Chapter Text
For the first time in a long while, Annie felt as if her life was hanging in midair.
She wanted to believe it was a mistake. A bad joke. Anything but the truth staring back at her from the small plastic stick in her hand. She held it like something filthy, something that didn’t belong to her.
Her chest tightened. She felt ridiculous for thinking she might cry.
“What… what do we do?” Historia murmured.
She knew that feeling too well. The moment when the path ahead collapsed, when there was no way to return to what came before. She had once faced it alone, wearing a crown she never wanted, hoping others would fix a war she was too afraid to confront. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Mikasa slowly took the test from Annie’s trembling fingers and examined it. She didn’t understand what pregnancy truly meant. She never had. But this wasn’t a problem that could be solved with a blade.
They had never talked about it before. Not that it mattered to them. Armin was always too focused on himself to notice what was happening around him. And this clearly wasn’t part of the plan. Judging by Annie’s reaction, this could turn out good… or very bad.
“I’m scared,” Annie said, her voice barely audible.
Her heart pounded against her ribs. Her head felt heavy. This body had been built to fight, to survive, not to carry something fragile inside it.
“You should talk to Armin… I’m sure he would understand,” Historia said softly.
A tear slipped down Annie’s cheek before she could stop it. At the sound of his name, her breath faltered. She imagined his face, the way his eyes searched for answers he never had. What would this turn them into?
Mikasa stepped closer.
“We’ll face it with you,” she said. “You don’t have to carry this alone.”
Annie didn’t answer. She only stared at the test, as if it were a verdict already passed.
They had survived Titans. Wars. The end of the world itself.
And yet this small object was heavier than any blade.
“Annie?”
The boys’ voices reached them from the other room.
For an instant, time resumed.
Historia dropped the test into the trash. Mikasa hid the boxes beneath the sink. Annie forced her breathing to steady and ran a hand through her hair, erasing every trace of panic from her face. A wordless agreement passed between them.
They would protect this secret.
For now.
But secrets, like walls, were only temporary.
Eren heard movement behind the bathroom door and frowned. At first, he thought nothing of it—just the girls talking among themselves, wasting time as usual—but the longer it went on, the more the sound of their voices bothered him. They weren’t laughing. They were whispering. And Historia was there too. That alone made it strange. He and Armin had already decided to step into the room directly; standing around waiting felt pointless, yet something about the way the girls stayed locked inside unsettled him.
For once, Eren trusted the feeling in his gut.
“What the…” Armin began, trailing off when the door finally opened.
“Mikasa. Historia. Annie. What’s wrong?” Eren asked, his tone sharp without meaning to be.
“Nothing. We were just coming out,” Annie replied.
They stepped into the room one after the other. Annie kept her head slightly lowered, brushing past them too quickly. Eren noticed it immediately—the faint redness around her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, the way she avoided looking at anyone. Something had happened. For a brief moment, he wondered if it had to do with her father, but that didn’t explain why Mikasa and Historia were exchanging quick, guarded glances, as if they were trying to communicate without speaking.
“Nothin’, huh?” Eren said, his eyes narrowing. “Then what’s that bag?”
Annie froze.
It was still on the table, forgotten in the rush to hide everything else. The pharmacy logo was printed clearly on the side, impossible to miss. The room seemed to drop in temperature. Annie felt as if cold water had been poured down her spine. They had hidden the tests, the boxes, every trace of it—except that.
Eren stepped closer, unusually persistent. Maybe it was because he had noticed the changes too. Annie hadn’t been with them for weeks. She looked tired. Different. Not injured, but not herself either.
She turned to Armin, her chest tightening. The words refused to form. Her vision blurred, and she hated herself for it. Then she felt a hand settle on her shoulder—firm, steady, pulling her back into the moment.
Mikasa.
She gave Annie a small, reassuring look before facing Armin.
“I won’t go around it,” Mikasa said. “Annie is pregnant.”
The word struck the room like a gunshot.
“What?” Armin in one breath.
He wasn’t sure whether the ringing he heard came from outside or inside his own head. His thoughts stalled completely, as if someone had cut the strings that made them move. His body felt heavy, rooted to the floor, the way it did when he stood in front of something too large to escape, something inevitable.
