"Wow. That was a weird dream" Nick thought as he strugled to stand up to begin with and leaned on the wall of the boat for support. He looked over to his left to see that Ella's body was missing, "They probably took her to be buried" he mused as he he made his way off the boat with his clothes still caked in blood, with a dried blood trail from the side of his head to his chin, signalling he had stopped bleeding at this point.

He looked around trying to find the human coconut he had talked to before his weird, but strangely arousing dream, in fact he began to get aroused just thinking about it.

"This is not the time to get hard!" He chastised himself for even thinking about Frieda that way at his age.

But as he continued to think, he began to get more and more nervous because he promised Ella he would tell Frieda that he loved her, but at the same time he could only think about what she said in his dream, that she didn't love him and never would.

"But that was just a dream, wasn't it?", he thought as he became more and more confused at the meaning of his dream.

He pulled himself away from his thoughts of the "prettiest woman ever" as he realised that he had no way to get back into Wall Sina, because the passes that they needed were carried by Olivia, who he had seen get bit in half by that titan. He visibly winced at the horrific memory resurfacing in his mind.

He now realised that the only thing he could now do was wait until his parents sent someone to get him from the refugee camp, because the garrison are hardly going to believe that a noble from Mitras is living amongst the refugees.

But what Nick didn't know was that the dream was not a random occurrence, no, Frieda had done something to him just before she was eaten by the Attack Titan in the cavern, under the Reiss Family Chapel, and what she did would remain with him until the day he died.

(68 hours later, Wall Rose Inner Gate, Trost)

"Everyone knows what he looks like, yes?", Asked a woman in her mid thirties to a group of about 14 MP's.

"Yes Ma'am" came the chorused replies from the soldiers.

"If you find him fire a green flare into the sky to signal to me, and i will be there, Understood?"

"Yes Ma'am"

"And remember we are not leaving Trost until we find out what happened to my son, Good now get moving."

With that the MP's scurried off in different directions looking for any sign of the missing noble and the squad that went with him, they were expected back at Mittas over 30 hours ago, and with the news of Wall Maria being lost to the titans and then the untimely demise of Frieda, Florian, Dirk, Urklyn, Abel and Lady Reiss, Abigail put her head into her hands "How am I going to tell Nicholas what happened to Frieda and Florian?", she always knew that Nicholas had been good friends with Florian, often helping her when she had a problem with school work or something like that.

But with Frieda it was a completely different story, they met when Nick was seven and Frieda was eleven, they became friends when nick tripped and cut his knee on the street, but Frieda who was visiting with her father, Rod, helped him clean the cut and bandage it before Nick told her that she looked "very pretty" and asked her to be his friend.

However as the years passed, Abigail noticed something different about how he behaved when around Frieda, she noticed that his gaze would linger on Frieda for a few moments longer than before, she even noticed him blatantly staring at her a few times, she thought it was a harmless crush at first, but in this past few months she noticed that he would become jealous at the sight of Frieda talking to other boys her age from Mitras, but only Nick knew of the power that she held within her and the burden she carried.

She had come to the conclusion that her son had fallen head over heels in love with the holder of the Founding Titan, and she secretly held out hope that Frieda would have made her son happy in the short amount of time she had left because- she abandoned her current thoughts as she saw the green smoke signal come from the west side if Trost as she ran full speed there in her dress towards where her son would hopefully be.

She ran full speed for about 3 minutes without breaking a sweat, perks of the Awakened Power in her blood, as she saw her son covered in bloody clothes she rushed forward and trapped him in a bone crushing hug, which he returned with almost equal strength.

"Nick I need to tell you some-"

"I have it mom" He interrupted her as she started to cry.

"Have what?" She asked not wanting it to be true.

"The Awakened Power you talked about, it helped me pull Ella from underneath a building before she bled out" he replied with tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes.

"Nick" she spoke "I'm so sorry that happened to you but you need to know..."

"Know what?" He asked, unsure if he wanted to hear the news.

"It's Frieda and Florian, they ... they died the night the wall fell"

"What" he whispered desperately not wantimg to believe what he just heard, after a few seconds he broke, he started crying uncontrollably into his mother's shoulder holding onto her as tight as he could, it wasn't just the sheer amount of tears she had to deal with but also the loud sobbing noises he was making, which had attracted quite the crowd, three of which being Armin and his two unnamed friends from Shiganshina.

After a few minutes of non-stop crying from Nick he fell asleep on his mother's shoulder as she picked him up to take him back to the carriage to take him back home to Mitras.

(7 weeks later)

To say that his parents were extremely worried about him was a severe understatement, this was because he barely left his room, barely ate, barely drank anything and hardly ever talked at all.

