The rhythmic hum of the engine resonated through the massive vessel like a content, throaty growl, accompanied by the rhythmic sloshing noise of the ship's hull clashing with the water. The smell of diesel fuel lingered in the air, a distinct aroma of modern times and grand possibilities that clashed with the salty, fresh sea breeze.
Zoë adored diesel engines, but today, she'd have preferred the purity of the latter without the pungent odor of the first.
"You alright?"
Grütter, bless his soul, had perfected the art of unobtrusive obtrusiveness. Always just hovering where he wouldn't be in the way, concerned, but not unduly worried, helpful when needed, quiet when superfluous.
"Yeah, thanks."
Zoë tried a smile but it wouldn't manifest. She wasn't alright and that was bloody obvious. As the ship rocked and pitched in the embrace of the open sea, she found herself succumbing to all encompassing nausea. The rhythmic sway of the ship played havoc with her equilibrium, and the constant battle between her eyes, fixated on the ever-shifting horizon, and her inner ear, registering the ship's motion, left her feeling extremely disoriented.
It wasn't her first time on a ship - but the first time she felt so thoroughly miserable.
"It won't be long now," Felix Grütter tried to cheer her up, pointing at a flock of seagulls that hovered in the air in the distance.
And yet, it looked like she'd lose her dignity all over the weathered deck before they'd arrive.
In an attempt to anchor them on something less turbulent than the waves, Zoë let her eyes wander up to the towering chimneys that rose proudly against the expansive blue sky. The slender, cylindrical forms seemed to stretch endlessly, a testament to the power concealed within the ship's belly. As the diesel engines roared below, the top of each chimney, a flared lip catching the wind, dispersed the ship's stinky, black breath over the vast expanse of the sea.
Not long and we will be home.
A strong gust of wind tousled Hange's hair, whipping it around her face like a battlefield banner. Somewhere to the right, a lady lost her hat and screamed at her laughing companion to help her catch it. It sailed through the air like a wounded bird, then hit the ocean and vanished. Such was life: unexpected events, loss, pain, death. Home is where the heart is, right? For the life of her, she couldn't understand why she felt so much apprehension about it.
"You won't believe what I overheard just now," Grütter chuckled, turning his body so he could lean against the railing and look up at the chimneys with her.
"I hope it wasn't Jean and Pieck," she murmured. New love... a nuisance for everyone around who didn't experience the overflow of hormones first hand.
"No," Grütter's eyes twinkled merrily as he turned to her. "Something better: A nanny was telling a monster story to the two children in her care."
"That monster story?"
"Yup, these stories are spreading and spreading fast," Grütter nodded gleefully, "I don't know whether someone is deliberately spreading them or whether they are just hitting the Zeitgeist?"
"Man-eating giants and all that?"
"Oh yes," Grütter began to recite with aplomb, "their towering, skeletal forms blot out the sun, and their malevolent eyes pierce through the darkest of nights. With each step, they leave devastation in their wake, their thunderous footsteps echoing like harbingers of doom. Unfortunate souls who venture too deeply into the heart of cursed Paradis Island never return. Etc. Etc."
"Dramatic," Zoë remarked drily. "And ridiculous."
"And yet, there are enough people who are ready to believe there are deadly, horrible things on Paradis. If this continues, it will get even harder to find a passenger boat that takes you from the continent to the island."
"It could be deliberate."
"Yes, it could be."
The urgent summons from their Queen to return to Paradis had reached them only weeks after Marley's crushing defeat and unconditional surrender. A peace agreement was being negotiated these days. Marley's generals faced prosecution for war crimes. It was likely the country would be divided into five occupation zones. Yes, the war was over - and it had been going on for so long, people hardly remembered why it had started in the first place.
"Commander!" Zoë turned her head towards the shouted greeting, watching Armin scurry towards her. Her second in command scrunched up his face in sympathy when he drew closer. "Oh, you are still unwell?"
"What gave it away," Zoë groaned.
