They took the slow route back to their sleeping quarters—up staircases, down long corridors, through doors Eren hadn't even realized were there. It felt like the four of them were walking for an eternity and for all of it, every last second, a taut part of Eren's brain insisted that Irwin would appear at any moment, violently demanding to know what they thought they were doing. Of course, nothing like that occurred and as Eren passed more and more spirits he realized that they'd be the least likely to get into trouble, grudge or no grudge.

With the fear from Irwin's presence dissipating the workers were simply crumbling. They sat and sagged together, much as Eren's group was doing, moving only because they leaned their shoulders together and counterbalanced one another— all of them and none of them carrying their own weight, another's weight, and no weight at all. Eren saw six cat spirits curled into one ball. Their eyes were open but they'd lost all ability to focus and Eren thought, "Yeah. I get that." Some were moving, aimlessly, while others had given up and just plopped their butts down. For those still interested in conversation it was all the same: the ancient sprit who'd come to their bathhouse and the human who'd waited on him. The gold he'd left behind.

Though that wasn't the only thing Dot had left. Eren gently touched the bottle hidden beneath his shirt.

Overall the atmosphere was clear—nothing else was happening tonight, everyone could feel it in the air. Their guests were gone, Dot was gone, Irwin, if not gone, was at least out of sight, and as Eren turned his head towards a window he found that even the rain had stopped. They sky was calm and he'd been carried now for a long time.

Eren squirmed in Hanji's arms. "I can walk you know," he muttered. 'Now that there's no water,' went unsaid. But to his surprise, when Eren unlocked his legs from Hanji's waist they just dangled there, his upper body still held tight in her arms. After a lurch of a second he quickly scrambled back up so as not to strangle himself… or look like a total dork. Jean snickered even as Hanji made things worse by patting his head.

"C'mon, Hanji. Put me down."

"Nah," she said. "You're warm," and she gave him an enormous squeeze. "Besides, we're almost there."

"Jeez, you're strong! You—" Eren went quiet thinking about just how strong Hanji seemed; the muscles standing out along her arms and the broadness of her shoulders. She'd seemed like just a big girl but…

Mid stride Eren gave her a hug, only this time he paid attention to what he was feeling, or rather not feeling: there was no softness of breasts there (making Eren blush; thinking of his mother, thinking of how Mikasa's body had started feeling just the tinniest bit different the last time they'd tumbled). There were no lines from a bra either. Eren pulled back until he was facing Hanji, balanced on her hips and his hands gripping her shoulders. She looked back placidly. Eren chewed at his lower lip until Marco piped up with,

"She is a girl."

"Just biologically a guy," Jean added.

"My corporeal existence was male," Hanji confirmed. "This time around I felt like a female. Perks of dying, yeah? Total redo." All at once Hanji went the color of a blank sheet of paper and her smile froze. "Is that—" She cleared her throat. "Are you okay with that, human?"

Eren hesitated. Then,

"If I say 'yes' will you tell me what you were before you died?"

With a violence that nearly threw him off herHanji tilted her head back and screamed laughter at the ceiling. Eren hung on for dear life.

"No offense, man" Jean said when she'd calmed a little. "But I wasn't expecting you to be so…"

"Blasé about it?" Marco suggested. He too eyed Eren wearily.

"Yeah. That."

Eren just shrugged in response, his left shoulder nearly hitting Hanji's chin. "Oops, sorry. I guess maybe I wouldn't have been so… um… blasé, if I wasn't me?" He scrunched up his nose. "That doesn't make sense. I just mean that my dad's a doctor, you know?"

They hadn't known and it occurred to Eren how little he'd actually said about his family. Hanji and the others, they kept fighting for him but it wasn't like they had any real idea of what they were fighting for. They just knew that these humans were important to Eren… and that was apparently enough. More than enough. The thought made something twist painfully within his stomach.

"My dad's a doctor," Eren repeated. "He… he was always a doctor I guess. He learned a lot from my grandma before going off to school." Eren quickly shook his head, anticipating Hanji's question. "No, I didn't know her. She died a long time before I was born. I didn't know anyone on my mom's side either. It was just the three of us and the village… until Mikasa came along." He swallowed. "Anyway, Dad took me on his rounds sometimes. I'd take my own bike, or sometimes just sit on the handlebars of his. You know, checking in on those with the flu, or cuts that needed stitching. Nothing dangerous ever happened around there. But there was Mr. Wattkins—not that he was dangerous! Just sorta grouchy. Everyone knew everyone at home but he was always keeping to himself… I used to steal his mail and hide it in the Rilen's—a whole field over—just so he'd have to come out or they'd have to go to him. It seemed fun at the time…"

Not anymore of course. Now it just seemed stupid and despite the understanding looks, Eren determinedly looked over Hanji's shoulder, eyes trained on the latest corridor.

