It took ten less days to get back within the confines of the walls than it did to make it to the ocean, and while no one said it, I know it was due to my breakdown. We left the morning after, and the whole time I could feel one set of concerned eyes or another on me.

It isn't like that was the first time such a thing had happened, though it was the first time it occurred in front of people. Anyone but Thomas, anyway. But what he's witnessed wasn't nearly as bad as that. On the ride back, I'd come down from the outburst and didn't feel the rage and pain as much as I felt embarrassment. I kept quiet the whole time and let them believe I was still in such a state.

Ten days without talking is long, but the first person I speak to is the one I harbored guilt because of before we left.

"I'm sorry," I say, head bowed like a child. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, I just snapped, a-and-"

I'm cut off by his hand being placed on my shoulder. My head snaps up to find him smiling warmly at me, and I hate it because I don't deserve it.

"You don't have to be sorry, Eren. In fact, you were right in some of the things you said. I simply thought it might help if you thought someone could identify with the way you're feeling, but it makes sense that no one can ever truly understand what's happening in your mind but you. So I should be the one apologizing. I should be more sensitive. It is part of my job, is it not?" He gives my shoulder a squeeze. "And if you're still feeling trapped and holding it all in so you explode like that, I'm clearly not doing my job the way I should be." He reaches behind him and twists the knob to his office. Holds the door and gestures me inside.

I'm admittedly a bit dumbfounded at first. I came with an apology and the intention of leaving when I'm finished but end up being the one apologized to and invited right back into his office. Even though I don't deserve it...

Still, I step back into the office, sink down into the chair. Watch as he goes around the desk and takes his own seat. That smile never leaves his wrinkled face, and it's beginning to make me uncomfortable. But it isn't like I have the right to say anything.

He starts off simple.

"How was your trip?"

"O-okay, I guess." He raises his ugly brows at me, his own non-verbal way of telling me that isn't enough. So I take a deep breath and tell him. About the mountains and rivers and how absolutely enormous the world outside the walls is, and how I'm certain we haven't seen even a fraction of what all is out there. (Armin's words.) About the ocean.

"Did you draw?" he asks, nodding at the sketchbook in my hand. Wordlessly I offer it to him. He sets it on the desk and begins to flip through. Past the trees and the horse, Armin and Hanji leaning over a map, scribbling. Their faces hadn't come out right, so I'd blurred them out. He continued on through a few others...the mountains, and then to all my failed attempts at the ocean. He asks about them and I reluctantly explain, leaving out everything about wanting to share the scene with Levi. I tell him simply that I wanted to capture it and remember it, but couldn't.

He buys it, but that doesn't stop him from bringing the dreaded part of my outburst up.

"I think we can both agree that what happened during our last meeting needs to be addressed," he says, gently shutting the book.

A lump forms in my throat. No, wrinkle-face, we can't really agree on that. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to have to explain the meaning behind my words. But I fucked up, and now there's nothing I can do about it, no way I can worm my way out of it.

"I think we've already resolved most of the issue, but we both know there is another you brought forward. Despite it having been out of anger, I'm glad you've finally opened up about it." Yeah, like I meant to. "Something tells me it's what's causing a great deal of your emotional pain, no?"

I stay quiet. Thankfully, the silence isn't too long.

"Are you okay with talking about it?" Do I have a choice? Still, I don't answer. Thomas leans toward me, attentive. "You loved someone," he puts simply.

And what the hell am I supposed to say to that? Did my screaming and spitting in his face not make that clear enough? Nonetheless, I find myself nodding.

"Is it safe to say you were in love with this person?"

I press my lips together. Force a swallow. Nod again.

"And they died in your arms."

My eyes slam shut. He's pulled the trigger again, but this time it wasn't aimed at anger, but pain. Sorrow. Loss. My hands start shaking; I curl them into fists. I see it all again, for the hundred thousandth time, but it doesn't hurt any less than witnessing it the first.

"There's only one person you've ever told me has passed away in your arms, Eren. I don't want to assume anything, so that's why I'm asking..."

God, I want him to shut up. I want to get in his face again and tell him to stop, because every word out of his mouth tugs another painful memory forward, be it about Levi or not. Most of them are, and most of them are the better times between us. The times lying in his or my bed, when we'd be there for each other and closer right under everyone's noses, when we'd kiss or simply lie together...his head on my chest or mine on his...

