Even if I'm wrong, this is the only thing I can hope to do.

All I've wanted is to protect you.

# # #

It'd been twelve hours since the Attack Titan's return.

In the infirmary, Eren recovered, sleeping in a hospital bed. Mikasa sat away from the window, watching Eren sleep. She looked out at the sky. The clouds ran by with the wind. She twisted her fingers in her lap.

The door opened and a tall woman entered. Her heels clipped on the floor as she crossed the room. In her arms was a small tin tub filled halfway with steaming water. In it, a sponge floated like a pale yolk. She put the tub on the table next to the bed. Then the woman turned to regard Mikasa.

"You must be Mikasa Ackerman," she said. "I'm Eren's psychologist." She smiled and then she looked at Eren lying in the hospital bed. She put a hand to his face to gauge his temperature. Mikasa watched her.

The doctor seemed to think his temperature was all right and she moved to sit on the side of the bed. Eren's body moved when she lowered onto the mattress. Mikasa was still watching.

The doctor said, "I read Eren's profile, and in it I learned about you, too. What happened here?" She indicated with her finger.

Mikasa moved her hair against her face, and she didn't answer. She turned her eyes and watched Eren again. She looked at him sleeping with his head sunk in the pillow. His hair was a bit long and it laid loose and open around his face.

The doctor said, "I noticed Eren has been having cold sweats during his sleep, so I prepared him a sponge bath." Then the doctor stood. Her heels snapped on the floor. She dipped her fingers into the small tin tub she'd brought and grabbed the sponge floating in it and made a gesture. She wanted Mikasa to do it.

At first Mikasa didn't move. She didn't even think to move. Then the doctor smiled, holding the sponge, and squeezed. Water fell, splashing rings into the tub. The doctor was going to do it, so Mikasa stood up and rounded the bed and went to the other side. She didn't feel herself walking, but she saw the tin tub getting closer. Then she took the sponge from the doctor. It was warm and just damp enough. She turned, gripping the sponge, and she thought, suddenly, Eren wasn't real. But when she put her hands on his head, he was skin and he was living.

Under the doctor's scrutiny, Mikasa wiped Eren's face with the sponge. She soaped behind his ears and cleaned his eyelids. She sponged the rough palms of his hands and the stringy muscle of his wrists. Her bedside manner was attentive and personal, with an intuitive understanding.

The doctor smiled at everything Mikasa did. She smiled with more warmth and approval when Mikasa stopped and stood still with the sponge in her hand, not knowing what to do next.

"Finished?" said the doctor.

Mikasa dropped the sponge, and it made a quiet splash in the tub. It floated on the water like the pupil of an eye. The water wasn't steaming anymore. For a while, Mikasa stood by the tub, staring at the sponge in the water. Then she returned to her chair on the other side of the bed.

Sunshine painted the room with the doctor's silhouette. The doctor took the sponge in her hand and, folding back the bed covers, she wiped Eren's chest with it.

Mikasa watched. She felt her own teeth on top of each other. Her back had gone stiff.

"He's unstable," the doctor said. "His mental state won't hold up. The moment you decided to protect him was the beginning of the end of you. The enemies around him keep piling up. But there's more to it than that. There's an even greater enemy at large."

"What do you mean?"

The doctor slipped the sponge into the water and once it was soaked, she wrung it out again. Then her shadow moved and lost itself into a darkness on the wall. The bed gave a quiet creak when the doctor leaned over Eren, and the scent of her perfume cut a sharp trail through the air.

"What is Eren Jaeger's worth to humanity?" the doctor said. "It's a question I still can't answer. That's the real reason I'm here. At my word, the military will eliminate Eren Jaeger and replace him with somebody else. The extent of his time left on this earth is mine to decide."

# # #

It'd been over thirty-six hours since the Attack Titan's return.

