Before I Leave You

under the tree

"I'd rather you not interfere at all," you cut him off with a growl. "Your goddamn presence keeps giving me migraines, I'm beginning to think you're here just to torture me."

Eren gathers some small sticks by his feet and starts snapping them in half mindlessly. "I don't see what the big deal is. You're safe here. And we're not even that far away from the city."

"Where is 'here'?" you demand.

"In the outskirts of the Karanes District."

You sit upright, eyes wide in alarm. "That's a whole town over! How the hell did you even get us here?" And how had you not woken up for any of it?

"I took a taxi from the office to the train station," he answers simply. He gives a small nudge with his chin to the open field at a faint snake-like trail you hadn't noticed before in the distance. "At the end of that path are train tracks. If we follow them north, they lead back to the train station. We can take the next train ride over back to the city. Your father's office isn't far from the station."

You narrow your eyes at him. "You really expect me to believe that you alone brought me here without anyone stopping you or thinking you suspicious for hauling around an unconscious person across town?"

Mikasa, Jean, Connie, Sasha...They were all stationed at areas of exits. He couldn't have left the building without any of them knowing about it.

Eren shrugs. "We hardly came across anyone. Other than the taxi driver who took us to the train station, but the train itself was empty and the driver probably just thought you were intoxicated or something."

You roll your eyes.

"Either way," Eren insists, "your hair covered your face most of the time, and without Mikasa and all them hovering around you, no one was going to think it was you."

You give him an evaluating sidelong glance before you lean back on the ground, using your elbows to support your weight as you turn to watch the fading sunset disappear from the sky.

"That must have been some strong stuff you slipped into my drink then," you accuse him casually. "To knock me out cold for that long and bring me here."

Eren looks to you incredulously. "You and I both know I had nothing to do with that."

You tsk. "And yet you were the last person I was seen with last. The only one in my father's office who had full access to the fresh array of beverages Historia had left ready for me. Beverages that I drank."

Eren looks away, jaw tight. His silence is enough to tell you he's already thought of this. In fact, he's had plenty of time to contemplate all the incriminating evidence stacked against him and the possible consequences he'll face for kidnapping you.

And yet...

"None of this looks good for you..." you draw out. A beat later, your siren gaze cuts to him like a knife. "So why are you still here?"

What could possibly be keeping him here that he'd refuse to run away and save his own skin? Did he really not have a full understanding of who your people were? Of what they would do to him once they found out he had risked your safety by taking you away from them without their knowing?

He frowns, taking one of the sticks he's broken in half to draw lines on the ground. "I wasn't going to leave you here all alone when you were still unconscious. And you looked like you needed time alone. Away from everyone. So I brought you here. I knew Mr. Kruger wouldn't mind."

Your ears perk, tense. "Kruger?"

Eren nods to the vast land around you. "This is his property. His home is just down that hill. Behind those trees."