Annie’s breath hitched. She hadn’t been ready for it to be spoken aloud—especially not by Mikasa. For a moment, it felt like betrayal. But Mikasa had never been someone who delayed the truth. She always moved straight forward, no matter the cost. Her devotion to Eren proved that.
Annie couldn’t be angry.
Armin had the right to know.
He had been worried about her for weeks.
We’ll face it with you. You don’t have to carry this alone.
That was what Mikasa had meant.
“You want me to spell it out for you?” Mikasa said, her voice edged with tension.
“Mikasa, let them talk,” Historia interrupted, stepping in before it could turn into something harsher.
Eren felt as though his skull was about to split open. Armin and Annie… having a child. The words didn’t fit together. They sounded unreal, like a sentence built wrong. If this were some kind of joke, it was a cruel one—but Mikasa would never lie about something like that. Not about this. Armin still hadn’t moved. His eyes were locked on Annie as if the rest of the room had disappeared. It was the same look he wore on the battlefield when he saw something he couldn’t escape—wide, frozen, trying to understand something far too big all at once.
When did this happen?
How?
The questions piled up inside both boys’ heads, pressing harder the longer no one spoke.
Mikasa placed a hand on Eren’s arm and began pulling him toward the door. Historia followed, already turning her back so that Armin and Annie could be left alone. Eren resisted at first, his feet dragging against the floor.
“Wait—”
“This isn’t for us,” Historia said quietly, without looking back.
Reluctantly, Eren let himself be pulled away. His gaze stayed on Armin until the door closed between them.
Was this a bad thing… or a good one?
He didn’t know which answer scared him more.
Eventually, he would hear the story.
Just not from them.
Not now.
FLASHBACK
“I’m still surprised you noticed so fast,” Mikasa said quietly. “Usually, we have to explain things out for you.”
They were sitting side by side on the wooden porch of Yuki’s house, watching the sky change colour as night slowly surrendered to dawn. Sleep had refused them both. Instead, they let the hours pass by talking—about those months when the world had finally gone silent, when no one had to pretend anymore. They avoided anything tied to the Yeagerists or to decisions that still tasted like blood. Tonight was for memories that didn’t hurt as much.
“Well… anyone could see she wasn’t herself,” Eren muttered in defence.
Mikasa allowed a small breath of amusement. “Even so, I’ve never seen Armin that happy.”
“Yeah,” Eren said. “I remember that day.”
He could still picture it clearly—Armin standing in front of him, talking too fast, hands trembling, eyes shining with something that looked dangerously close to hope. He had said it in one breath, as if afraid the words might vanish if he hesitated.
I’m going to be a father.
There had been excitement. Fear too. A strange mixture of both, twisting together until neither could be separated. While the rest of them were trying to move forward, it felt like Armin and Annie were being pulled backward—forced to look at everything they were, everything they had done. Trust. Responsibility. Guilt that never truly left. It was hard to accept something so pure coming from people who had learned how to hate before they learned how to live. They had killed. They had destroyed. They had survived by becoming monsters.
That was the cruel part.
That child would grow up knowing who their parents had once been. Knowing the world they had helped shape with their hands. A life born from ruins, carrying a history it never asked for.
FLASHBACK
Armin had dropped the bomb, and the room went strangely quiet.
It could have gone either way. A disaster… or something good. Everything depended on how the others took it.
Connie and Reiner avoided his eyes, staring down at their own hands as if the answer might be written in their palms. Eren, on the other hand, kept looking straight at Armin, having sensed a little bit, blinking like an idiot, still clinging to the hope that this was some kind of joke. Jean froze mid-gesture, combing his fingers through his hair—a nervous habit the girls never failed to mock. It had grown longer these past months, almost as long as Eren’s. They looked alike in that way now, and yet nothing about them was the same.
“So,” Reiner said at last, breaking the silence, “what are you gonna call the baby?”
“What? I— we don’t even know yet…”
“Let’s just hope it’s a boy,” Jean cut in. “We already have enough girls.”
