The first few days Erwin was home, he walked around as if everything he was seeing was hard to believe. I would walk into whatever room he was in and he would look at me with obvious surprise at my presence. I felt as if I did get my husband back, but he was not quite there. Michael quickly got used to Erwin being around since he had not seen his father awake and moving in a year. I did what I could to keep him comfortable and make the transition back into our home easy, but Erwin rarely ever said anything to show he was okay.

I knew he was not okay.

I knew something was off when he first woke up. Erwin's eyes were wide with uncertainty about everything he saw (an emotion I did not associate with him). He was quieter than usual, never wanted to talk. Sure, he was happy to see me and Michael, but I wondered if he even really knew who we were. One day, a little over a week after he came home, I found him happily playing on the floor with Michael. I asked him what he was thinking.

He looked at me, that unfamiliar uncertainty still in his eyes, but a smile etched on his face. "Ariadne, this isn't real. I think… I think I'm dreaming."

"Dreaming? Erwin, you're very much awake." I was thoroughly confused. Michael continued to play with the action figure in his hands, making whirring noises. "What do you mean by 'dreaming'?"

Erwin scoffed. "I don't think any of this is real. So, I must be dreaming," he replied.

Michael held up the toy to me. "Mama, play!"

"Every time I fall asleep, you're in my dreams," Erwin continued, watching Michael carefully. "So is Michael. So, this isn't reality. It's my dreams. I'd rather not wake up any time soon so I can stay here. It's peaceful here." He said it with such conviction, I began to wonder about his mental state. What had he done in that other world? I was scared for him.

Later that day, I called Jameson, hoping he would have some answers. When he answered the phone, I told him what Erwin had been up to ever since he got home. "I'm not entirely sure what to do," I told him. "Since he's been home he's been acting strange. As if he's never been here before, or has and can't quite remember it."

I could hear Jameson scratching his chin through the phone. "Well, would you like Brady to question him? I know you didn't like it, but it may help him to get whatever's on his mind cleared up."

"Maybe," I considered.

"Have you tried talking to him yourself?"

"Not yet," I said sheepishly. I felt stupid, not acting on one of the most obvious of solutions. "I'll try that first, but I feel as though this is a bigger matter."

"Call me if something more troubles you okay?"

"Yes, I will. Thank you. Good bye."

"Good bye now."

After I hung up the phone, I wondered how I was to start the conversation with Erwin. As I stood pondering, I decided to give it a little longer, just to see if Erwin would get out of his belief of it all being a dream. While I waited, I decided to go ahead and give him the videos I had shot of Michael. The only conversation we had after he viewed them was reminiscing about the moments of Michael I had captured on video. It took him nearly two weeks of almost constant watching to watch them all.

I was in the kitchen preparing dinner one evening when I heard Erwin walk up behind me. I felt his arms go around my waist and his face to my neck. His face felt warm and wet, as if he had been crying (which was another thing I did not commonly associate with Erwin). We stood in silence, my hands continuing to work on the vegetables I was cutting.

"What's on your mind?" I asked softly, finally breaking the silence between us.

Erwin breathed deeply and sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," he said in an almost inaudible whisper. "I'm sorry." He buried his face into my shoulder.

I paused. "What are you apologizing for?"

"I didn't mean to be gone for so long."

I felt as if the whole world had stopped for a moment. This had been what I was waiting for. Not necessarily the apology itself (which was certainly a nice surprise), but any, anyclue or sign that told me Erwin was getting back to somewhat normal. Thatis what I had been waiting for.

"It's okay," I told him, turning my head towards his. "You're back now."

"I made you cry."

I paused again, creasing my eyebrows and wondering when I had let him know that I had cried. I had never said anything to him about it, but he obviously found out. How?

"I saw you on the video tape," he continued, answering my unvoiced question. "After Michael's birthday party. You were crying." He squeezed me gently. "I'm sorry," he said again.

I set the knife down on the counter and turned to hug Erwin back. I did not think I needed to say anything to let him know that I accepted his apology. It felt like my touch alone helped him to see everything was alright now. I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him softly.

"Could you help me with dinner?" I asked, hoping to distract his mind from his obvious guilt at my crying. "I would really appreciate it," I added. Erwin nodded and picked up the knife I had set down and began to finish the vegetables.

