Sharing Memories AKA When Eren decides he might be insane and tells the others about his future memories.
"So, let me get this straight," Jean said skeptically. "During the ceremony last year, you think you saw the future, in your old man's memories?"
"Yeah," Eren answered awkwardly as the Scouts traveled out into the lands beyond Wall Maria for the first time in over half a decade.
"How the hell does that even work?" Connie asked in confusion. "I'm not being stupid, right? You can't be seeing what's up ahead if you're looking behind."
"What Connie said!" Sasha agreed, completely bewildered. "That's like...like...I don't know what it's like, but it doesn't make sense!"
"Look, I don't entirely get it either. All I know is that my Dad got flashes of memories that were definitely the future. My future. Because unless everyone here has identical relatives, I'm telling you I saw what looked like you guys, but a few years older," Eren explained with a sigh.
"How'd we look?" Connie asked curiously. "Was I still the best looking?"
"Idiot, not now!" Jean scolded with a glare.
"Okay, that explains why you've been acting weird and everything," Armin remarked in interest. "But why are you only telling us this now?"
"Well," Eren hesitated, kneading his forehead. "I realized I was either wrong and it didn't matter, or I was right and there was nothing we could do about it until I confirmed it was true."
"And how the hell do you confirm you saw the future?" Jean asked idly.
"I told Hange, most of it," Eren explained idly. "The earliest thing I saw in our memory was, well, this. We get to the ocean and..."
"And?" Mikasa asked with keen interest.
"In my memory, there's a strange Titan we run across. If it's there, I'm not crazy. If it's not, then I don't think anyone was meant to have more than one of the Nine at the same time," Eren explained uncomfortably.
"Oh...oh!" Connie said in understanding. "So, you've been keeping this under wraps because you thought you were going insane?"
"Long and short, yeah," Eren confessed with a groan. "And it's not like I got any more...future memories after that, so I don't really have anything else to confirm or disprove it yet."
"Future memories," Sasha repeated with a grimace. "My brain hurrrrrrts!"
"You still could have told us," Mikasa said simply.
"Mikasa, I'm sorry, I really am, but I was kind of working through an existential crisis and coming to terms with...what I saw," Eren said, swallowing thickly.
"Is it that bad?" Armin asked in surprise.
Eren didn't answer, which said enough on its own.
In just over an hour, a flare signal went up, confirming the location of a Titan.
The Scouts stood around the small, malformed Titan. There was a trail behind it, showing where it had been crawling slowly over time with its tiny limbs.
"Is...this it?" Hange asked, knowing the answer but clearly wishing she was wrong.
Eren wore a solemn expression on his face now as he touched the brow of the Titan. "Yeah. Yeah, this is the one."
Hange took a deep, shuddering breath at that.
"Commander?" Floch asked in concern. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Let's move out," Hange ordered suddenly.
The rest of the journey was almost entirely in silence…oppressive, all consuming silence. Until they finally reached the end: where green fields gave way to a stretch of sand, ending at the wall where Eldians were thrown from and turned into Titans, and then...
The Ocean.
For one brief moment, the awe and majesty of that sight overwhelmed all concerns, all dread and all thoughts of the future.
All except Eren's.
The boy of freedom ventured atop the wall while his friends were below, his mind flashing back to a memory that was not his own, of this place with a setting sun. "So, this was where it started, Dad," Eren said, staring at the exact spot he knew his father had stood. "And ended for you, Kruger," Eren added on, glancing to where the other Attack Titan had stood.
Maybe it was the memories, maybe it was because two of his predecessors had conversed here, but Eren felt as though he was standing there with them, nearly twenty years ago.
"Eren."
He turned and was unsurprised to see Hange standing there. "Commander Hange."
Hange wanted to tell him to drop the formalities, to make a joke, but she couldn't. Not out of professionalism, but because her mind was too preoccupied to care. "This is just like what you saw in your memories."
It wasn't a question. Eren nodded all the same.
