Author's Note: This chapter took a lot longer to write than I thought it would. But it was worth it. You guys should hit me up on Tumblr. ;) (The link is on my profile.)

Levi should have been surprised when he was roused from his sleep by terrified screams coming from the room across the hall. He would have been lying if he said that he wasn't. By now it was almost second nature to him to get up and leave the comfortable warmth of his bed and be greeted by the frigid air of the early morning hours. He wasn't shocked to see Eren thrashing around wildly on his mattress, trapped in his own mind.

He knew better than to grab him and try to shake him awake. He had made that mistake the first night Eren slept in this house and it had made the situation much worse than it already was. Levi knew by now that the best way to bring him out of one of his nightmares was to make him feel safe, which was not an easy task. By the time Mikasa had blearily stumbled into Eren's room ten minutes later, she was greeted with the sight of Eren clinging to Levi's shirt for dear life as his body shook with the force of the sobs he couldn't seem to hold back, despite the fact that he was trying to stifle them.

"He-" Eren managed to choke out one word before screwing his eyes shut tightly. He tried to hold back the tears that were freely falling down his cheeks, but it was a futile effort. Levi ignored Mikasa at the door, and instead wrapped his arms around the boy and smoothed his hair down. He overlooked the fact that the boy was staining his favorite shirt with tears. Shirts were replaceable. This was far more important.

"Eren, Grisha is never going to hurt you again," He said forcefully, pushing Eren back far enough so that he could look him in his eyes. The boy opened his mouth to protest but Levi gave him a look that caused him to shut it again, though he still shook with sobs and tears still ran down his face. "If he gets out of prison and even tries to come anywhere near you, I'll put a bullet in his fucking brain."

Eren said nothing. Instead he just leaned back into Levi's side and cried. Mikasa padded softly across the room and crawled into the open space on Eren's other side, not saying a word. By the time Eren's cries softened into snores, Levi didn't have the heart to move and risk waking him again. That, and he was fucking tired. He looked over to see Mikasa breathing evenly while curled up next to Eren. He rolled his tired eyes and knew that as a parent, he should probably worry that his teenage daughter and his adopted teenage son would sleep in the same bed, but they had been doing this since they were six and were closer than most siblings were. Before he even realized it, he too was fast asleep.

Levi was used to Eren falling asleep on him after one of his nightmares. He wasn't, however, used to falling asleep himself and actually waking up next to the boy, and on time too. Normally he would just wait until Eren was fast asleep once more and then he would slip back into the comfort of his own bed. It was a miracle that they had somehow managed to make it out of the house on schedule when morning came, although it was with one less cup of coffee than Levi preferred. Instead of drinking his usual third cup at home, put it in a shiny silver travel mug. He sat behind the wheel of his car and finished while Eren and Mikasa joined the same group of people from the day before.

"Eren, you look like you've just come from the set of The Walking Dead," Armin commented, noticing the dark circles under his friend's eyes. "Is everything okay?"

"Well, I can't promise that I won't try to eat someone's face off by the end of the day…" Eren muttered under his breath as he set his backpack on the ground. "But yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine. I just had a rough night, that's all."

"Rough night?" Jean snorted. "That must have been quite an accomplishment with Mr. Stick-Up-His-Ass living under the same roof. So who was she?"

Jean almost regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth. Eren had lunged at him and it was only thanks to Mikasa holding him back that his fist hadn't connected with Jean's face.

"Don't you ever fucking speak about Levi that way you asshole. You don't know who or what you're talking about," Eren snarled, his face contorted with rage. He struggled against Mikasa's hold against him, jerking roughly in her grip.

"Calm the fuck down, Jaeger. It was just a joke," Jean said, holding his hands up in defense.

"Seriously, Eren. Jean didn't mean anything by it!" Marco chimed in from Jean's side.

"Oh, of course you're gonna side with horseface since you're screwing him!"

"Eren, stop it," Mikasa said sharply. Her words seemed to snap him out of the fit of rage and he stopped struggling. He took a step away from the group and looked at them with eyes that were almost comically wide. Mikasa's face was void of all emotion except for a slight hint of disappointment. Armin gave him a look of concern that Eren hated. Marco had turned so red that you could barely tell that he even had freckles. He decided not to look at Jean.

"I-I-I'm sorry, guys," Eren stammered. He backed away from the group slowly before he grabbed his backpack and ran. No one in the group went after him.

"The two of you wanna tell me what the hell just happened?" Jean asked, looking pointedly at Mikasa and Armin.

"It's none of your business," Mikasa snapped at him. He scowled at her in return.

"Bullshit. He just made it my business when he tried to turn my face into a punching bag!"

"Just drop it, Jean. It's not our story to tell," Armin warned, the tone in his voice sharp. "If Eren ever wants you to know something, he'll tell you. But that's his decision to make. Not ours. So just leave it alone until he's ready to talk about it."

Jean opened his mouth to protest, but the expressions on Mikasa and Armin's faces were enough for him to shut it again.

"The two of you wanna tell me what the hell just happened?" Jean said, looking pointedly at Mikasa and Armin.