"So Mr. Wattkins didn't like me. No shit, but it's not like we actually knew each other or anything. I mean seriously. We were both just… there. Then I went with my dad one winter to drop off an antibiotic but Mr. Wattkins started complaining about some sickness he was feeling so Dad checked him out and I stayed in the living room—I actually stayed! The whole fifteen minutes I didn't touch a thing and then there was this crash…" Eren trailed off; took a few deep breaths. "Mr. Wattkins started screaming, at Dad I think, not really sure what language it was. Then Dad's pulling me out the door and Mr. Wattkin's is still shrieking—I remember thinking that afterwards, that his voice got really high." Eren hunched in against Hanji. "Dad admitted later that he was pregnant. Made me promise to never, ever tell the rest of the village. He… doesn't make me promise things often. So yeah. I didn't. Tell that is."

Hanji's hand returned to his back. "That must have been a bit of a shock."

"No… yeah? I don't know. Hannes, he used to mention guys and girls like that a lot, so it wasn't a total surprise or anything. And, you know, I read. I'm not stupid. I just didn't expect…"

Eren felt a gentle flick against his shoulders. "For you to discover it so close to home?"

"Maybe."

"Hannes, was he an army guy?" Marco asked.

"Yep. Way after you though."

Marco nodded. "There were a lot of people struggling with gender in the army. Or, 'struggling' isn't the right word. A lot of girls dressed like guys because they thought it would get them more respect, or something, and a lot of guys took the war as a fresh start, entering themselves as women. I had a lot of friends who didn't identify as anything at all." A wistful swept Marco's lips.

"What about Mr. Wattkins though?" Jean piped up. "Did he keep the child?"

"I don't know. He moved away a few weeks later and no one was close enough to keep in contact." Eren scowled. "What I wanna know is who'd do… you know, do that with a guy like him. Grouchy old ass—ow!" He cringed at the slap Hanji landed against his head.

"Rude, human."

"It's true! He chucked compost at me once! Mom wouldn't let me back into the house I smelled so bad."

"Ten bucks said he deserved it," Jean said to Marco.

"No way I'm betting against that."

"Hey!"

Their tet-a-tet was cut short as Hanji raised her hand for silence. They'd (finally) entered one of the many sleeping quarters and some of the other spirits had already curled up to rest. They snuck through the room where Hanji had found Eren his uniform—now feeling damp and positively filthy—as well as through the room where they'd slept the night before. Eren looked longingly at his mat, keeping his eyes fixed on the comfort even as they passed out of the building and onto a porch. He only turned when Hanji set him back on his feet and a voice behind him said, "Yo."

It was Connie. He leaned against the railing, one hand cradling a bit of food he was munching, the other keeping a bag out of Sasha's reach. She was wrapped around him, an endless stream of, "C'mon, Connie, one more please one more," spilling out of her mouth. But Connie just grinned and tossed the bag to Jean.

"You've had yours, Sasha—oh. Hey there, uh… what was your name again?"

"Human!" Sasha bound forward sounding scarily like Hanji. "Managed to get a job then, huh? You…" Her eyes suddenly narrowed. "Hey. You weren't the one who tucked us in, were you?"

"Um…" Thank god for the continued darkness. Eren's face went up in flames as he remembered the blankets he'd left around their shoulders. Luckily, Marco's arm came up around his own shoulders in an echo; a welcome distraction.

"What do you mean 'got a job'?" He asked. "Our human here is the one who served that river spirit tonight."

Connie and Sasha's mouths dropped together and that was it—the conversation got going. Jean piped up that, despite Eren's order, he'd never actually made it down to the boiler room—distracted first by a hysterical spirit, then by Irwin's passing, making his way to the entrance to spy on their guest (of course, those two things weren't necessarily separate events…) What all this meant was that no one had come to warn the duo about the drama going on upstairs. All Sasha knew was that one minute she was diverting water to a couple hundred tubs—a normal night really, even a little slow one, Connie was at her back; keeping a steady flow of coal going, directing the sootballs; everything working as smoothly as labor run by two crazies and a collection of magical creatures could go… then nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the first time since Sasha had started at the bathhouse no one was asking her for water.