"Your skin is green," Armin lamented. "I am so sorry, Commander. I hoped to have a word with you."
"Take over from me and keep talking to her," Grütter offered his advice and turned away to take a turn on the deck. "It won't hurt to keep her mind off wanting to throw up."
"Really?" Armin looked doubtful.
"What are your thoughts about the scary stories about Paradis that are spreading like a wildfire?" Zoë asked him because indeed, talking helped.
"Someone wants to keep people away from the island," Armin replied promptly. "Though this method's success rests too much on people's superstition and fears to be a sure win."
"Could just be a hoax," Zoë suggested. Or the Azumabitos. They had vested interests to be the only ones with easy access to the rare materials on Paradis.
"A lot of people believe in these stories," Armin pushed some of his windblown hair out of his eyes. "There was even an article in one of the medical journals. Mass hysteria, they called it. It has real effects."
Ah, the medical journals... she would miss them.
"Should we get subscriptions?" She asked Armin, running through a list of desirables in her head. It was a long list, but without knowledge, they'd be greatly disadvantaged on their remote island.
"I'd love to. But will we have the budget?"
Zoë shrugged ruefully. Probably not. Paradis faced difficult times.
The Walls had crumbled. All of them. At the same time.
The Paradis government was sure it was sabotage - what else? - but couldn't prove it. Tensions were running high, the damage was tremendous, the death count was staggering. Cities like Trost or Shiganshina had been completely cut off from the rest of the island by mountains of rubble.
The Queen had called her elite soldiers back from the mainland to help her solve this new crisis. When Zoë had begun to write the mission reports, she had to ask herself whether they could count it as a success? They had infiltrated Marley's research facility and had helped the Eldian resistance - but in all honesty, the end of the war was hard to relate to their efforts.
It had just been Marley's time to fail.
"What did you want to talk to me about, Armin?" Zoë peeled her eyes away from the chimneys to look at the blond man before her. Her stomach lurched precariously but she willed it into submission once more.
He didn't seem to know where to begin.
But she already knew what he was going to say: The same thing bothered her too. Things made no sense. They did not add up. The more you thought about the past the more it slipped away.
The people in the world spoke of a shared history, of struggles and victories, but those stories, they did not connect. It was as if the threads of the collective tapestry had frayed, leaving a fragmented narrative that failed to weave a coherent understanding of the past.
Zoe had begun to think that the disconnection that seemed to echo within her might just be "shell shock", an affliction many soldiers shared. She pondered whether the war had left an indelible mark on her psyche, whether the echoes of battles long fought lingered in the depth of her memory and made her question the integrity of the internal narrative she tried to accept as her own.
"I know," she sighed, taking a deep breath of air. "I know, Armin. We will get to the bottom of this. Together."
"Okay," Armin nodded, seeming relieved. "Thank you, Commander. I was beginning to fear I was going insane?"
That, too, was a possibility they could not entirely dismiss. Maybe they were collectively insane.
The ship lurched and that was the end of her endurance: her lunch parted from her body violently.
###
Home is where the heart is.
Hers... wasn't here. It may be "home" on paper, but it felt like they had been absent for decades, not just for one year. Queen Historia had more enemies than ever, the military was deeply divided by ideology and ambition, religious zealots roamed the cities like vultures looking for easy prey, and as for the cherry on top, her father was out of prison and living in the Hange mansion with his senile mother, as if being a fucking traitor to the people could ever be forgotten.
No doubt he was plotting nefarious things, but Zoë had no time nor the energy to deal with him. She was given the lead in the Wall-Sabotage investigation on the day of their return. Failure was not an option and yet a sad certainty: She had only just started to look into Paradis' records, but had found all the relevant documents either destroyed or missing. The more she and Armin looked, the stranger everything became. Frankly, it appeared like a major cover-up, with no mistakes made on the side of those who were trying to keep secrets.
And then, it got really weird.