Hange massaged her temple. "Damnit," she whispered. "Eren, this is..."
"I know," he acknowledged solemnly, distantly. "I know."
"So, what? Is there no way to change what you saw? Are you, the one always craving freedom, telling me this is all set in stone?" Hange asked with gritted teeth.
"No," Eren answered softly. "I don't believe this is something like destiny or anything."
"Then...what is it?" Hange asked hesitantly.
"I think I...the future me choose that path," Eren admitted with...it was more than regret, stronger than disgust and deeper than despair.
Hange blinked at the wording, running it in her head several times. "The future you. Are you saying that you...can change what you saw?"
Eren looked off to the horizon. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm already trying."
Hange raised an eyebrow.
"You didn't know. None of you did," Eren answered idly.
Hange let that sink in for a moment before marching up to Eren, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Eren," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "I swear to you, I will do everything and use every possible chance so that you will never have to take that path."
Eren stared at her for a moment, seemingly unmoved. "Is this the part where Levi swoops in and cuts my head off?"
Hange smiled weakly. "I thought about it," she said in apology. "I thought for a moment, I might have this one chance to stop this terrible...thing from happening to the world. Saving billions of lives? It's hard not to consider it," she said with a weak laugh. "But..."
"But?" Eren prompted.
"...Erwin once said there was no future without you, Eren," Hange said solemnly. "And despite everything, even what you told me...I think that might still be true."
Eren blinked at that, finally surprised and taken aback by something.
"And as much as I can never condone such a future, I can't condemn it either," Hange said with gritted teeth. "Because, I have to believe Eren, that you...that any version of the man I know you are, wouldn't do that unless you believed that there was no other path for the people of this island," Hange stopped to smile a sad smile. "I have to believe...and it's not too hard to imagine, really...that in the future you saw, I just failed that badly."
"Hange..." Eren said in surprise.
"You didn't tell me everything," Hange said knowingly. "But if none of us knew anything, I can imagine where that leads."
Eren bowed his head at those images…of fighting and hurting his friends…of Hange's own death at the hands of the Titans.
"That...version of you, he couldn't see any memories from a future Attack Titan, could he?" Hange predicted, getting a surprised look from Eren. Only slightly, but it was enough. Hange let loose a sigh. "You really live up to the suicidal moniker, eh?"
Eren attempted a weak smile. "What now?"
"What we've always been doing, Eren," Hange said with a grin. "We try to save the world."
Eren smiled nostalgically at that. Saving the world, that's what it had always felt like, when they believed there was no one else beyond the walls.
"And," Hange continued, catching Eren off guard as she brought him into a hug. "We try to save you, Eren."
Eren found himself overwhelmed by that moment, embracing Hange as tears began to fall from his eyes. "Hange...thank you."
"So..." Hange pulled back, looking at Eren with a strange, almost childish form of hopefulness. "Is there any...Titan-mystery related information you can give me?"
Eren wiped his tears and smiled. It was good to see Hange like her old self. "Well, I learned the origins of Titans...but I forgot it."
"Eh? How does that work?" Hange asked in confused disappointment.
"I saw the memories of the founder. I know I did, but I don't actually remember what was in them until, well, it actually happens," Eren explained, careful and uncertain of his own explanation. "I guess it's something she wants to be learned in person, not through...whatever the hell this time-stuff is."
"Damn," Hange said with a sigh. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, I found out what Titans are made of," Eren said bluntly. "Sand."
"...Ahahaha, that's a good one!" Hange said with a chuckle, blinking her one eye. "Oh, you're serious. How?"
"It's...hard to explain," Eren said with a sigh. "Come on, we better head back before they worry about us."
Meanwhile
"Blouse, I will drown you," Levi warned.
"I'm telling you guys, I saw Eren and Hange doing stuff up on the wall!" Sasha insisted.
"Huh, well that explains a few things. Eren likes older women," Connie said idly.
"Connie, you're not helping," Armin said, eyeing Mikasa nervously, a rather dark aura around her.
