Levi scowled as the crowds parted before the procession.

Well, parted wasn't exactly the word for it. More like 'shoved out of the way' by the slow advance of horses and carts at the front.

Over the years since the breach, the scouts- the once deemed 'little' component of the military- had acquired much more support. It was probably something to do with how many Titans they had taken down or perhaps how much was now expected of them with the dense fog of dread hanging over every citizen's head

Levi both was and wasn't happy with this turnabout of support; it felt too false to him, like how a Titan would smile at its food before in leaned in for a bite.

However, this did all mean more funding and a slight increase in the number of recruits.

Very slight...

He clicked his tongue in agitation as he heard the teasing squeal to his right reach it's crescendo.

If it wasn't enough that there were all these carrion pickers around, he had to be sat next to shitty glasses too?

"Smile Levi!" They sang in their usual booming voice "you'll disappoint your fans!"

Levi pointedly frowned even more at this and turned his head away from the idiot.

"Jeeze you need to get laid Levi, that'll put a smile on your face," Hanji sighed to themselves, tapping at their chin thoughtfully.

"If you try to set me up with another of those 'fans' I'll rip you a new arsehole," Levi finally spoke up as they road past a group of squealing young women who were drooling at him like dogs looking at a slab of well cut meat.

"Nah I learned my lesson from last time, maybe I should try sending the male fans from now on," smirked Hanji before they suddenly found themselves being wrenched to the side by a tight grip on their head.

"Male or female, you do that again and I'll take a hose to your lab then stuff all of your equipment up your ass. Sharp side first," Levi stated, expression bland with boredom but voice entirely sincere.

"Ooh kinky," Hanji smiled back.

Levi let go of them in disgust, wiping the grease from their forehead onto their cloak.

"You've been warned," he murmured quietly.

Hanji nodded absentmindedly as they scanned over the crowds, seemingly looking for something.

Levi went back to ignoring them, staring blankly through the writhing mass of people on all sides.

Then his gaze caught on something odd. His eyes shuttered then opened fractionally wider as they focused in on a somewhat familiar gaze standing out from the crowd like the shine of gold in a river of filth.

It wasn't just the eyes that grabbed his attention though, at least not at first, bizarre colour and all. No, it was the smile that really got his attention; that weird, strange, utterly bizarre smile.

It wasn't like the others around it, worshipful or smirking, simpering or false. Thin pale lips were spread achingly wide, faint laughing dimples in the corners, soft, unwavering and... proud?

Levi faltered. That couldn't be it... he had seen prideful smiles before and the distantly proud expressions of his 'fans' as Hanji called them, but that wasn't it. It was almost-

"Ooh what you looking at Levi?" came the dreaded annoying voice of Hanji. Levi turned around quickly to tell them to bugger off. By the time he turned back that smile had gone, melted into the crowd along with the vaguely familiar green-sky eyes.

Levi felt his frown deepen as he started to search for it once again before catching himself, realising what he was doing.

Shaking his head, Levi forced himself to focus back on steering his horse and blocking out shitty-glasses's unending commentary.

He firmly put the strange smiling boy out of his mind. There was a lot to do. No time to get distracted.

*

Breathing hard, Eren crouched behind Reiner as the procession moved on.

He knew he was getting a few odd looks from his friends but he couldn't find it in himself to care right at that moment.

No, what he really cared about was being carried away from him on the back of a horse.

"Eren? Why are you hiding behind me?" Asked Reiner out of the corner of his mouth, thankfully not moving around to look at Eren and draw that unrelenting grey gaze back to him.

Oh- when their eyes had met! Eren felt his whole body freeze, felt his wide grin aching on his face as he was petrified in the spotlight of that gaze. He felt like a rush of burning ice had sped up through his arms and legs, pinning every single inch of him in place. Everything but his eyes which slowly followed his human's gaze as he was carried onwards.