It began with a group of MPs dragging a furious man into her office in Mitras, his hands in shackles behind his back. He was a civilian, unusually short, with straight black hair cut in an old-fashioned military style, piercing sea gray eyes, and a smooth face that made judging his age kind of difficult. She guessed he was about her age: It was that look in his eyes. An old soul who had seen his fare of death.
"Took you long enough!" He barked at her in lieu of a greeting and for the life of her, Zoë could not understand why her heart started to gallop at his words and her breath got so short she had to gasp for air.
"Picked him up outside of HQ," one of the MPs reported, "he is one of those radical nut-cases."
"I'm going to rip your balls off and feed them to you for this," Shorty growled and it sounded so believable, the MP blanched before tightening his grip on the struggling man's arm and pushing him down after kicking him in the hollow of the knee.
"And you are bringing him to me because...?" Zoë wet her lips and swallowed. She was out of ginger tea and had forgotten to ring for more. Very inconveniently, the nausea was flaring up again.
"Claims he knows you," the second MP mumbled. She could guess where the split lip and the bruise that was forming on his cheek had come from.
"You know me?" Zoë frowned. Shorty was very handsome. Was his face familiar? Somehow, it was, but she couldn't place it. Maybe from the distant past?
"Shit, Hanji," Shorty looked at her like she was a nut-case. "Are you fucking with me?"
The way this man pronounced her name pleased her. Which was weird because it was not his place to drop all honorifics. Her stomach did a quiver, then a half-flip. Yup, the nausea was flaring up. As if she were back on a fucking ship on the rocking sea.
"Just because someone claims to know me doesn't mean you need to bring them to me," Zoë told the four MPs while studying the man some more. He had the physique of a soldier - strong upper arms and shoulders, a small waist, muscular legs. "Where do you live?"
"I'm a Captain of the Survey Corps," Shorty gasped. "Here, I live here. Where you live."
Zoë nodded slowly as if she understood. She didn't. It was the first time a nut-case claimed to be part of the Corps. Hopefully this wasn't the beginning of a trend... though they could use more members, truth be told.
"He's an Undergrounder," the MP with the bruise said with all the contempt he could muster.
"Once an Undergrounder, always an Undergrounder," Shorty mumbled, eyeing her warily. "My name is Levi Ackerman," he claimed. "Look it up. There must be a record somewhere. Captain Levi Ackerman. I started serving under Commander Erwin Smith and..."
She shook her head. "Can't." The military record had all burnt to ash.
"Fuck," the man in front of her turned pale when he caught the meaning of her words and she felt a sudden twinge of sympathy. Whatever ailed him, it couldn't be easy being crazy.
"You claim to have special knowledge...?" A euphemism for "you're an insane person" around here, but she had made it a habit to listen to the crazies too. Really, she was grasping at straws, any straw. Even madmen spoke the truth sometimes, didn't they?
"Fuck you, Eren," Shorty pressed out. "Fuck you. This is too messed up."
That was... not particularly helpful. Zoë lifted her eyebrows, but Shorty had his lips pressed together, glowering at her. She wrote down "Eren" on a notepad. Maybe he had made a bet with someone called Eren? That he would make it into the office of the Commander? Grasping at straws.
She sighed deeply.
"What should we do with him? He's clearly violent," the MP said and kicked the man into the ribs with enough force to bruise. Not a sound from the black-haired man. So he had had training. "Probably dangerous."
"Unchain him and let him go," Zoë waved her hand at them. "Don't bother me with this kind of stuff in the future, I am way too busy."
Her eyes met the black-haired man's over his shoulder when they dragged him out. She was quite certain it wasn't the last she'd see of him. Dangerous? Yes, he probably was... But not for her. She knew that she was entirely safe with him.
Ah... Famous last words of the careless.
###
Levi wasn't one for histrionics, but after this encounter with Hanji, he was close to losing his shit for the first time in his life. Should he laugh, should he cry, should he rage like the lunatic she thought he was? He might not have lived a saintly life, but he had tried to do the right thing, always, for his people, for humanity, how did he deserve this punishment?