Eren still hadn't waken. The window hadn't been closed, letting in the night breeze. It was cool, filled with the rustle of falling leaves. An owl cooed, somewhere hidden but nearby. Armin sat in the windowsill, looking out at the grass. The waning moon overhead was like a partially closed eye. On the opposite side of the room, Mikasa sat in the armchair, her hands folded in her lap.

"I had already decided it was all right to leave myself out of Eren's memories," Mikasa said. "But at the same time, I don't want to live in a world where we never met."

The owl cooed again from the same hidden place. Armin turned from the window. He couldn't make out much of Mikasa, but he could locate her, a shadow, the blacker darkness of the room.

"Mikasa," Armin said. "There's nothing that can break the bond of a memory."

Mikasa's hand emerged from her own shadow, and she clasped Eren's hand lying on top of the bed. She closed her eyes and sat very still.

Watching Mikasa, Armin wondered about memories. He thought: each new memory was a needle-stitch that helped form an elaborate web connecting their lives. Bright threads sewed down through them and into each other, so that they could only move when the other moved, reliant on each other, connected at countless points in time.

Armin said, "You were there, like I was, when Eren first woke up after the Military Police's experiment. He was panicked and confused. But since that day, one thing has always been clear. Although the suppressant stole valuable memories from him, Eren's heart can't forget about you. There's no mistake in his mind that you're someone important to him."

Mikasa opened her eyes and kept a hold of Eren's hand.

"That's why you can have a little more faith in yourself," Armin said. "And a little more faith in him, too."

# # #

Commander Hanji and Captain Levi were updated on new developments. The Attack Titan had been brought forth successfully. After three days, Eren Jaeger had broken out of his coma. The next phase of rehabilitation would move forward. The Military Police were happy with themselves. But they still didn't know much of anything.

Levi said, So, you were able to answer that question, huh?

They said, He's able to call on the Attack Titan now.

Levi said, He may not look like much at the moment, but you should never handle him lightly.

They said, I appreciate your concern, but thanks to your advice, we have a better understanding of the person holding the Founder's power. Despite the mystery behind his recent behavior, he's actually a very simple person.

Levi and Hanji didn't agree. They didn't disagree. They remained silent.

# # #

By the hospital bed, a blue flower rested in a vase. It'd been cut from the garden and brought to the infirmary. The window was closed, and the curtains fell straight by the frame. Eren had his eyes fixed the flower in the vase. Armin peered between the curtains at the courtyard. It was filled with a cool sun and everything went on the way it was meant to. Armin turned and looked at Eren.

"Your color's back," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"A bit impatient to get out of here."

Armin nodded. He continued watching Eren and saw Eren put his eyes on the door. There was a fixed disappointment in his face. Armin said, "Mikasa's tending to the garden. She won't be here until later."

Eren looked away from the door and, sitting up in the bed, he was completely still and leaned forward slightly. Armin pulled together the curtains, lowering the light in the room. He moved to sit on Eren's bed. The bedsprings were quiet.

"Before you were handed over to the Military Police, you'd become more and more withdrawn. I didn't know what you were thinking."

Armin watched Eren's face to see if Eren knew anything. Looking at the side of Eren's face, Armin saw that it was a face that equally could've been one of knowing something or knowing nothing.

"The Rumbling would wipe out all life," Armin said. "That's the magnitude of destruction that weapon holds. And you're in charge of it. That's why dozens of people hope to assume control over you."

Eren didn't reply, and he still didn't move.

"To possess that power, not many people could shoulder the weight of it. I think it must've done a number on you."

Eren's face changed then. Armin could see it, but he wasn't sure what it meant. He pressed Eren a little more.

"You've given me the miracle of this life, even at an irredeemable cost. I want to do everything I can to give it meaning." Armin looked Eren in the eye, pushing, hoping to understand what he saw in Eren's face. "For you, too," he said.

"If it's right or wrong doesn't matter," Eren said. "It was 'right' to me."

"Even if it doesn't matter to you, I don't want anyone to blame you for it. Since that day, it's been up to me to make your choice the 'correct' one. And I don't want to blame you for it, either."