I continued to make small talk as I set a large pot of water onto the stove to boil. "I thought about taking Michael to the park tomorrow. Want to join me?" It felt almost a little odd to ask him to come with us, but I felt it would make Erwin feel included with us again and get our lives going as normally as possible.

"Sure," he replied. "Sounds like it'll be nice."

The rest of the evening went by smoothly and quietly. Michael went to bed (almost) without a fuss. (Erwin and I both had to put him back in bed several times.) The next day I packed a quick lunch and we got in the car and headed towards the park.

Since it was a nice day out, there were plenty of other families and children enjoying the nice weather. Older children ran rampant around the swings and the slides while their parents watched from nearby benches. We sat on a blanket in the grass and ate our lunch. Erwin sat quietly and watched the children scream when their friends would tag them during their game. I did not see Erwin cringe slightly every time they let out a yell.

"Do you want to stay here?" I asked Erwin shortly after we had finished our meal. "I'm going to let Michael play in the sandbox over there."

He nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine," he said, clearing his throat. "I'll clean up here."

"Alright." I went to pick up my son where he played in the grass, leaving Erwin to put our foodstuffs away. "Come on, Michael! Let's go play over here!" I said cheerily, picking him up and smothering him with kisses. He laughed with glee and let me carry him towards the sandbox.

Erwin

I watched Ariadne walk away, carrying our son to a little sandbox on the left side of the swing set. It still amazed me when I watched her walk or do any other task. For whatever reason, I still could not totally shake off the dream-like state I constantly felt. I tried to tell myself this was reality, but I was not even half convinced in my mind.

I focused instead on picking up the empty food containers and putting them into the large bag we had brought them in. I grabbed the paper plates and plastic utensils and threw them away in a nearby trashcan. No matter what I did, I could not help but wince whenever I heard one of the children scream. It brought horrible flashes of Titan attacks. It seemed to not matter that they were only playing a game and not actually dying from horrible creatures.

They had reminded me in that hospital room that the Titans had been convicted felons. They had also told me I was the last one to "wake up," so they finally put a stop to the entire experiment. Therefore, I obviously had nothing to worry about when it came to feeling guilty.

That was a lie.

I went back to the blanket on the grass and sat down. I watched my wife and son while they played in the sandbox together. Laughing lightly when Ariadne stopped him from putting a fist full of sand into his mouth. The group of children closest to me stopped their game of tag and were conversing as to what game to play next.

"We should play war!" suggested a little boy. "I wanna be the bad guy! I wanna be the bad guy!"

"Fine, then Iget to be the commander!" declared the girl beside him.

The children chose sides and scattered across the park. I tried not to pay attention to them. I also tried not to think of a strategy the girl could use to beat her opponents. I shook my head and went back to watching Ariadne and Michael, but instead found myself looking away again.

"Found you!" the girl screamed, pointing a stick at the little boy who was trying to sneak behind the slide. "Attack!" she yelled and all of the ones on her side rallied to her, pretending to attack the others.

"AAAARRRGGGHHH!" yelled another boy, pretending to hold a bleeding wound over his heart. "I've been stabbed!"

"My whole arm's been chopped off!" cried another, waving his "good" arm and using his elbow as a stump.

My heart pounded in my chest, leaping into my throat. They shouldn't be playing this. I thought. I have to stop them. Don't they understand what they'redoing?

Before I knew it, I stood up and had begun to walk towards them. I paused, unsure of what I would do when I approached them. I had to stop them. Horrible, grotesque and bloody memories bounded across my mind's eye. I tried to shut them out, reminding myself that this was reality. Notwhat was running through my head.

I shook my head, opening my eyes and finding myself kneeling on the ground. The children seemed to have stopped their game, staring at me from a distance. My heart was still pounding hard in my chest. My lungs felt constricted, making it difficult to breathe.

"Are you okay, mister?" The girl with the stick had approached me and was looking down at me, confused and curious.

I blinked, staring up at her. I could say something to her about their game. I could have told her about what it was doing to me. I could have told her what was wrong with playing their game. Nothing could come out of my mouth except my heavy breathing.