"It was wonderful," she sighed. Next to her Connie snorted.

"Don't lie. You panicked."

The six of them had moved since their explanations had begun. Connie's bag was filled with pork buns, somehow still hot despite the night air that had cooled dramatically from all the rain. They took their edible treasures to the porch's edge, sitting and dangling their legs between the rungs. Mouth poised to take a bite, Eren froze when he got a look at the amount of water beneath them.

That storm had indeed been magical. Before there had only been the river beneath the bridge and the lake that separated Eren from the rest of the world, now water flowed from the edge of the bathhouse's island all the way to the forest off in the distance. The length wasn't insurmountable, a strong swimmer could make it, easily, but seeing such an addition after the day he'd had forced Eren's head to lie wearily against a post.

He was literally surrounded by water. Eren wondered if Irwin had done that on purpose.

"It looks so much like the sea," he whispered. No one heard him.

Sasha went on with her story, accompanied by a whole collection of erratic (and often crude) hand gestures. She had not panicked, you dickhead. She had calmly and quite professionally analyzed the situation… and decided that this was so not her problem. Sasha went upstairs (a rarity no one got to see, enthralled as they were with the chaos elsewhere) and Connie was left to man the boiler.

"Pretty much my worst nightmare," he grumbled. "I'm the organizer, let's be real. I manage soot, materials, and Sasha."

"You do not manage me!"

"Do so. But I'm not a boiler man in the point. All those knobs and dials," Connie shook like the thought actually pained him. "And isn't it just my luck. Things go dead quiet for—what? Twenty minutes? At least! Then, the SECOND Sasha leaves wouldn't you know. Whistles start going off and a damn token drops down from the ceiling. I didn't know what to do with it! So I…might have…well…"

"You did," Hanji said, totally deadpanned. She stuffed a whole bun in her mouth. "You sent us way too much water. Like, all the water."

"Right. Sorry."

They didn't know, did they? Sasha and Connie. Yeah… they'd only seen Eren in the heat of the boiler room, never reacting to water's coolness. Hanji, Jean, Marco… they weren't saying anything either, nothing about the repercussions that water had beyond one flooded room. Eren smiled a little. That loyalty was amazing really, but he also didn't want his friends feeling any worse than they already did. Connie looked glum, somewhat obviously, but even Sasha was picking at the grease embedded in her nails, an aura of self-criticism pouring off her frame. Hardly thinking, Eren split the bun he'd yet to touch and offered her half.

Sasha took it slowly, reverently, with a light not unlike worship in her eyes. "I knew there was a reason we kept you around," she whispered.

"You're the one who wouldn't give him a job!" Connie called from down the line.

"I have no recollection of that. At all," and Sasha set herself on the pork bun with feral intensity.

They settled into a silence broken only by their swallows, sighs, and increasingly frequent yawns.

"We should get to bed," Marco said. "It's not often that Irwin keeps the sky dark after the bathhouse closes. Take advantage of it while we can, yeah?"

"Yeah," Jean agreed. His head had migrated to Marco's bad shoulder, his fingers stroking along Marco's upper thigh.

"What about Corporal?"

Eren's question wan an unwanted intrusion on their peace. Hanji fiddled with her shirttail. "I haven't seen him since he brought you down yesterday," she admitted.

"He passed through the boiler room" Sasha said, mouth crammed full. "A while ago. Said he had to meet with someone."

"Who?" Eren pressed.

"Don't know. Sorry."

Eren worried his own shirt, unconsciously mimicking Hanji. He'd met so many people today, dealt with so much, it had hardly occurred to him to worry about Corporal on top of it all. Except, of course, when he was drowning and wanted Corporal to save him. That was just great. Eren winced.

"Should he have come back by now? How do we know he's okay?"

Jean leaned back to get a look at Eren. "You worry too much, kid. That guy can take care of himself."

Eren couldn't even dredge up the usual annoyance at that term—Corporal's term—spilling out of Jean's mouth. He just felt vaguely sick.

Hanji swallowed at his expression. "We could go looking for him…" she suggested, quite reluctantly it seemed. Jean tried valiantly to pick his jaw up from the floor.

