Carla's nightmares usually focused on her family somehow splitting apart. Eren running off to join the scouts and getting killed, Mikasa being hunted down by those evil traders, Grisha leaving and not coming back….
Her dream had some of those things. Grisha leaving, the family splitting, Eren going beyond every threshold she could imagine. Well, every threshold but marriage. No happy life or children for him.
It felt more realistic than any dream she had ever had, and she was suddenly certain that it was true, that it had happened. Might happen again, although she wasn't sure what chain of events had led her boy to-
To-
She didn't think it was all his fault, there was something sinister at play, but the best she could do, for now, was try to guide Eren. Parents didn't usually raise children to avoid genocide, but she figured she could wing it.
….
Wait. There were people outside of the walls. Good Goddesses.
Hannes woke up to a minor hangover, but he didn't attempt to resolve it with the hair of the dog. Hell, he wasn't sure he could ever bring himself to drink again. He needed to be ready yesterday.
The things he dreamt of… he dreamt of Titans inside the walls. Breaches, slaughter, getting on the wagon because there was barely any booze to drink and no good time to ever do it. Constant failure, a terrible smile beneath blonde hair.
While he was still trying to parse things, he had a voice that made him jump. "Hannes?"
Carla! Living and breathing in front of him, Eren and Mikasa clutching onto her hands. After the silence stretched, Hannes cleared his throat. "You need something, Carla?"
"If it isn't a bother… could you take us up?"
"Up the wall?" He asked.
"Yes. It's silly, I know, but I've heard so much about the view…" Was that sort of request probably against regulations? Yeah. Could he refuse the Yeagers anything if they asked right now? No.
Hannes turned to the men, who were still playing cards and drinking. "Elevator, boys! Get it started!"
"Sir?"
"You heard me!"
Whipping them into shape would help, but he wasn't sure about time. How long until things fell apart?
Eren and Mikasa clung tightly to her legs once they reached the top. Honestly, she was feeling a bit woozy as well, but she was here to give them a lesson.
Turning south, you could see all of Shiganshina, hundreds of red-shingled houses below them, looking as large as children's toys. Eren gasped.
"Can you find our house?" She asked him with a smile.
Carefully, oh so carefully, he crept closer to the edge and tried to count out the streets. Two up from the third bridge, a little ways past the main Shiganshina thoroughfare. It was impossible to tell if the house Eren pointed to was theirs, but she smiled and applauded him anyways.
(She remembered that same hand meting out death sentences for millions.)
"And every house has a family just like us, Eren. Every house." Not exactly true, but she was trying to make a point.
She pointed north, to the wilds of Wall Maria. "And there are more families that way. Just like us. Kids who love stew just as much as you do!"
Eren gave her a doubtful look, unwilling to believe any cooking could rival that of his mother's.
"Can we look at the outside, Mom?" Eren asked, eyes lighting up at the prospect.
Begrudgingly, Carla could recognize a losing battle. Eren would never stop wanting to leave these walls, would never stop desiring freedom. He would meet with the outside world eventually, she had to make sure he'd meet them with open arms.
"If Mr. Hannes says it's alright, sweetness."
She looked to the garrison officer, who hesitated for a moment before leading them on a slow walk to the corner of Shiganshina's walls. Considering the time, dinner was probably a wash…
Thankfully, there weren't many Titans visible, so Eren got to gawk at the wilderness as much as he pleased. Even Mikasa seemed curious.
"I wasn't expecting this, Carla." Hannes said.
"I wasn't planning on it," she admitted, "but I had the strangest dream…"
"A dream you're certain happened, even if it makes no damn sense?" He asked.
"Exactly."
It turned out they were operating on different sets of data. Hannes remembered the breaches, the hard times, and Carla remembered what those miserable years forced Eren to do. They had no idea of time scales, other than thinking Eren looked teenage in some of their memories. He was a member of the Survey Corp, that hopefully gave them a few years…
Carla worked on Eren, trying to mold him into someone that murder most of the planet, but when she wasn't busy with that or the usual issues of motherhood, she tried to make positive change. Ask Grisha to teach her and the other Shiganshina wives basic medicine and wound treatment, teach the kids where to run should an emergency happen…
Hannes had a bit more power. Being the only person who gave a damn in the entire region meant he could make moves. His were the only proposals, of course they'd be considered… getting his comrades off their asses proved more trouble, but he had a fire in his gut. He did all sorts of things: making earthworks and barriers near the gate, clearing evacuation routes, and sending letters to the Scouts about modern Titan defense.