Before that moment he'd just been happy to see his human again. Simple joy had filled him in knowing he was okay, still saving humans and still had that grumpy look on his face that Eren had started to grow familiar with. It felt like a cool balm on his mind, easing the itching predictions and worried sores, giving pure and simple contentment as he watched his human from mere meters away.

It was the closest he had been to Levi in years.

But now- after meeting those unforgettable eyes- now he just felt ...odd... and scared- and not just for the fact that Levi was a skilled Titan killer (although Eren wasn't fooling himself about not still being terrified about that).

No he didn't know- didn't understand- why he felt scared. He just- he... The way shorty had looked at him- it wasn't even that the man looked angry, he didn't. He looked...

Blank.

Eren shook his head sharply and carefully peered around Reiner's broad shoulders once again.

His human was facing away now, the back of his black undercut hair swaying faintly in the light wind and with each step of his horse.

"Eren? What's wrong?" Asked Mikasa in a quiet worried voice as she saw the expression forming on his face.

Eren blinked several times, coming back into himself as he turned to face his flower.

"No thing is wrong," he smiled weakly at her. "Just thinking of things,"

"What sort of things?" asked Reiner, eyes intent on Eren for a moment before flickering back to the last few stragglers of the Scout's procession.

"...strange things, sad and happy things, just many things," Eren mumbled, waving his hand around as if he could wave away his strange thoughts and the concerned looks he was getting.

"Eren-"

"People think different about Scouts now, yes?" Eren blurted out with a strangled smile.

"... Yes, it's nothing like it was five years ago," Reiner slowly nodded with a contemplating expression, choosing to indulge Eren's abrupt and unsubtle change in topic. "People have much more hope now,"

...Hope.

Eren looked up at Reiner with wide eyes, false grin fading away. The man breathed out a smiling sigh and gruffly ruffled Eren's hair, much to the latter's bewilderment.

"Everyone has cheered up quite a bit now," smiled a ginger girl from close by (Hannah if Eren was remembering correctly.) "Especially since nothing's happened in all that time!"

"They've upgraded the mounted cannons too," the tall, skin-headed Franz smiled down at her as he joined them. "I doubt the Colossal Titan will show up any more,"

Eren frowned at this, turning away from Reiner who was also looking very irritable.

"You don't know when we could be attacked. It's never a good idea to get too confident you're safe," Reiner lectured them.

Eren looked back at Reiner with raised eyebrows before turning to the other two humans, frowning anew as he saw their hands clamped together, vice tight.

He took in a deep breath through his nose and stared at them suspiciously.

"Are you both mated?" He found himself asking curiously.

All three turned to look at him with varying levels of shock. So did several of the other cadets around them.

"Ah- he means 'are you mates' like friends," came Armin's voice hurriedly as he took Eren's arm and tugged him away.

Eren made to protest at this inaccurate correction but was quickly pulled away from the gently laughing couple and the contemplative Reiner.

"Eren, we can't- we don't ask people about their sex lives," Armin hissed to Eren once they were out of earshot from all but Mikasa who had doggedly followed them.

"...why? It is important part of being a mate to have children, I see it all the time with animals. I only want to know if they are baring, it is not good to fight like that,"

Armin's mouth opened and closed like a fish as he struggled to come up with a response to that.

"Humans are different to animals Eren, we don't have partners just for children," Mikasa cut into the silence somewhat awkwardly.

"Yes, also these things are really private for people, you can't just ask them," Armin added in pointedly.

"So they not," Eren pointed at his stomach and made a motion to show an invisible bulge.

Mikasa shook her head.

"So it is for something else, just like Yamir and Krista?"

Armin coughed on his own spit at this and started to splutter something out but Eren wasn't paying attention anymore. Instead he was nodding to himself vaguely as he looked back through the crowds to watch, from a distance, as Franz bent over Hannah and tapped her nose with his, smiling large and goofily.