Eren turned to him. “Are you really thinking about that right now?”
“Of course, I am. A boy is less dramatic than a girl. Also, less demanding—”
“And how would you know, Jeanbo?” Eren shot back. “You’re an only child.”
“You—”
Connie stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor. “Guys, can we not do this? Armin is having a crisis and you’re making it worse.”
“It’s fine,” Armin said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I don’t need you to fix it. We just… had to tell you before it was too late.”
“Well, Levi’s gonna be thrilled to babysit another kid,” Jean said, grabbing a bottle of gin from the fridge.
“I’m not letting him touch my baby,” Armin snapped.
“At least you know you can count on us,” Eren added, shooting Jean a sharp look.
Reiner rubbed the back of his neck. “Raising a child isn’t easy. I helped Historia for a while, and I was already at my limit.”
“How comforting,” Armin muttered.
“It’s not all bad,” Connie said. “Kids are like light in the dark. That’s what my mom used to say.”
“If they don’t cry and shit everywhere, yeah,” Jean replied, downing his glass.
“You did that too once,” Eren said, irritation creeping into his voice.
“Not the same when it’s you,” Jean answered without missing a beat.
They kept bickering, voices overlapping, the tension leaking out through stupid jokes and half-serious arguments. Armin barely heard them anymore.
He was happy. He knew he was. He had wanted to tell them because he wanted Annie to stop breaking in front of him the way she had earlier. He could still feel the damp spot on his shirt where her tears had soaked in, her face pressed against his chest, trying not to fall apart. He hated seeing her like that. He wanted her to be happy. He wanted this to be something good.
None of them knew what they were doing. They had barely begun to live as adults, and now he was supposed to raise a child—their child—in a world still learning how to exist without war. It wasn’t simple. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t fair.
But he wasn’t alone.
Annie was there. And together, they had chosen to face it. To fight for this future, even if it scared them.
Or at least… that was what he hoped.
He was sinking back into his thoughts when two hands landed on his shoulders.
Connie leaned closer. “Hey, man. Don’t listen to these idiots. You’ve always believed in yourself. We believe in you too.”
Eren nodded, serious for once. “Yeah. Congrats. I mean it.”
Then, with a small smile, “I’m proud of you.”
And for the first time since the words had left his mouth, Armin felt like he could breathe.
“Yeah,” Reiner added, trying to sound proud, “you can count on us. The future uncles of this family.”
The word uncles landed strangely in the room, like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong place.
“Are we gonna take turns or what?” Connie asked.
“Tch. I don’t care as long as it doesn’t bother me,” Jean replied, leaning back in his chair.
“I’m not bathing the kid,” Reiner muttered. The memory of Historia’s daughter—screaming, slippery, and impossible to control—was already haunting him.
Eren rolled his eyes. Armin only shrugged.
They knew what they were getting into. Of course they would help. That was how it had always been.
Family wasn’t something you chose carefully. It was something that stuck to you whether you liked it or not.
“Damn, you didn’t waste time, did you, Armin?” Jean said with a grin. “Love is really in the air, huh.”
“Shut up,” Armin snapped, his ears burning.
“So,” Reiner went on, suddenly curious in the most annoying way, “care to tell us when and how it happened?”
“Like you don’t know how,” Armin shot back. “And I don’t know when. And I don’t want to tell you.”
“Not even Eren?”
“I don’t need the details,” Eren said, frowning. “As long as the baby’s fine and they’re happy, that’s all I care about.”
“Well,” Connie said, pointing dramatically, “now it makes sense why Annie’s been sick lately. Mystery solved.”
They kept talking about it for a while, half joking, half serious, until it was time to join the others for the guided tour of the main city.
For once, Annie didn’t look exhausted. The weight on her shoulders had lifted, even just a little. Armin noticed it right away—her steps were steadier, her face less tense. His own cheeks were still pink, but he didn’t try to hide it.
Together, they spent one of their last days like this, walking side by side with the others, pretending the future wasn’t waiting for them.