And it all hurts way too much.

"Hey, Eren, don't blank out on me now," Thomas coaxes in a gentle voice. My whole body is shaking now.

Blank out. That's what he calls it when I supposedly go into a stupor, staring into space or curling in on myself, or having episodes I don't usually remember later...

I manage to open my eyes a bit, but the tears flooding through them make it impossible to see clearly anyway. I can feel them pouring down my cheeks, my neck, even soaking into the collar of my shirt.

"It's okay, Eren," Thomas says. Like it's a promise. "You're safe."

But that's not the problem. How can I speak, when my throat is closing up? How can I tell him the truth, when I've hidden it for so long? How will telling the truth help, anyway?

"He's...gone," is all I manage. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

"I know," Thomas says. So gentle, but it doesn't help.

"He promised," I choke. "He promised to stay...but he lied." I sound ridiculous. I can't stop myself. "He fucking lied. Got his stupid legs bitten off and died. But it's my fault...my stupid fault..." My eyes burn; I press the heels of my hands into them and hunch over.

"It isn't your fault. You did all you could have done."

"No!! I wasn't fast enough. I couldn't turn into a titan. I...I couldn't...I couldn't save him..." Weak. Broken. Pathetic.

"Did he love you?"

What?

I can't decide if I wanna scream or just go to sleep, but I know I don't want to answer that question. I don't want to dive back into those memories. Everything inside me screams for me to avoid it because they're too painful to be near. And I don't want to answer it because I don't know the answer.

"We kissed," I manage to sputter out. Staring blankly at the floor, vision out of focus. "He let me in his room at night. S-sometimes he'd come to mine. He...he kept telling me it was wrong, but he never denied me. Never told me to leave. He comforted me sometimes, when...when I was weak. He made me tea...and told me his secrets. I told him mine. His hands...were kinda rough...but always warm. He dressed my wounds a-and made me tea. Told me about his mother...and listened about mine, a-and cut me out of my t-t-titan when..." A sob finally breaks from my chest, but I have to keep going. I have to, but I don't know why. "I wanted to see the ocean with him. He...said he would go...but he never got to. S-so I tried to draw it for him...but..."

I'm finally out of words and mentally slapping myself for sounding so ridiculous, like such a baby. It's been years. I should be over this by now. Why am I not over this?

And Thomas doesn't know what to do; he can only move around his desk with a box of tissues and a place hand on my shoulder, letting me ride my shitty emotions out.

* * *

There's an emptiness in my chest. A hollow thumping, pushing the blood throughout my body. But where the feeling should be, there is nothing at all. He took it when he left, as if it belonged to him. Like it was his most prized possession that he could never part with. He took it and he left me here like this. Empty, wounded, and not even bleeding.

Three bottles are aligned on the window sill. One contains sand. White and soft; in my imagination, I can feel it running between my fingers, enveloping my feet, it's smooth texture under my heels, warm from the sun. In another, shells. Collected by Armin and myself, temporarily mute, at the edge of the water. The colors are different now that they're dry, but they're unlike anything I've ever seen.

And in the third, simply water. Salt water, shining a subtle greenish-blue in the sunlight streaming in from the window through it. Tiny particles float about in it, whatever they are. It's a tiny version of the ocean in and of itself.

I sit on the bed, sketching. I've given up trying to draw the ocean. It's fruitless. So I draw a set of wings instead, one overlapping the other. Half shaded, half white. A symbol I've seen a thousand times and admired since I was a kid.

Freedom.

* * *

"Miss me?" I joke on the top of the wall. "I don't have anything of absolute significance this time. Sorry." I run my finger down one of the creases. "And I'm sorry...for spilling our secret. I...guess it doesn't matter all that much, because you've been gone for years. But still." I huff. "Anyway. Here."

I stand up, poise the nose of the little plane away from the wall, pull back and snap forward, just like always. It floats away, away, away, the way I do more and more every day.

---

Short chapter. My apologies. But this fic is about to pick up, I promise. I can't wait to get the next chapter written and posted, and I'm excited to see reactions :3