Some weeks ago, he had woken up, completely disoriented, near a tree, his clothes dripping wet. As if he had swum here...? And the fucking tree happened to be near Shiganshina of all places...? There was no escaping that cursed town! Small blessings that he wasn't naked, but dressed just as he had been before injecting some crazy serum on the hills outside Liberio.
It had taken him a few days to accept that it was the year 855. He had not been gone for long, though it felt like a lifetime and more.
At first, Levi had believed he was having a nightmare, especially when the fucking Walls had crumbled in front of his very eyes. No, it wasn't a nightmare of dreams, but a nightmare for the living: The Rumbling was starting, the world was doomed and he had always known it!
Actually no, he had soon realized, there was no Rumbling: The walls were empty. They crumbled because what had been holding them together until that moment disappeared from the world, just like that, from one second to the next.
He had been reborn with his eye and his fingers intact into a world that suddenly knew nothing, absolutely nothing of the Titans.
Eren's insane plan had worked.
But... Why was Levi in the world of the living and not removed from it like Eren and Mikasa? Why had Ymir kicked him out of the Paths like she had? It gave him a ton of anxiety because, frankly, the whole point had been to remove the Ackermans from the world, given that their entire bloodline was tainted with Titan essence and nobody quite understood what they could and could not do.
Maybe Eren's plan had not worked?
Insane thoughts. His bloodline would end with him. Eren had ordered Ymir to make sure there would be no children born from their loins.
It had taken Hanji weeks to get to Mitras - so long in fact that he had seriously doubted his decision to wait for her on Paradis. What if she was staying with science even though the war was over? What if she had deserted and was traveling the world? What if she had opened a tea shop with somebody else? What if, what if a thousand things over?
Of all the what ifs, he had not considered that she, too, would not remember him. How foolish. True love and all that... had he really thought by some miracle, she would recognize him?
"I'll kill you with my own hands, Eren," Levi ground out under his breath, but that was an empty threat. The Paths were closed. He would never get back there.
Eren's memory purge had worked very well, also in mysterious ways. Historical records about the Titans? Unreadable or destroyed. The Walls? Crumbled to dust. Titan bodies? All evaporated. Omni-directional gear? Not a single piece of equipment to be found anywhere! Levi had to fucking climb up buildings like a petty thief.
So that's what he did to wait for her. Of course, it was cold and raining, as was fitting the bloody mess he was in. His jacket was drenched, his boots needed waxing, and his stomach was growling loudly. Yup, there might be no more Titans, but the world was still a cruel place and he had developed a taste for self-pity of late.
Hanji finally exited the Military HQ after 8pm, her old green cloak slung tightly around her, hood up.
"It's you," Hanji remarked when he dropped down in front of her, not in the least surprised to see him. Goddammit, he wanted to throw his arms around her and hold her, just hold her, but she'd probably kick him in the balls if he tried and anyway, she looked... different, somehow, more fragile, as if Eren's new world had edged its problems into her face already.
"I need to talk to you," he just said, though he had to swallow hard. Why was nobody protecting her? Where were Armin, Jean, Connie and Sasha?
"You can walk with me if you don't act crazy," she said, already continuing down the street briskly.
"Are you going to your parents' place?" He fell in next to her. "You do not live with the Doctor? That Grütter fellow?"
The look she threw at him was... disapproving, to say the least. Great. She probably believed he was a stalker. Should he describe the mansion's interior to her in great detail...? Ah, no... that would only make things worse. Only a crazy stalker would know about it.
"You're smart, you must have realized something's off," he tried a different approach. "Big time off."
"If I do, why should I trust you with such information?"
"Because you are too curious and you won't stop until you understand. I can explain it to you. Just listen to me, Hanji. Give me a chance."
"How do you claim we two know each other?" She stopped abruptly to look at him.
In all the ways possible, he wanted to say. I know your very soul.
"So, will you listen to me?" He said instead, barely daring to breathe. She might not understand the enormity of this second chance, but he did. By Ymir's balls, he did.