They worked like fiends, made their friends and neighbors horribly concerned… but they knew what was coming. They didn't know the method, didn't know the time, but they were certain.
Today's field trip was to the farms, and it was Hannes in charge, not Carla. She was on the home front, while Hannes investigated procurement. There was a farm that produced cheese, and Hannes hoped a stockpile could be built up…
Eren was glad to come along, sitting on the horse with Hannes, gasping at the cows. He was a sweet boy, before everything.
As they approached, Hannes could see a girl about Eren's age, tending to the cattle. It would do him some good to have more friends his age– Carla worried endlessly about his socializing– although some grim part of Hannes wondered if making friends who only got killed would just push Eren further.
Eventually, the girl noticed them, and her reaction… she squealed something suspiciously like "Eren?" and spooked her cow.
After separating herself from the agitated bovine, she approached them, cheeks flushed. (With exertion or embarrassment, he couldn't be sure.)
"How did you know my name?" Eren asked, suspicious.
The girl flushed further. "This sounds silly… but I had a dream about a boy who looked like you, named Eren?"
"Was it a good dream?"
"Horrible." She looked so much more weary than a child should have been.
Unfortunately, before he could follow up, Hannes had to negotiate a deal for the Garrison's cheese. It seemed so crucial minutes ago, but now…
He couldn't help but wonder about the middle child of the Carolina family, who might just be like him and Carla. She and her siblings orbited around Eren, interested in any stranger their age.
Hannes hammered out a deal and even got some lunch out of the whole thing. He made sure to pay them something in compensation; the last thing he wanted was giving the Garrison a reputation as moochers. Well, bigger moochers.
"Could you help me with the feed, Mr. Hannes?"
"Mina!" Her mother hissed.
"I can help," Hannes smiled easily. "Need to keep the muscles strong, you know?"
"This is going to sound crazy, but I think a Titan is going to break down Wall Maria!"
"I know." Hannes said, not sure whether to feel relieved or horribly sorry. This poor girl didn't deserve to worry about things like this.
"I knew I didn't remember you coming here last time!" She exclaimed, "So, you know we only have ten months!"
His knees collapsed under him. Ten months. Ten months. "You remember dates?"
She nodded. "Fall of Maria is 845. Battle for Trost, where I…" she trailed off, and Hannes felt his stomach churn, "it was 850. My memories are a bit fuzzy after that. There's a really crazy month a bit after that, then years until…"
"The Rumbling."
"It kind of makes sense. He hated the Titans because they destroyed his life. When he knew the reason behind them, the hatred didn't go away…"
It just shifted onto Marley, or maybe the specific individuals who refused to qllow Eldia to live in peace.
"This… this is going to sound silly." She started.
Hannes sighed. "Better to laugh at this mess instead of crying. I know that helped Carla."
"Carla?"
"Eren's mother."
Mina cringed, but continued to talk, her expression grim. "Well, back in the day, I had a sort of… crush."
Hannes laughed. Mina looked offended, and he was reminded that kids really did think that sort of stuff was critically important.
(Maybe it was strong emotional attachment to Eren that brought them back, although Hannes couldn't imagine why Mikasa didn't remember, then.)
"I don't want to see him become that. I wanted to have some adventures and then retire, maybe with him. A quiet life, you know?"
That seemed like a pipe dream, but Hannes couldn't exactly blame a teenage girl for fantasizing about happiness, could he?
"I'll see about getting you in the loop." Hannes said. "Letters at least, or maybe an apprenticeship with Grisha…"
"Eren's dad?" She gasped.
"Yeah. He already taught me a few things about field medicine."
She nodded along, and Hannes decided not to mention what that man was going to do to the Reiss family in ten months. Neither Hannes or Carla had figured out a way to mention that yet, but he was the obvious counter to the Armored.
Eren was back to playing with Mikasa and Armin– where did kids get the energy?– while Hannes sat down with Carla for a progress meeting.
"We've got a third."
Carla froze. "A third dreamer? Who?"
"Mina Carolina. Farmer's daughter, Eren's age. She says we've got ten months."
Carla let out a sigh of relief. "More than I thought, thank goodness."