Ariadne

I played with Michael in the sandbox, keeping him from eating the sand and chatting politely with another mother nearby before she left with her own child. Michael still made me laugh sometimes because of little things like this, but being nearly two years old, he was still learning. I did not pay attention to the children nearby playing a game of war, but something compelled me to turn around and look at Erwin. So, I did.

I turned to look and saw him kneeling on the ground, a little girl with a stick in her hand staring down at him. Curious, I wondered what was going on. It was then that I noticed the horror-stricken look on Erwin's face. Quickly, I made the connection to the children's game to Erwin's reaction.

I scooped Michael up and walked over to my husband. "Erwin, is everything alright?"

He turned his attention from the little girl to me. "I… I don't know…"

I knelt down beside the girl, letting Michael stand next to me. "Honey, why don't you and your friends play a different game instead? That one isn't okay to play. It's not something to take lightly." The girl nodded and quickly ran towards her friends, wildly waving the stick to get their attention. I faced Erwin again. "You alright?" He shut his eyes and shook his head. "Come on. Let's go home. Just get to the car and I'll get our stuff, okay?" He nodded and stood, leaving me to walk towards the car.

Soon enough, we were home again. I told Michael to go play while Erwin and I would talk in the kitchen. Erwin was pacing the tiled floor while Michael ran to the living room to play with some toys he had left out earlier.

"Erwin," I said softly, watching him pace, the island in the middle of the kitchen separating us, "what's happened to you?" I asked it as gently as I could. Watching him pace and trying to keep himself under control made me was scared for him again. This behavior was certainly odd, but I had several ideas as to why he was acting the way he was. However, I wanted to hear what he had to say before I drew any conclusions myself.

He paused for a moment before continuing his walk. "You… you wouldn't get it if I told you."

"Well, try me," I said. "I can definitely try to at least understand."

He shook his head. "No, you don't get it." I could tell he was getting agitated. He turned away from me and leaned forward on the counter by the sink.

"Please, Erwin, you can tell me. I'll listen to you. I will." I was unsure why I was pressing him so hard to tell me what was going on inside his head, but I did anyway. I wanted to know. "If it has anything to do with the experiment-."

"IT HAS EVERYTHINGTO DO WITH THAT!" Erwin yelled, making me jump back in surprise. "Scheiße!" He took in a deep breath and smashed his left fist onto the counter. "Every damned day I see their faces. Every damned night I dream of their deaths! There's nothing that will make these memories go away… Not a thing…" He looked down at the dirty dishes still on the counter.

"Erwin," I started faintly, unsure of what to say. I know how you feel. Is what I thought, but the words never made it past my lips before I heard glass shattering beside my head and then at my feet. I blinked, unsure of what had happened. I looked down at my feet and saw pieces of a broken plate, unsure of how it got there. I looked up to see Erwin facing me. Did he just throw a plate at me?

"Don't you even daretell me that I shouldn't feel guilty because the lives I took didn't deserve to live!" I blinked again. That was not even remotely close to what I had been thinking of saying. "Me taking their lives makes me a murderer. I am equalto those men! And hell, maybe I even killed some women too!"

"Erwin, what are you talking about? I wasn't-" Erwin had grabbed a glass with his left hand, sending it soaring towards me, but missing terribly, glass crashed just to the right of me. He's using his left hand instead of his right.It was an odd thing to notice.

"Ariadne, just… Just…" He never finished his sentence. Instead, he put his face into his hands and fell to his knees.

I stood leaning against the wall behind me, debating what to do next. On one hand, my husband is weeping after finally telling me what had been bothering him and throwing things at me. On the other, my son is still quietly playing in the living room as if anything in the connecting room did not happen. Did Michael not hear anything that just occurred? After giving it a second or two more of thought, I realized this was not the first time Michael had not noticed any loud noises. He never responded the first time I called his name. He did not even react to the children's screams earlier today. He had hardly even looked up from his make-believe game with his toys in the past ten minutes.

In the most horrible times to have come to this conclusion, I realized my son was deaf.

I should clean up the glass.

Waaaaaaahhhh I'll just add to their problems because why not. When in actuality: I'm so sorry Smith family! D:

Also, I'm updating twice in one month because I love you guys and I actually had some time to write. (some motivation helped as well)

Anyway, please leave a review telling me what you think! Thanks for reading!