XxXxXxX

By the time Erwin Smith entered the history classroom that morning, Eren was sitting silently at one of the desks in the back of the room. His body language and posture were completely normal, but the look in his eyes told Erwin a very different story. He sighed internally, but said nothing as he walked to the desk and shrugged the bag off of his left arm.

"You know, Eren, you don't have my class until fourth period. Is there any particular reason that you stopped by this morning?" He asked lightly, giving the boy a small smile. Eren shrugged and put his head down on the desk over his folded arms.

"Just didn't feel like dealing with people this morning," Eren muttered, staring off into space.

"You do realize that that just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I'm not a person," Erwin joked.

"Yeah, but you won't ask questions that I'm not ready or willing to answer."

There was a brief moment of silence before Eren lifted his head and looked up at the history teacher. By now he didn't even blink at the awkward empty space at Erwin's right side where an arm should have been hanging. It had taken him a while to get used to it, but after years of knowing the man it was no longer something to stare at. Erwin gave him a small smile as he sank down into the black rolling chair behind his desk. Instead of commenting further, the blond opted for changing the subject.

"You should pop by the house sometime soon. He won't admit it, but Kayden misses having you around," He said as he turned to his computer screen, pressing the power button. Kayden was Erwin's seven year-old son who had formed an attachment to Eren. The boy claimed it was because Eren was fun while Armin was boring, but it was really because Eren would let him win at hide-and-seek and sneak him cookies.

"You could always leave Clair and Kayden over at Levi's with us someday so you and Janice could have an evening to yourselves, you know," Eren supplied, the corner of his lips twitching. He knew that Erwin and his wife didn't get out much, since they had two small children to look after. Erwin looked over his shoulder and gave Eren an expression that he couldn't quite read.

"It's your house too, now," He commented. Eren shut his green eyes slowly and he took a deep breath through his nose.

"I know. It has been for six months," He said, a small smile tugging at the edge of his lips. "But it's been home for years now."

The two talked comfortably until the first bell rang, signaling that classes were going to start in five minutes. Eren waved his goodbyes and scooped up his backpack before he left the classroom. By the time he walked into math, the incident with Jean was at the back of his mind, nearly forgotten.

The rest of the day passed without incident. After school Eren and Mikasa left their backpacks in Levi's car and walked home, like they had the day before. They settled into a comfortable routine and before anyone knew it, the first two months of school had passed. During this time, Eren managed to surprise himself by becoming friends with practically everyone in Armin's orbit. He was even on friendly terms with Jean, although the two weren't extremely close. They guy may have been a tactless horseface, but he was a genuine person and a good listener, which Eren valued.

The second week of school, a few seniors decided it would be fun to choose random freshman and shove them into various supply closets and leave them. Eren happened to be one of the poor souls that became the victims of the upperclassmen. He was also the last. He had been on his way to his third period class, taking his time since he was going to be tardy anyways, when three sets of strong arms grabbed him and pushed him into the tiny room.

He had started screaming. Not just pleas to open the door, but terrified, bone-chilling screams. The three seniors hadn't known how to react and so they just left him. It was Marco, Armin, and Jean who had been on their way back from a student-council meeting when they heard the noise. They opened the door only to find Eren, a shivering, sobbing mess huddled at the back of the closet. Armin had gone pale and without looking at either of his friends said two words.

"Get Levi," He barked, his tone extremely aggressive for the peppy attitude he normally possessed. Marco nodded and dashed off in the direction of the freshman English classroom. He hadn't even knocked on the door, not caring that he was interrupting the class that had already started.

"Mr. Ackerman, you-" Marco managed to get out before he was cut off.

"What could be so important that you felt the need to barge into my classroom and interrupt my lesson?" Levi asked, not even looking over his shoulder as he kept writing words on the whiteboard.

"Sir, it's Eren," Marco said quickly. Levi's hand dropped and the dry-erase marker fell from his fingers and onto the floor.

"Keep working. I'll be back," Levi barked at the classroom. Before another word could be spoken, he was out the door and was practically sprinting down the hallways.

It took Levi a full twenty minutes to get Eren calmed down enough to coax him out of the closet. He had ushered him into the office, told the principle he was taking him home and was out the door and in his car as soon as a substitute was there to replace him. The three boys who had forced him into the supply room were suspended from school for two weeks each, despite Levi's pushing for a full expulsion. It wasn't long after that day that Eren explained to Marco and Jean why his reaction to something as simple as being shoved into a janitor's closet had sent him into a full-blown panic attack. He owed it to them, since they were the ones who found him. It had been an uncomfortable conversation at first, but the two had been extremely supportive and listened to him without saying a word until he was finished. It felt liberating to be able to talk about things with them. Like a weight had been lifted off of his chest.

Two months of school had passed and Eren was well on his way to being a normal high-schooler. The biggest of his worries was the look Levi was going to give him if he didn't clean his room by the time he got home, and the least of his concerns was whether or not he was going over to Armin's to hang out this weekend. Things were finally looking up for Eren Jaeger.