Eren sighed. He reached for the bedside table and took the flower from its vase and was content to hold it in his hands. The fragrance was soft and subtle.

"I think what you said about Mikasa is true about me, too. I grew dependent on the attachments I was able to make." Eren felt something important in the flower. And then he knew the truth. "I can never let go of them. No matter what."

# # #

Time was beginning to lose order.

Nights and days lost themselves.

Like bone dust on a shore of dead flesh, Eren was eroding away. Before he could do anything to remember, the forgetting already took root.

—en?

The farthest level of Eren's hearing caught the sound of his name. He sat on the fountain and found himself staring out of his head. He didn't know how he'd gotten where he was or when he'd gotten there. Footsteps landed in the grass. His mind fumbled with faces and voices. Mikasa, he thought.

A face bent in front of him.

"Are you okay?" Armin leaned across the table. Plates had been set; food had been served. Armin had finished his meal, waiting for Eren to finish his. "You've been out of it today."

Eren looked at the fork by his hand and thought about his hand and thought to move his hand to the fork. His thoughts went into his hand and his hand budged from his side, but he wasn't sitting at the dinner table anymore, he was in the showers, his hand turning the knob of the faucet, not picking up the fork.

Cool water hit his chest and turned him to gooseflesh and shivers. Then the lights went out and he was in an underground bedroom, lying on his back in bed. A guard stood over him.

Then the lights came back on and now the guard was shaved and dressed in new clothes, watching as Eren removed his sleeping shirt and pants and put his body inside a clean change of clothes. He secreted an odor of sour flesh and the guard told him needed to wash up, and Eren washed up, but he wasn't in the showers, washing up. He clipped his clean sheets to a clothesline, not feeling his hands, lost in the day, unconscious of himself going on and on and on.

—en?

Again, the quietest part of Eren's hearing caught a soft, questioning voice calling his name, as though trying to wake him without scaring him. An emptiness was everywhere. Then warmth came onto his hand and his eyes creaked, following the minute point of feeling he felt. He looked and saw Mikasa on her knees in the grass, touching his hand, studying him. The sun shed across her body, and her face brightened in a radiant bloom.

Eren picked up his lips and moved them, not feeling it. "What'd you say?" he said.

"You've been so quiet lately," she said.

Sounds wandered into Eren's hearing in a gradual procession and then he could hear the fountain and then the garden and then the birds and then the insects and then the whisper of Mikasa's skirt. Soon he could see the glimmer of sunshine on Mikasa's fingernails and the microscopic white fuzz on the curve of her ear and the flowers living brightly as everything seemed to sprout up from a soundless darkness. He opened his mouth in surprise, absorbed by the feeling of feeling something in an extended unfeeling. In a solid wave, it slammed into him.

He shoved his fists in his eyes. "Something's wrong with me, Mikasa." But his numb lips escaped him, and he couldn't say anything at all.

Everything was lost and dark and disordered again.

"Did you say 'Mikasa?' Mikasa's not here. It's just us."

It was just them, Armin and Eren and their dinners. Armin reached across the table to put the spoon in Eren's hand. "This food strike can't continue. Please eat."

Before dinner was over, it seemed, water was hitting the back of Eren's neck, flowing down over him. Without moving a muscle, Eren stared at the water streaming through his toes. The drain guzzled the water, dirtied by his own skin and oil. Pipes rattled. The bathroom fogged. Eren closed his eyes and grabbed his head. He tried to piece together the day, leaking through a watery consciousness.

He opened his eyes, lying in bed, in the underground room. He stared at the ceiling and blinked. For hours at a time, he didn't move.

# # #

Over the course of several days, the erasure took Eren away. On the third morning, Captain Levi and Mikasa met up in the fitness room like usual. Levi cupped the boxing mitts as Mikasa beat them with her hands.

"Eren isn't himself," Mikasa said in between strikes. She grew winded.