He usually spent his days locked up in his room thinking about Frieda and Florian and then proceeding to cry and cry and cry, not just because of what he had lost, but because of the things that were left unsaid between him and Frieda. He longed to know if there was a chance she felt the sane about him and he regretted not telling her that he loved her, even though he was just 14, he still just wanted her to come back so he could tell her, hug her, hold her or even kiss her until the world stopped spinning, but he realised that would never happen and the closest he would get to seeing her again would be the memories he had of her, the ones that he valued even more than his own life at this point, because he was so desperately lonely without being able to tease Florian about her short height, or just be able to stare at Frieda and into her eyes for hours on end because he would never get bored of looking at her.

"Nick, honey, are you okay?", he heard his mother ask from outside, concern very clear in her voice.

"Im fine mom", he spoke trying to convince her he was fine.

"Nick... would Frieda want you to do this?, to stay inside where you're only hurting yourself constantly thinking about her, wouldn't she want you to be happy?, to live your life to the fullest?."

"All I want to do is remember the times we spent together in peace, with no one to interrupt me while I remember her."

He heard no reply, only footsteps getting further away from the door as the mother left to discuss with his father what they should do about him.

A few minutes later his tears ran dry as he cried himself to sleep.

He woke up in his room facing the wall, he threw the blanket off of him and made to get up off the bed to get some food and water, but when he got up he saw Frieda Reiss standing about 5 feet away from him.

"Is that really you Frieda?" He asked not believing what he was seeing.

"Yes, it's me Nick", she replied with a small smile on her face and a faint blush on her cheeks.

Upon hearing this he lunged forward, tackling her to the floor wrapping his arms around her as tight as he possibly could, determined to not let her go this time, as she got over the initial shock of being speared onto the carpet she returned the hug. He began to cry into her shoulder saying things like "I thought you had died", "I'm so happy to see you again" and "Is Florian okay too?".

"How do I explain this" she thought to herself as she began, "Nick, I technically am dead."

"How can you be dead if you're right here?"

"Physically, along with Florian and everyone else, I am dead"

"But how can you be here then?" He exclaimed, very confused as to what's happening right now.

"Before I died, I used the power of the Founding Titan to transfer my consciousness to your mind" she told him trying to get him to believe what she was saying.

"But thats not possible, I'm not a subject of Ymir like the rest of the people within the walls."

"That only means that I can't alter or erase your memories, but all living things are connected together by the power of the Founding Titan, so i could do this so that I wouldn't have to leave you alone"

Too shocked to form words he puts his head back into her shoulder to cry tears of happiness as she began to run her hands through his hair to calm him down.

"Will I be able to speak to you when I wake up?" He questioned her, "You should be able to" came her reply.

And with that he knew what he wanted to do in order to honor Frieda's memory, and to make her proud as she was now effectively living inside of his head.

When he woke up he tried to talk to he, "Frieda", ... no response, "Frieda", he tried internally, ... again no response.

"Was this just another crazy dream" he thought, disappointed that he had been fooled by his mind again.

He heart a short giggle from inside his head, "Frieda" he exclaimed, "Is that you?" He questioned hardly believing what he heard.

"Yes it is me Nick", never in his life had Nicholas Meier smiled so much as any given moment. They spent the next 30 minutes chatting about what happened before, during and after the fall, but they had missed out one important topic, the fact that Nick was conpletely in love with her and now she was living in his head with all those thoughts and feelings swimming around.

About 5 minutes later he stormed though the house, determined to find his parents together and tell them of his plans for the future, he found them both in the kitchen sitting at the table eating breakfast.

They were surprised to see him as itwas the first time in days they had seen him outside his room.

"How are you honey?" His mom asked still shocked to see him this early in the day.

"Do you remember asking what Frieda would want me to do?" His mother nodded "Well i know what im going to do now." She leaned forward hoping for a positive answer.

"I'm going to join the military."

(18 months later, 4 weeks before the 104th Trainee Corps Rite of Passage)

It took months of convincing his parents that this was what he wanted to do and that he could take care of himself, being an Ackerman with the Awakened Power.

Even then his parents still tried to convince him to stay and not "throw his life away" fighting for the freedom that Frieda wanted for these people.

A few weeks before the Rite of Passage he went to his mother with a special request.

"Mom I want the tattoo" he spoke blunt and straight to the point as usual.

"Are you sure?, it can be a painfull process."

"Yes I'm sure about this", he spoke determined to see this through.

"Alright then, what arm do you want the tattoo on?" She asked.

"I want it on my back" he replied "As big as you can make it".

His mother looked shocked at his request but then continued telling him to lay face down on the table and to "prepare for the worst".

He had spent 8 hours every day for the oast 4 days on that table, but at leadt he got to talk to Frieda inside his head during the time.

Now looking in the mirror of his new tattoo on his back, he could say it was worth it, it was done in ink as black as the night sky, in the centre a block capital A reaching from just below the top of his spine to just above the back of his hip bones. At the top curving downwards around the A was the word "Ackerman", and at the bottom curving upwards was the word "Family".

Now with his new remindef of who he actually was, he could bow whole heartedly promise to Frieda that he would bring freedom to the people of the walls, and nothing, not even the nine Titan Shifters would stand in his way.