"You're insane. I'm not—" he dropped his voice. "I'm not sneaking out. Hell no, not after what we went through today. Kid, c'mon. Not to be an insensitive hard-ass but do you really want to test the Big Guy's generosity right now?" Jean's gaze flickered from here to there. "Because he will find out about it."

"Jean's right," Marco said. "Besides, where would we begin looking?"

"Anywhere!"

But Marco was already shaking his head.

"Corporal works for Irwin… whether he wants to or not." This last part was breathed out, carried away on the breeze. "And no one keeps their business closer to their chest than Irwin. Corporal may not cast magic himself but he can piggyback off of Irwin's—invisibility, movement on and off the island, speed… we'd never stand a chance, not unless Corporal wanted to be found."

Eren opened his mouth to retort that of course Corporal wanted to be found when all their attention was drawn to Connie. He'd begun giggling madly into his arm.

"You want to sneak out—after today's clusterfuck no less—to track down Irwin's right hand man?" He looked not at Eren but at Hanji. "Jean's right. You are nuts."

Marco's lips twitched. "Agreed. Positively nutty."

To Eren surprise, Hanji crossed her arms and scowled dramatically. "Oh yeah," she said. "Real nice. Like I've never heard that one before."

Sasha had started snickering along with Connie, their voices rising quickly.

"What?" Eren demanded. "What?"

"Don't, don't, don't—" Hanji leaned desperately across Eren to try and cover Sasha's mouth but it did no good.

"Hanji used to be a squirrel!" She shrieked.

Dead. Silence.

"What." Eren said again.

"Whaaaaaah," Hanji beat her hands across Sasha's back who was still choking with laughter, trying to pull away. "I didn't want him to know yet! You've ruined the game," Hanji pouted. Connie and Sasha just laughed all the harder.

"What." Eren looked to Jean. "What… you're… You're fucking with me."

"No we're not," Marco said. He remained the calmest of the lot. "Honestly. It's not quite as uncommon as you'd think. Lots of dogs and cats discover human forms after death—don't ask me how or why; something about them being pets? I don't know—but it does happen. They're not the same as the cat and toad spirits, different species I guess you could say, but every once in a blue moon, yes, an animal gains a fully human form in the afterlife." Marco bit his lower lip. "We just tease Hanji a bit ("A bit?!" She yelled) because it is kind of rare and uh…"

Jean snickered.

"Whaaaat?" Eren urged.

Marco shrugged. "It's just that we've never met another squirrel before."

"We're out there." Hanji sniffed. Then she smiled down at Eren, faintly vibrating with energy. Eren blinked up at her.

"Squirrel?" He asked.

"Yep."

"…I can kinda see that. Shit."

Her smile split into a grin. "I lived in this old woman's tree while alive and she fed me nuts every morning. Really great nuts! I loved her. But then she accidentally backed over me with her car. No hard feelings."

"But," Eren scrubbed a hand over his eyes. It was far, far too late for this. Or too early. Or something. "But didn't you say before that you were a guy…?"

"No. I said I was male. Horny male squirrel who didn't live very long. Not gonna lie, I didn't' think much about sex and gender as a squirrel—other than regular squirrel sex, you know?—but then I get this body and I'm floundering on two legs and I'm learning everything I can because having a human body is just so great… and then one day I realized I was a girl. A spirit-human girl! Awesome, huh?"

Jean rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure 'awesome' is the word he's looking for, Hanji."

That was at least partly true. Eren didn't know what word he wanted. Hanji used to be a squirrel and that made fare more sense than Eren was willing to admit to, at least right now. That sort of shit was for the mornings. With that decided Eren gave Hanji's hand a squeeze—which she kissed enthusiastically—and he downed the rest of his pork bun. The sooner her finished eating the sooner he could sleep, and that sounded just lovely right about now.

The last piece went down rough though and Eren found himself looking around for something to drink. Connie hadn't brought anything with him (or Sasha had nicked it) but the search reminded Eren of something else.

"Oh yeah," he said and pulled the wine bottle from beneath his shirt. Everyone leaned forward.

"What's that?" Jean asked.

Hanji shrugged. "Something the river spirit gave him, right?"

"Yeah." Eren pulled out the cork and tentatively tipped the bottle for a sip.

"—no!" Sasha cried but it came too late.

