endure | e. jaeger & a. arlert

XXVIII. Grief

a/n: about to be fighting for connie with my life after the actual version of this scene is animated

You had no time to linger on the rooftop once Eren's speech was over. Not even taking a second to pause, to think about it, you and Tullia raced towards where Jean, Mikasa, Marco, Connie, and Armin were gathered around an unconscious and bound Falco.

"Shouldn't he be a titan right about now?" you said, frowning down at him in confusion. Armin shook his head.

"No. One of the Warriors fed himself to him; he has the Jaw Titan now," he said.

"Poor kid," Tullia said.

"I'd consider him better off than most of the world. At least he's alive," Jean said, shaking his head.

"I can't believe Eren's going to slaughter the rest of humanity," Marco said, burying his face in his hands.

"He's right in saying that the hate against us would end then, though," Jean said.

"Isn't it ironic that the very thing the people feared we would do the most happened because they tried to stop us?" Marco said.

"Was there really nothing else we could've done?" Tullia said despondently.

"I don't know, but it remains that Eren rejected Zeke's euthanization plan, and he didn't allow Historia to be sacrificed, so he must be doing this...for us," you said.

The seven of you were silent, mulling this over. The world was being destroyed, all because Eren loved you, his friends, more than anything else.

The weight of this crushing burden was so much. How did you handle the knowledge that, because of all of you, the rest of humanity was being wiped out? It wasn't your fault, because none of you hadn't asked Eren for any of this, but still, if your suspicions were right, then it didn't matter that you hadn't asked. It was still for you, the way it had always been, the way it always would be. Your childhood hero, that brave, selfless boy, had proven himself to be the most selfish being in the entire world.

"Hey, wait a minute...the titans are attacking the Eldian soldiers now!" Marco shouted in alarm. True to his word, though the colossal titans marched past you without a care, the titans created by Zeke's spinal fluid had gotten rid of all the Marleyans and had turned their attention to your people.

"But why? Eren should be able to control them, since he has the Founding Titan. He should be able to stop them," Armin said, a soft scowl on his kind face.

"It doesn't matter. Maybe he doesn't care, maybe he doesn't know — regardless, they're attacking Eldians now, and I don't doubt that we'll be next. We have to help them," you said.

"What are we going to do about him?" Mikasa said, nodding towards Falco.

"We could feed him to one of the titans down there and save someone. If we can find the titan that Commander Pyxis turned into, then...it could be invaluable," Jean said.

"It's a long shot, but I agree. That's the best course of action," Marco said.

"No way. We'll feed him to my mother," Connie said. You remembered hearing that his mother was stuck on the roof of his home in his village, Ragako, trapped in mindless titan form but without the ability to move.

"Connie, I understand that you love and miss your mother, but you cannot allow your grief for her to overtake your logical thinking," you reprimanded him gently. He glared at you with eyes bright with tears. You looked back at him sadly. Something in him had been shattered with Sasha's death. This was not the same boy that had often jokingly called you his wife, doing barrel rolls with the ODM gear and making you all laugh with his antics.