"Falco, over there! I see him!" Gabi words had barely left her mouth before she took off full tilt into the crowd that making its way from the extended plank of a charter boat that had just pulled into harbor. She dodged and weaved through the people that stood milling about the boardwalk with one particular blonde head in her sights.

"Reiner!" Before he caught sight of her, she leapt. Throwing her arms tightly around his neck she squealed with delight, feet dangling off the ground.

"Damn Gabi, you just about took me out. Haven't lost your touch I see." Reiner laughed as he returned her embrace. He settled her back on the ground before turning to Falco, who had just emerged from the crowd behind her, and hugged him tightly. It had been much too long, for all of them. "You two seem to be getting on well. How is Cardend treating you?"

Falco smiled. "Pretty well, actually! I landed a good gig over at the shipyards a few months ago, and Gabi here is still going strong with the Eldian relations team in town."

Gobi grinned broadly. "It's a tough position, but I really think we are starting to make some headway with electing Eldian officials!"

Reiner chuckled and tousled her hair affectionately. "Only you could be stubborn enough to see something like that through, Gabs." She stuck her tongue out at him playfully. "Come on, let's go!" Taking Reiner's hand Gobi lead the trio from the busy boardwalk, down a side road and into Cardend proper.

They spent several hours of the warm and humid day walking around the city streets, exploring shops and public buildings, all which still smelled of freshly cut wood.

"Where's Pieck?" Falco asked as they passed into a teeming marketplace full of vendors of every variety. The smell of cooked meat and spices hit them like a wall as they slowed to a crawl near a large stand offering plates of assorted delicacies.

"She was caught up in a project over in Cirrane, but she sends her love. Let's eat, I'm starving." Reiner said, fighting off a mouthful of drool as they passed their money over to a vendor operator in exchange for a plate of smoked meats and bread.

"Is everyone else doing okay, though? Onyankapon said that the Veritas government was getting ready to pull the Queen out of Paradis. Has it really gotten that bad over there?" Falco had lowered his voice to a whisper by this point, though Reiner doubted anyone could have overheard them in the babble of the market.

"Onyankapon has a big mouth." He said through a huge bite of bread.

"Only because we pester him. I don't understand why you're keeping us in the dark all the time!" Gabi eyed him reproachfully. "We used to be a part of things before we came all the way up here."

Reiner sighed, setting down his plate of food on a nearby bench as they all sat. "We aren't keeping things from you because we don't trust you, Gab." He said carefully. "You both have the utmost respect from the higher-ups in Veritas. But when you two got the chance to come to Cardend last year, it also offered you a chance at a normal life. You don't have to be waist-deep in their problems anymore, you can go about life as the young ones you are."

He picked up a large piece of smoked meat and jammed it into his mouth. "Besides, it's not like you don't have your own issues to deal with. Speaking of which, how is your grumpy companion doing?" He said in a stage whisper, smiling secretively. "Not giving you too much trouble, I hope?"

The playfulness in his voice faded quickly as Gabi and Falco exchanged a look of apprehension and unease.

Reiner frowned. "He's not causing grief for you guys, is he?"

Gabi shook her head slowly, her short brown hair bobbing around her round face. "I'd almost prefer if he was giving us a hard time, honestly. At least that would make more sense. It was strange enough when he chose to come here with us instead of staying in Veritas, but now…" She looked up and Reiner, perplexed. "Something weird is going on with him."

Falco nodded. "It started a few months ago. I don't think anyone really expected him to just accept his…uh… limitations, but instead of, I dunno…learning to live with it, lately he's just become more frustrated; withdrawn."

Reiner thought this over for a moment. "Armin told me he had tried some different kinds of therapies, spoke to some doctors. But that was years ago now."

"Whatever they told him must not have been good news, or he would still be in the capital. I've tried telling him that they make more medical advancements every year, that he should keep trying… but I'm worried about him, Reiner." Gabi's expression was helpless. "I didn't know Levi when he was at his peak, but from what I've been told, this kind of life for him must be unbearable."