Eventually, everyone knew. And like everything else, the news spread quickly—whispers turning into laughter, into congratulations, into wild guesses about what the baby would look like. It was frightening and ridiculous at the same time, to think how far they had come, when once there had been nothing but war and no hope at all.
Slowly, almost without realizing it, they were building lives instead of destroying them.
FLASHBACK
Eren didn’t need to hold his breath to hear it—the faint hitch in Mikasa’s breathing reached him anyway. A quiet sob, barely there, but heavy enough to weigh on his chest. He had almost forgotten how even a simple memory could still wound her, how this subject brushed against a scar that never truly closed. A scar he had caused.
Before he could think, his arms were already around her. Not tight, not desperate—just enough to hold her in place, as if she might drift away otherwise. Mikasa felt it immediately: not only the warmth of him, but the sorrow he never said aloud, the regret that lived in his shoulders and his silence.
She would never bear a child. No matter how much she tried, no matter how much she wanted to believe otherwise. Eren knew it had once been her dream—to build a family, a quiet one, maybe even with him. A future that asked for nothing but time.
And that future had been torn apart by his hands.
“Eren…” Mikasa whispered, forcing steadiness into her voice. “I don’t want you to blame yourself. You’ve done enough of that these past three years. I may never have children… but what I have now is already more than I ever imagined.”
“It still doesn’t excuse what I did.”
“You forget something,” she said gently. “I chose to open myself. Not you. Not even the future you saw.”
He winced. He hated hearing her say it out loud. Yet it was true. Ymir had never understood it either—or that choice had been the key to freeing them all. The path had changed. Eren was still alive. The world was quieter. Levi and the others were closer than ever, trying to learn what peace meant.
But peace had a price.
“Mikasa?”
“Hmm?”
“Let’s get married.”
She turned to him, stunned. The words came too suddenly, too bade. She had never pictured Eren speaking to them, maybe because they didn’t suit him—because love, for him, had always looked more like battle than promise. But he sounded serious, as if this were another way to atone, another way to bind himself to the future.
“Eren… we don’t need marriage to prove anything.”
“I know. But I want the world to know who you are to me.”
She gave a small, nervous smile. “You know being romantic isn’t your strong point.”
“You don’t want to get married?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I—I do, but… it’s too soon. We don’t even know where we’ll live, or what we’ll do. Jobs, homes—”
“So all we need is a house and work.”
Mikasa inhaled slowly, her thoughts tangled.
“Let’s just… stay in the present, okay?”
He took her left hand, almost absentmindedly. The idea of a ring felt strange to him, unfamiliar, but not wrong. Maybe he was rushing. Maybe he was too young to understand all that it meant. But one thing was certain: his life, whatever shape it took, would be with her.
“Then let’s make a bet,” he said. “Give me a year. I’ll find us a home. We’ll work hard. And I’ll make you want to marry me.”
She clicked her tongue, recognizing that stubborn spark she had known since childhood.
“Bold. Good luck with that.”
“Just watch.”
“How about you start proving it now?”
He understood instantly, his body reacted, he didn’t think twice. Her laugh reached him just as he lifted her into his arms, careful despite himself. They both knew they had to be discreet, guests in someone else’s home.
“Let’s take a shower,” he murmured, already kissing her.
Mikasa hummed softly in answer.
Well, we can say that this was like a small intermission, a small part focused on Armin and Annie from their perspective before i could focus on them. I don't think there will be a lot to cover now since we are approaching some sort of end for everyone. It had been three years since the Rumbling, Eren is still intact thank god and, everyone is just doing their lives. So i will now focus on the futur and more slice of life just so we could see some more of these charcaters development a little bit. Le'ts hope i could make it to chapter 50 which is what i aimed at initally.
So i will be jumping a few months so we can only focus about the futur, living the past behind!
Update: I might be in a hiatus as I am brainstorming for the next chapters and I also need a break in order to finish this story on a good note (it isn’t good to stay focus to long for me lol, then I feel like I’m rushing), so I apologise in advance for those who wanted to see more of Eren and Mikasa now, do not worry, the next chapter will be dedicated to them and their next life on Hizuru.
In the meantime, enjoy this reading!