The wine he'd tried before had burned but this stuff was like acid. It flared along Eren's organs and skin, spreading from the roots of his hair to the edge of his toenails seemingly in an instant. Then the fire converged in Eren's chest, right around where Irwin had a tether around his heart—that sickening pulse beat, beat, beating. The two feelings warred for a moment and then seemed to burn themselves out. Or rather, the fire disappeared and Irwin's hold dimmed back down to a faint, almost subconscious action; like breathing or blinking. In a minute Eren would be able to forget it—a sure sign that Irwin was still, thankfully, keeping his distance—but for now his body curled under the double onslaught. It hurt.

"That's medicine, that's medicine!" Sasha was yelling. "Are you sick, dumbass? Don't drink that now!"

"Medicine?" Eren coughed.

Jean frowned, trying to get a look at the bottle himself. "How the hell do you know that, Sasha?"

Connie answered for her. "You serious? You think there's anything edible in this or the human world that she doesn't know about?"

"…True."

Sasha hummed in agreement. She ran two fingers down the bottle's length, then found the cork Eren had dropped and carefully replaced it. She handed it back.

"It's powerful," Sasha said simply. "Rare too. Keep it safe."

Scooting forward Marco nodded. His serious expression, combined with the shadows playing along his scars gave him an almost ghoulish look. "Listen to Sasha," he said as she preened. "Something like that? The river spirit must have given it to you for a reason."

"Yeah well, you didn't meet the guy…" Nevertheless,Eren tucked the bottle safely back beneath his shirt, coughing all the while.

"Bed," Hanji said decisively and they all rose.

By this time the majority of the spirits had laid down to sleep and the six snuck in as quietly as they'd gone out. Wordlessly they said their goodbyes, Marco and Jean heading somewhere together, Sasha and Connie moving hand-in-hand back to the boiler room. Eren slipped into a clean uniform that Hanji had managed to find—ridiculously grateful now that he had fully dry cloth against his skin—and the two of them collapsed onto their mats.

"Night, human," she said. Hanji's eyes were already slipping shut and Eren wasn't far behind at all.

"Night," he said and Eren's last thought (a prayer really) was that maybe, just this once, he wouldn't dream.

Too often prayers go unanswered.

Nearly an hour later and many stories below a forgotten worker awakened as everyone else slept. He sat up with a groan.

"My head…" Moblit groaned.

Marco's earlier worries about Moblit being blown away by Dot's magic were well founded. During the final effort to rid the spirit of his accumulated filth Moblit had indeed gone flying, the cascade of water and trash tossing him into a far, isolated corner. The violence of the act had knocked out more than one spirit, not least of all the bathhouse's tinniest employee. For the remainder of the work-day Moblit had lain unconscious under nearly three feet of water. In many ways he was lucky though; lucky he was a frog. Were it not for his unique ability to breathe through his skin he would have surely perished—and no one knew what happened when spirits died. No one wanted to find out.

Thus it was with a healthy dose of gratitude that Moblit stumbled to his feet and made his way across the now dry floor. A bit of medicine and a long night's sleep would do him a world of good.

"Ah, ah," came a voice.

Moblit jumped.

"H-hey," he croaked. "You're not supposed to be in here. The bathhouse is closed!"

Out of the darkness came a figure dressed all in black, minus the circle of white that made up his face. Marco cringed away from the odd markings stretching along its cheeks and the soft, almost hypnotic voice. He backed up two steps, then three, then four.

"I told you, y-you need to leave." The spirit only replied with a repeated, 'ah' noise. "Can't you talk?" Moblit stuttered. "What are you?"

Instead of answering the thing drew black arms out of its black body and from the arms he produced a book. Heavily bound and bearing gold trim, the pages fell open with an ominous creak; like the opening of a cage. Then, as if water were boiling the papers rustled and a yellow mound began to grow atop them. It sparkled temptingly in the darkness.

Moblit gapped. "You can make gold?"

"Ah, ah." It seemed to be an agreement. The gold nuggets, varying in size from pebbles to skipping stones amounted so quickly they began spilling off the edges of the book. The sound of their falls masked the spirit's steps. Moblit was so engrossed he hardly noticed the thing approaching, coming out of the tub, inching closer.

"Gold," he murmured. "You—I need to get Irwin. I have to tell the boss. Please just wait one moment, I'll…"

Moblit turned but in that moment something—something like tendrils—wrapped themselves around his middle. He didn't even have a chance to croak in fright. Moblit simply felt himself being lifted up and then descending with frightening speed.

'I should have gotten the human,' was his last, illogical thought. 'Not Irwin. That human boy would have helped me—'

Then, darkness.