a fast runner.

Within a minute, she exited the forest. Heavy-looking steam obscured her view of whatever had happened and caused her to ignore the fact that her lungs screamed in pain from the exertion.

She would rather throw up from exhaustion than allowing herself to arrive even a second later than possible if Eren had really transformed outside of the well.

When she got closer, she saw that a figure, most likely Eren, was sitting on some kind of deformed pile while another, short figure, stood in front of this pile and four people surrounded them in a half circle.

This did not look too bad. No titan-Eren in sight.

The second she began to feel relief and slowed her pace, she noticed that the four people, the members of the special operations squad, had their blades drawn.

She inwardly corrected herself. This looked very bad.

"Calm down." Levi's voice, however, sounded undeterred by his subordinates' aggressive stance.

When she finally arrived, two of the figures, Eld and Gunther, had expanded the circle and now faced Eren, who appeared to be stuck in an eery-looking decomposing ribcage he must have created.

"Gunther? Eld?" she addressed the two "What are you doing?". If she had not been so out of breath, she was sure her voice would have sounded confident and respect-inducing.

"Step away, Antonia, Eren transformed into a titan!" Eld shouted while Gunther did not even spare her a glance. Instead, he yelled at Eren, urging the boy to prove that he was not an enemy of humanity.

Antonia furrowed her brows in confusion. Eren looked, well, stuck, in that ribcage. On top of that, he seemed afraid.

Still trying to catch her breath, she stepped closer – and saw Levi turn his head sideways and look towards her over his shoulder. She tried to read his expression, to discern any indication of what he might want her to do – but to no avail.

A moment later, his attention was back on Petra who was begging him to move away from Eren and Oulou, who was threatening to kill the boy.

"He's scared." Antonia stated in a stern voice. You're scaring him, she wanted to add accusingly.

Her words, however, fell on deaf ears as the member of the special operations squad continued to shout at the boy and waved their blades.

Finally, Eren seemed to have had enough and yelled back. Although his request was phrased rather politely, the mood among the squad seemed to get even more tense when Eren asked them to please be quiet.

Antonia felt the mood shift. They'll attack him.

Strangely, it reminded her of the first time she had seen the boy in the courthouse. People were accusing him without listening to him, and once he snapped back, things escalated. It wasn't a good pattern, really.

Immediately, she set into motion and threw another look at Levi. The black-haired man once again caught her glance and this time, he briefly shook his head before he took a step back to get closer to Eren.

She stopped in her tracks, feeling incompetent and desperate.

Levi would not allow them to harm Eren, but he was alone, and they were armed.

"He's scared." She repeated, thankfully no longer out of breath and much louder than before, "He's scared, and he's stuck in that thing."

She saw Petra look at Eren and then slowly lower her blade whereas Oulou just blew her a raspberry.

"Don't be soft and let him fool you!" Maybe she had expected too much.

The two soldiers in front of her, however, kept their backs towards her and showed to indication that her words had reached them.

"You are disobeying the orders of your superior and raising your weapons against him." Antonia tried a different approach.

In front of her, Eld tensed at her words. She watched as he lowered his blade a fraction, turned his head to look at Gunther, and – watched him get knocked over by Antonia's overly enthusiastic squad leader.

Hange ruthlessly pushed the dark-haired man aside and Antonia could not help to feel satisfied when the comrade that had consequently ignored her, lost his balance and bumped into Eld.

"Can I touch it, Eren? Can I touch that arm? It's alright if I do, right? I'm just gonna touch it!"

And just like that, all of them were frozen and watched speechlessly as Hange put her hands on a steaming hot titan arm.

Her squad leader certainly had a hidden talent for diffusing tension.

When Eren finally pulled his arm out of his half-transformation, much to Antonia's relief and Hange's dismay, they finally found the missing piece:

A teaspoon.

"You should spit it out before it gives you constipation."

"Rude." Antonia grinned and she could have sworn that the left corner of lips twitched. "But as you wish. I told you so."

"Better?" Levi raised his eyebrows at her.

"Very much so."

"Good." His gaze drifted off as he got lost in thought, his fingertips absentmindedly following the rim of his cup of tea.

Antonia used the chance to stare at his face. Delicate was still the first adjective that came to her mind when she tried to describe his features.

It sounded pathetic, even in her mind, but it seemed like his face was sculptured out of marble. She registered the fine lines that were beginning to show on his forehead and that the dark circles under his eyes had become deeper during the past weeks. His thin lips looked pale and chapped.

He did not seem to be doing well.

When Antonia looked into his grey eyes, he stared right back to her. She felt caught.

"What?"

"How are you feeling?" He squinted his eyes at her question.

"Fine."

Antonia nodded and took a sip of her tea.