"Where is he now?" Reiner asked.

A voice behind them was the one to respond.

"Funny, that's exactly what I was going to ask."

The small living quarters situated above a frequented tavern just off the main square of Cardend offered large picture windows with two particularly good vantage points: the town's main thoroughfares through one, and an excellent view of the dock and shipyards through the other. Though Levi would never care to admit it, this was one of the main reasons he had chosen this place.

All these years and I am still having to watch my back. How sad.

Though he had little reason to be doing so these days, when nothing exciting ever happened in Cardend and he was hardly a worthy opponent anymore. He was sitting in his chair in front of the window that offered a vista of the port this time, reading the paper and mindlessly watching the throng of people going about their daily routine. Back and forth they came into view then disappeared around the corner and out of sight. He tried not to let their ease of moment spark any sort of resentment in him as he ran his hand over the top of his knee; it's not like that would benefit him in any way.

The great Levi Ackerman, once renowned Captain of the Survey Corps and certified titan killer, spending the rest of his days moping around. Who'd have guessed.

A shock of dark hair that only now had become speckled by shots of grey near his temples hung low in front of his narrowed eyes, one blue and the other a milky white. He bore a thin but prominent scar on the right side of his face that travelled from his hairline and across his blind eye, over his mouth and ending at the base of his throat.

He traced it now absentmindedly, running one of his remaining fingers along its bottom edge. The lack of mobility was almost something he could live with; there were plenty of ways to get around that didn't require the full use of his leg. He could even get passed the phantom pains and mild disability his missing fingers caused. If Erwin had been able to manage without the use of an entire arm, a few fingers meant very little.

It was the partial loss of his vision that was something he still quietly struggled with, even after six years. Levi's instincts were unmatched (his astute hearing left little to the imagination in way of awareness) but the blackness that constantly shadowed his right side left him disoriented. He found it incredibly frustrating having the need to turn his head every which way to get a grasp of his surroundings. It left him compromised. How Hange had managed for so long was beyond him.

Levi's life had been a constant uphill battle from the start, so why would he assume that once the fighting was done it would be any better? Despite his confidence in his own skill, he couldn't recall ever giving much thought to an "after": scouts never lived long enough to have one. Six unbearable years and he was still unable to answer that simple nagging question: who was he when the battle was over? The threat of war may still hang over the world, but this wasn't his fight even if his body were able. His fight had been with titans, not people. Besides, what use could he provide in his condition?

Levi scoffed at his own pitiful whining. He wasn't a child that had to be comforted, or some starry-eyed youth who needed divine purpose to his life. He would leave that up to the rest of his people.

He turned his head a fraction to the side as the distant sound of footsteps coming from the interior stairwell outside his apartment reached him. They were too heavy to be Gobi or Falco; too clumsy to be Onyankapon. Reiner was here visiting the young ones, was he not?

He frowned. If it was Reiner, what purpose would it serve for him to come here when there were much more enjoyable places to be? Surely not to convince him to return to that god awful city, he had made his position on returning to that place and its doctors very clear. The vibrations were too purposeful to suggest a simple visit from old comrades, and it was almost as though the person they belonged to was making an attempt at quietness. The sound slowed as it reached the outer door and stopped. This brief pause was followed by the distinct clicking of a lock being opened from the opposite side. Ah, I see. Levi closed his eyes and set his still warm cup of tea on the windowsill and looked back out the window with a resigned sigh.

So, it appears I was mistaken: the past has finally caught up with me.

It seemed that he would not have to worry about answering that stupid question after all. He had been right, naturally: peace and quiet weren't in the cards for a man like him. From the reflect of the window he saw a figure materialized just behind him, and the cool metal touch of a gun barrel to his temple followed swiftly after. Levi couldn't help but smile.

"It's about time, things were starting to get boring around here."