"Do we try to tell Grisha next? Confront him about Marley?"
Carla nodded. "Can we do this without killing the Reiss family?"
"I hope." Hannes sighed.
Grisha knew the sort of rumors that spread about him. They came in a variety of flavors– citing his mysterious origins was always a favorite– even if they cooled down a bit after he helped handle the plague in Shiganshina.
When he came back to Shiganshina, he heard the rumors changing. Hannes, the Garrison's infamous lush, had stopped drinking and threw himself into his work… at Clara's suggestion, if the rumors were true. The two of them were constantly getting together to talk, and the rumors fed on that.
He trusted his wife, but there was some part of him that worried when he came home to find the table set for three: Hannes, Carla, and himself. Grisha hesitantly took a seat.
"Dear, could you tell us a bit about Marley?"
Oh, shit.
"They're coming for us. Ten months."
"How do- what are you–"
"You can see the future too, can't ya?" Hannes asked.
(It was a tremendous pain in the butt, getting Grisha to places where he could practice with his Titan. Hannes had to rappel down the wall with him.
Easier than talking to Carla about his plans to give Eren the Titan… and a thirteen year death sentence.)
When the day came, Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman were on a play date with Mina Carolina. The scariest thing the two saw were the freaky eyes of a goat.
Grisha Yeager was on the Titan's side of the walls, waiting to intercept. It would be all him today– Carolina said the only other friendly shifter was Ymir, who was too young and probably unwilling anyway– and he felt the pressure. How funny that he ended up protecting Eldia with the power of Titans, like the old heroes he had dreamt of as a younger man.
He had lost one son to nationalist madness, he would not lose another. When he saw the boy creeping toward the wall, he hesitated for a moment. He was painfully close to Eren's age… and he would see Eren dead.
This was his big debut. Hannes would keep the Garrison from firing, would get a massive collection of witnesses of him defending humanity. Then they would need to find an inheritor. Strange how the future memories couldn't predict this.
(Hannes and Carla were compiling a list of potential shifters, but the thought of damning someone to a mere thirteen years was horrible.)
Somewhere out there, Dina had Royal blood, to pair with the Founding Titan. Well, assuming they separated the Founding Titan from the Reiss family, which was a big if. Rumbling was, of course, off the table, but they needed reforms and they needed time.
It was painful, sitting and waiting. He was painfully aware of his limited time, of the grand mission that he was part of. Carla and Hannes and even little Mina would have to finish the job. They would need probably need to engineer a coup, would need to see Eldia modernized…
He would pass on Marleyan knowledge, both medical and more general, and he would pass on the Titan. That was the way of things, wasn't it?
Life elaborated itself. Life fought. They would keep on fighting.
The rest of the world would not die.
"Do I think I would look good with long hair?" Eren mused, looking at Mikasa.
"No!" Mina replied, almost immediately.
"Why not?"
"Well, it doesn't work with ODM gear, you know? Gets caught."
Even the idea of Eren with long hair made her sweat. Uncomfortable quasi-memories, impressions of a city she didn't know and violence that always seemed to stay the same. A blade slashing through that long mane.
She looked to Mikasa and wondered if she would ever become that incredible woman. It would be better, she supposed if they never had to fight, but imagining Mikasa as anything less than a warrior seemed like a waste.
Really, she didn't want to see the Titans killed if there was any way to avoid it. Maybe the Founding could undo the process. Eren had never bothered to.
Was it too much to hope that the Rumbling was the result of the Titans messing with his head? It made her memories of training feel less confusing… but that white hot fury had always been there, since his mother's death.
She looked south, and really hoped that Mr. Yeager was capable of handling them. Annie, Bertholdt, Reiner. She had dreamt them as well, and it was the part of the dreams that she found the hardest to believe. The betrayal was powerful.
Annie had taught her to fight– "You've got some real muscle, farmgirl,"– and Reiner was like everyone's big brother. Bert put her own feelings of homesickness into words brilliantly because he was a stranger in a foreign country.
"Mina? Mina? Minaaa?" Eren poked her cheek, and she jumped.
"Sorry." It was easy to forget she had a second chance at life. If she died again in the same place, the same circumstances, she still got a lot more than other people did.
She went on to show Eren the pigs. He was a boy, he'd probably like that they ate damn near everything.