"You're only just now realizing it?"

"I disagreed with you before. But something's changed since he turned into his titan."

Mikasa threw her gloves. She gritted her teeth. She said, "If memories make a person who they are, then what about a person who's lost theirs?"

Levi slipped off the mitts. He wiped his hands. "Isn't this what the Military Police wanted?"

"Can't you do something?"

Levi shook his head. "It's not my place to do anything about Eren anymore. But if there's anyone who can wake up Eren from this sleep he's been dragged under, then it's the two people who are the most important to him."

# # #

is it the lost dying voices from across the sea i can hear? i don't know. i can't seem to wake up from the long dark sleep that's engulfed me.

The world seemed to arrive to Eren in an echo, just a reverberation from some huge distance. Days passed in an hour. Everything was slipping away.

Suddenly, a cold, hard rain rammed down from the sky. Eren jolted awake. Mikasa gripped him, letting the rain hammer him in falling gusts. He was thrust out of his mind fog and into the real world. "It's cold," he said. For a moment, he was lucid and he knew, clearly, who he was and where he was.

The cold shook Eren. He felt the wind and the rain and the freezing cold, shuddering harder and harder. Suddenly, he wanted to laugh. Then he wanted to cry. He crossed his arms, and his teeth clattered. Mikasa looked up at him. Her hair was a drowned, black cling. The rain drove in fierce pellets behind her.

"It's cold," she said. Water spouted wildly off her face, and Eren lowered his head. He watched the rain gush down her lips and chin.

Before Eren could say anything, Mikasa pulled him back inside the building. Out of the storm, they shivered together. Pools formed where they stood. Their feet left water-stamps in a shrinking trail down the hall. Mikasa took Eren from one place to another. A heat source pressed a tangible wall of warmth on the air. Eren felt the fire before he could see it. A hearth had been lit in a back parlor. They stood near it. Heat took the water from their skin and hair and fought the cold from their bodies. Eren soaked in each moment. He felt the growing warmth, the progressive drying.

Mikasa said, "You're not cold anymore, right?"

"I'm not cold anymore," Eren said. And once more, he felt he could cry. "I'm . . . here."

"Yes."

The firelight flashed in Mikasa's eyes when he looked at her. The longer he looked at her, the more awake he was. He could feel the blood in the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes. He could feel the breath going into his body and out of it. Mikasa made a movement, and he couldn't tell if it was the reflections of the fire or something else.

Eren licked his lips. "Mikasa."

She stepped suddenly closer, and Eren leaned on the backs of his heels, as if he'd been pushed. "I'm sorry, Eren. But . . ." Mikasa lifted onto her toes, growing even closer, closer; her face was big and open and deep, and her eyes were achingly clear. "Can you try to remember me again, please?"

An emotion channeled down into Eren and without any physical control, Eren saw his arms moving toward her. His thoughts scrambled in a whirl of painful tenderness. He didn't know if he was real — if she was real — if this was happening at all. He went to hold her to him. She seemed to flicker at the edges, like a mirage. Her face floated very close, close enough that he could make out his own pale ghost in her gaze. Then there was a sound like shattered glass, and he watched the ghost of himself fall away into a thick black pool.

Mikasa reached out as Eren began to tip backward. Blood formed in his nostrils and at the base of his ears. It trickled down his face and over his lips.

Eren saw everything — slowly. His name was on Mikasa's mouth, him hearing nothing but silence, deafened by a painless blow to the head; Mikasa's outflung fingers in empty space, grasping, as he sank slowly, slowly away. Before he could hit the floor, she threw out her arms and, on her knees, she caught him. Then, as though he were made of glass, she cradled him in her lap and propped up his head. He stared at her, vacantly, in a silent paralysis. His eyelids blinked through black, wet mud. Blood continued to trickle from the canals in his skull. There wasn't any pain. Only silence.

Eren felt himself fade through Mikasa's arms.

And then he was gone.