"What do you even mean, doing things?" Jean said with a sigh. "It's Hange, I don't even think she has a sex drive."
"The ocean is big enough to drown two of you brats," Levi stated pointedly.
"All I'm saying is, it was probably some scientist shit, not...whatever your filthy mind imagined," Jean explained.
"Didn't think you'd defend Eren, Jean," Connie said with a chuckle.
"I think I'm defending the Commander. From Mikasa, if no one else," Jean stated, eyeing his crush warily as well.
"Hello, everyone!" Hange declared as she and Eren returned to the beach, her with a large smile and Eren looking strangely relaxed and content for a change. "What'd we miss?"
"...Command Hange, could I have a word with you in private?" Mikasa asked darkly.
"Get in line, Brat," Levi said, eyeing the pair in annoyance. For causing this misunderstanding, if there was a misunderstanding.
"...Sasha, I did NOT fuck the commander," Eren said bluntly
"Wait, what?" Hange asked in confusion, blushing in bewilderment. "What's going on? How did we get to this?"
"You don't need to see the future to know that," Eren said, staring with suspicious eyes at Sasha and Connie. "The only question is, which one said something stupid?"
Both immediately pointed at each other, to no one's surprise.
"Oh. Ohhhh! Not sure why I'm surprised," Hange said in understanding, looking directly at the youngest Ackerman with utmost seriousness and honesty. "Mikasa, I hugged him. That is all. His virginity is still intact."
"...I believe you," Mikasa accepted,
"Good," Eren said, refusing to acknowledge that exchange, heading towards the ocean. "Because I have nineteen years of bad memories to forget about."
"Huh? You're only fifteen though?" Floch asked in confusion.
"I know what I said."
Hange watched with a small smile as Eren rejoined his friends, Levi approaching her while also watching the Attack Titan intently.
"So, what's the verdict?" Levi asked lowly.
"Do you really think you could bring yourself to do it, after all this?" Hange asked idly. "Execute him like a dog, for something he hasn't done, and doesn't want to do?"
"If he doesn't want it, why did he see himself doing it?" Levi questioned stoically.
"Abandon your humanity," Hange repeated knowingly. "How many times has that been said to him, to save humanity behind the walls?"
Levi decided it was wise not to comment on that.
"From Eren's perspective, or that future Eren's at least, it was a choice of absolutes: Save us by destroying the world, or let the world destroy us," Hange mused. "Could either of us really sit back and say we'd just concede to fate at this point?"
"Erwin wouldn't take that route, and you know it," Levi stated simply.
"If Erwin was here, this wouldn't be an issue," Hange countered with a frown. "He could have found a way, a reckless plan like he always did, and give Eren reason to believe we could survive without the Rumbling."
"...So, I should have picked him over Armin?" Levi asked coldly.
"No," Hange said with a sigh, rubbing her eye patch. "If anything, I wish it had been me instead of either of them.
Levi stiffened as he looked at Hange's face, seeing a hollow look in her usually animated eye. "Hange..."
"Eren trusts us with this information, Levi," Hange stated, narrowing her eyes. "I will never approve of the Rumbling, but I won't get in Eren's way."
"Then what are you going to do?" Levi asked with a scowl. "What are we going to do?"
"Simple. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure the Rumbling is never needed," Hange answered with a cold fire in her voice, hands clenched into fists. "I'll delay that future until it ceases to exist at all."
End of Chapter
So, yeah...The general idea of if Eren let the cat out of the bag about the future memories. Granted, he hasn't shared everything, and probably never will. But Hange and Levi know about the Rumbling.
Which I think is interesting. Someone once compared Hange to the Norse God Odin, and that is more true in this fic: Like Odin, she knows the End of the World(Ragnorak/Rumbling) might just be inevitable. So, she is going to do everything she can to strive towards pushing it back, in hopes that one day it will never be needed to even consider..
Or, in short, this has put a major fire under Hange's ass, which will psh her to some interesting plans and decisions.