A Second Chance || Attack on Titan

of a boy who wanted freedom

So this got a little out of hand... it's been a while, I'm sorry.  Hopefully the length makes up for it! This part was difficult to write,  since I don't know how the manga ends and I'm making my best to draw  the connections with what I know. So many things to change!

So,  for this au, assume it was easier to go back and forth between Paradis  and Marley, and that messages can be exchanged easily enough for it to  be regular correspondence. Also forgive me if anything is incorrect, I  just know that canon is sad so I want to know as little as possible for  as long as I can, so I didn't do my usual hardcore research while I  wrote this.

SUMMARY

Stopping a war before it's began is difficult, but Eren will be damned if he doesn't keep his family safe.

Or, how Eren tries to get a better future of everyone, even at the cost of his own.

The war is over.

It's been two weeks  since the last battle, and Eren still has trouble believing it truly is  over. He doesn't remember how it was to have peace - never really had  it, even before Bertholdt and Reiner kicked in the wall and started this  horror show - and now that he does, it's... it's weird.

He likes it.

Up  until the very end, Eren never thought he would really end this madness  - how could he, when the titans seemed so invincible, when suddenly  there were multiple other human settlements with greater technology and  resources that wanted them all dead? - but the first time he remembers  truly hoping it would all work out is when he first met Zeke.

Or  well, more like the second time. Their first meeting was more about Zeke  destroying their army, and Levi out of his mind with grief after  sending one of his best friends to die only to let his killer escape,  and Armin so badly burnt he would have died without the serum, and Eren  thinking you'll pay for this, you'll pay for hurting my family.

Then he found out Zeke is his family too.

Their  second meeting is around a year and a half after that final battle. The  titans on the island are gone by them - they did it, they drove them  out of their home, only for another, greater threat in the form of other  humans to take their place, how fucking ironic - and they are locating a center of operations near the ocean so they can see when Marleyan fleets inevitably arrive.

It goes something like this.

Levi almost kills Zeke on sight, and Eren is barely able to stop it.

For  someone who's in middle of enemy territory, being carefully watched by  the one soldier capable of destroying even the most powerful of titans,  Zeke remains irritatingly calm. Like he knows he won't be harmed. Just  out of spite, Eren has half a mind of letting Levi cut his head off.

But  he needs him, and Zeke knows this. He knows he won't be harmed by them  as long as he's useful, and unfortunately for them, he is very, very useful.

He's  the only chance they have to finish this war before it begins, after  all. And while Eren has other options - oh does he have options,  terrible, horrifying options that keep him awake at night as Levi holds  him, as if protecting him even when asleep - he doesn't like them nearly  as much as the one Zeke brings with his help. For one, this way he  doesn't have to hunt him down and feed him to a child Historia would be  forced to conceive.

After all, Eren has fought all this time for humanity's survival. Destroying it all would be kind of a moot point.

(He'd  do it though, if he had no other choice. He would not hesitate, would  stop at nothing, would not care if his family hated him for what he had  to do, if it meant it was the only option for them to be safe.)