"If you try anything funny, I swear, I will..."
"Funny? Like what, Commander?" Levi scoffed. "Kiss you?"
They stared at each other on the empty street. A lantern made the wet cobblestones at their feet glisten like scattered jewels in the night. He wanted to kiss her, of course he did. He wanted her to smile. That dear, solemn face in front of him, she had lost weight and was too pale. When would she finally be free of her burdens?
"Okay, I'll listen. But not here, the weather is shit. Have an idea where to go?"
"The Underground," Levi said without having to think. "It never rains there. We could go eat something. I'm starving."
"Alright," that there was only the smallest of hesitations from her pleased him immensely. Actually, the day was looking up: He was taking his Hanji down to the Underground and that was a fucking start.
###
It was all very exciting! Zoë had never used the cable cars they had installed to make the trip down into the Underground city faster.
"Mr. Ackerman," the young man who opened the door for them did a funny half-bow when Shorty put money into his hand. They were the only ones in the car and she tried to catch a glimpse of the grip mechanism and counterweights through the windows when they started their descent. Shorty seemed amused by her eagerness.
He was really quite handsome with that half-smile on his lips.
"Do you come here often?" A bit of conversation seemed to be in order, she couldn't just ogle him.
"Not of late," he said, his eyes holding an intensity that made her feel a little shy. "And you, do you always follow strange men's dinner invitations?"
"Of course not," she smiled at him. Should she tell him that his was the first dinner invitation she had gotten in a long while?
"Mr. Ackerman," another reverent greeting at the bottom from the man who unlatched the door for them and gallantly helped her out. He did a double-take when he recognized the emblem on her uniform, but masked his surprise quickly. Not a friend of the military?
"People know you here," Zoë remarked, looking over her shoulder at the man who was staring after them. It was safe in the Underground now, not like years ago. Still, she had to stay on her guard.
"Yeah, they should," Shorty shrugged. "And as long as you're with me, you have nothing to fear."
So Mr. Ackerman was a figure in the Underground? Zoë tried to remember whether she had met him ten years ago, when she had last been here. Like so many of her memories that far back though, all she could remember were vague, unsubstantial fragments.
While she was trying to remember whom she had been paired with back then, he took her straight to the establishment she remembered: "The Merry Widow".
"I've been here before!" She exclaimed, marveling at how little the establishment had changed, though the walls had been freshly painted and someone had put flowers in front of the windows. Fake flowers, very interesting.
"I know," Shorty said matter-of-factly and she told herself to be more careful around someone who was starting to freak her out a little because what if he was right and she was wrong?
"But you haven't been in here," he added and opened the door to the hotel's tavern wide. A tidal wave of sounds and aromas spilled out onto the street.
"Mr. Ackerman!" A voluptuous woman about fifty years of age sauntering towards them at high speed, her colorful skirts billowing around her. "Mr. Ackerman, welcome!"
Dozens of heads turned towards them, stared, nodded a greeting, then returned to their plates of food and tankards of ales. The restaurant was packed. No way that they were going to get a seat here. She felt a pang of disappointment. Something smelled really good. And she hadn't eaten a normal meal in days.
"This way please," the innkeeper steered them deftly through the narrow path between the tables towards the back, where a sliding door revealed a small, cozy private back room with a table set for two. "I will bring over the menu instantly! Two tankards of ale, I presume?"
Zoë shrugged out of her cloak and sat down on the bench. There was even a white table cloth. Her lower back hurt and she stretched her legs out cautiously. Shorty was watching her intently again. She felt the absurd urge to giggle and flip her hair. "What a friendly greeting, are you a good customer?"
"I own this place," Shorty looked smug.
"You... oh!" So he was a nut-case who owned a guest house in the Underground?
"He is being modest, he owns pretty much everything around here," the innkeeper put two menus and two tankards in front of them. "I have a chicken special, it's roasted in the oven for an extra crispy skin. You can have potatoes on the side and carrots... I also have chestnuts or pumpkins..."