Eren's hands tightened and he found himself looking away with a deep crease in his brow.

"Didn't you already do it that time with the kissing?"

"I just told him to stop; I thought you were going into all of that,"

Vaguely he heard his flowers whispering their hushed conversation but he ignored them, turning to look back at the couple. They were walking away now, hand in hand.

Eren looked down at his open palms.

His strange thoughts were cut short however as a new smell weaved through the crowds. He sharply snapped his head up, whole body registering surprise, as his nose detected that old but familiar scent.

"It is that man! Hands? Hange?" he told his humans in a questioning tone, interrupting their awkward conversation.

Sure enough, mere moments after his two friends looked round at the direction Eren pointed in, a tall blond man made his way round a corner and spotted them.

"Hey kids!" He called out with a grin, beaming as he saw Mikasa and Armin gape in surprise- well, Armin gaping in surprise.

"Mr. Hannes!" exclaimed Armin.

"Heard you graduated yesterday. In the top ten as well. Man, you brats have really grown up," he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head as he took in the two ki- young adults.

His hand paused in this scratching as he considered Eren.

"...Nice to see you too son, I'm surprised you didn't get to the very top of your class," he said, eyes trained on the strange abnormality from all those years ago.

"...Mikasa and Armin belong there," Eren replied with a shrug, scratching at his arm as he looked away from Hannes's intense stare.

Hannes sighed loudly, lips twitching into a faintly bitter smile.

"Yeah they do, and it's thanks to you that they are... I'm sorry I wasn't much help back then kids,"

Mikasa and Armin nodded at Hannes much to his surprise and then smiled at their friend.

"You helped a lot still, got them out," Eren muttered. He had a lot of time to think about it and, well, he'd been a bit harsh on the guy. The man had been terrified but at least he tried, and he stuck around with his flowers afterwards to keep them safe. "You helped me too,"

Hannes smiled faintly at that and scratched his head.

"Oh yeah Jeager- I still have that weird spear of yours. Put it into my military storage to keep it safe but I think you should have it back."

Eren felt a tentative smile curl up his mouth after he recovered from the surprise. His old spear! Earth, how many years had it been since he held it?

"That's probably not a great idea right now," said Armin, cutting short Eren's smile. "You don't want to get in trouble for having non-standard gear."

"Well tell you what Jeaager, you come pick it up another time. I don't mind holding onto it for now. Perhaps you can then tell me a few things about how you made it,"

Eren's face went through a rapid change of expressions as Hannes spoke; from annoyance at Armin, to relief, then interest and then, finally, to a mild look of worry.

"Hanse, I heard you're chief of the Corps of Engineers, well done," Mikasa spoke up suddenly, diverting Hannes's confused reaction to Eren's expressions to her with a soft smile on his lips.

"Thanks Mikasa... I uh- I've also been trying to find out some more about what happened to Grisha. Sorry I've had no luck so far."

"It's... fine. I'll be able to find out for myself now..."

Hannes raised his eyebrows at her casual tone. Mikasa used to follow Dr Grisha round like a lamb, always doing as he said and looking up to him like he was the king. But, as he watched Eren take her hand, he finally realised that maybe it hadn't been such a good thing.

Instead Mikasa seemed to follow this boy like a flower follows sunlight, growing and strengthening under his care.

...He just hoped that sunlight never went out.

"You take care of yourself," he told them all.

"We are not like before. We are better," Eren smiled at Mikasa and Armin before turning to face Hannes. "We will not let another day like that happen."

"...I don't know if I should be happy that you've grown up or not. Just don't go dyin', now."

Eren looked away, staring at the thinning crowd with a blank expression before turning back to Hannes.

"They won't," he promised.

Hannes offered a faint but sincere smile as they walked away, those two child- Young adults following their mysterious friend like he was their everything.

Which, he supposed, to them he is.

Hannes stared after them, a faint frown at his brow.

Please don't go and die on them Jeager.