"I'll take it," Shorty, whose name was Levi, nodded. "With potatoes and carrots."
So he was a nutcase with money. A nutcase with money who was well-respected in the Underground and knew much too much about her.
"And you, love?" The innkeeper tilted her head and let her eyes move over Zoë's face and body. "Having a bit of a rough time? I have just the thing for you in your condition. Chicken, beans, and applesauce."
Actually, that sounded fabulous.
"Have you lived here long?" Zoë asked after the innkeeper had hurried away.
"Not at all," Levi retorted. "I came from overseas just recently."
"Oh, me too. Where did you live?"
"Marley. Liberio, actually."
"What a coincidence! Me too!" She eyed him warily. He eyed her back. His stormy eyes did not leave her face for a second. Nervously, she lifted the tankard to her lips, but a hand appeared out of nowhere and resolutely ripped it away.
"You shouldn't drink this," the innkeeper put a pot of tea in front of Zoë. "Have this instead."
It was ginger tea.
"Ask me things," Levi said. "Things I cannot know. About you. About Armin. About Mik..., no, not her. About Jean, Connie, Sasha. About Commander Erwin Smith. About Queen Historia whose other name is Krista. About why your left eye is damaged. What the name of your favorite horse was. What the..."
"Stop," Zoë put up a hand, her heart beating too fast. "Stop. Let's say... let's you know all these things that you shouldn't know. What will it prove?"
"That your memories have been erased. Not for the first time, but likely for the last."
"Memories of what?"
Levi paused. "Memories of a long and bloody struggle," he then said. "A struggle for freedom. For the right to live."
"Were we on the right side of history?"
Another pause, this time longer. "I don't know."
"Maybe it's good if we don't remember then," Zoë said quietly.
###
The truth hit him when she got up to pee, as she declared loudly for everyone to hear. He saw it clearly in the light that painted a soft hue on her body. The shock of his discovery was so great he could not move for several minutes.
Somewhere, far removed from the here and now, a Goddess was probably giggling gleefully about just how stupid humans could get.
"Oh, shit," he groaned and buried his face into his hands. The plan had failed. He had messed things up. Ymir had known... and she had played them all masterfully.
"Would you like anything else, Mr. Ackerman?" The innkeeper appeared, beaming from ear to ear. She was very proud of the fact that this establishment was the first he had acquired down here last year.
"We're leaving," Levi pressed out and got up onto damn unsteady legs. And we're all just puppets in your sandbox, he thought. You win.
"Was my food not to your liking?" The lady's face fell. She looked absolutely crushed.
"Your food is the best in the Underground," Levi tried to assuage her, barely hearing his own voice through the roaring in his head.
Maybe he was wrong? He could be. But then again... They had spent a thorough time in bed together.
"What? We're leaving already?" Zoë complained when she saw him standing there with his jacket on.
"It's late," he replied. "You must be tired."
"No," she shook her head smiling. "I'm not tired. Well, maybe a little. This was fun!"
"I'll walk you home," he offered.
She tried to make conversation with him but gave up soon enough when she realized he was completely unresponsive.
"So, here we go," she said when they were back in the cable car, looking out into the dark beyond the window.
"I need to ask you a question," Levi blurted out. "You're not going to like it."
"You think?" She lifted her eyebrows. "You were pretty normal all evening long, but I think we're done with that?"
"Hanji, are you and the doctor... have you slept with him?"
"What the fuck," Hanji's mouth flew open. "You are way crazier than I thought! You know I'm armed, right?"
"You are pregnant," Levi whispered. Let the truth be out and let this be the beginning of a new chapter, a new life, their best one yet. "Hanji, you are pregnant and I think that child is mine."
********
Note: Frankly, dear friends, this chapter took me to places I didn't expect. It could very well be the beginning of a 4th volume (!!!), but I cannot make any promises. Instead, I am adding another chapter - an epilogue.