Eren didn't scream or fight her when he noticed that Angela too was crying, grinding her teeth together to keep herself silent. Her arms were shaking as she carried Mikasa onto the boat, who was almost limp against her hip. Eren held onto Angela's hand and sat down when she requested obediently.

He felt like at least someone understood his pain.

"Armin..." Eren whispered, "I made you miss him."

"He's on the boat. He'll come find us soon," Angela answered, voice tight, trying to sound calm through her tears.

The platform connection the ship to the harbour was lifted. Panic started setting on the remaining people.

"Please, take me with you!"

"Take my children!"

"I got an aunt in Wall Rose!"

"Please!"

The boat started moving.

Angela put an arm around each child, pulling them to her side. She was twenty-four years old, but she felt just as young as Mikasa or Eren at that moment, just as alone and useless.

Desperation was a very odd feeling to watch while one's body sagged in relief. While Angela was glad that she had managed to get Eren and Mikasa on the boat, and even gotten a place for herself (only because Mikasa refused to let go of her), she had to watch people risk their lives by jumping onto the ship for a way out of Wall Maria.

And she could only hold onto the children closer, covering their ears with her hand and pushing their head down. They shouldn't have to watch more and more people dying.

She closed her own eyes when the Armoured Titan broke the Wall Maria down, lowering her head in silence. She tried to think of all the souls that the world had just lost while she sailed away safely.

Dusk fell upon them quickly, the sky starting to grow dark.

Angela had not realised how swift everything had moved. Less than an hour and 100 years of peace had been broken.

Eren slipped away from her grasp, standing up and taking a few steps forward.

"Eren, please, come sit down," Angela said, voice failing her.

Her head was staring to hurt; her arms felt like jelly after carrying Mikasa and running for so long; her legs were still burning after everything, and she was quite sure the pain would be worse the next morning. She didn't need Eren falling and getting hurt on a moving boat.

Mikasa jumped to stand as well, ready to follow Eren wherever he went.

"I'll kill them," Eren said through his teeth, hands curling into fists.

Confused, Mikasa blinked. She didn't leave Angela's side, as if she wasn't sure that was allowed or – at least – of good attitude.

"Eren?" she whispered.

Armin, finally appearing with Adawolf not too far away from him (much to Angela's relief), put a hand on Eren's shoulder.

"What is it, Eren?" he asked, concerned.

Eren shrugged him off, huffing at feeling. He growled in frustration as he held onto the edge of the ship, trying to get his voice back through his tears.

"I'll kill them all!" Eren announced. Armin winced. "I'll wipe every one of them off the face of this earth!"

Taken aback by the violence in his friend's worth, Armin couldn't look away, though his fingers tugged gently on the edge of his coat, uncomfortable.

"Eren..."

Adawolf exchanged a look with Angela, the silent question obvious. And Angela answered with a shake of her head.

Carla was dead.

The older man lowered his head in respect and grief, putting a hand on top of Armin's head. A mother and a good friend; a lot of people had lost Carla that day, but her children would be the ones that would feel it the most.

Angela's eyes filled with tears again and, this time, she sobbed out loud, trying to muffle it by hugging her own knees. Her friend was dead, much like thousands of other people. And she couldn't stop it; even though she knew it, she couldn't stop it because she was too scared, because she was useless and stupid. Angela wanted to go back home.

With a jump, Angela felt an arm sneaking around her shoulder, pulling her into a warm body.

Opening her eyes just enough, she saw Adawolf's wet eyes as he nodded at her. Permission for a moment of weakness, of comfort. Using the heels of her hands, she covered her eyes, allowing herself to cry freely, curled on the side of the man that was willing to love her.

Slowly, as if moved by her tears, more and more people cried openly in the arms of their surviving loved ones.

The survivors were gathered, all mostly asleep, at the courtyard of one of Wall Rose's churches. The groups had been herded into narrow corridors and open sky areas where they were told to rest without food, support or comfort.

Their home was a carcass of broken streets and crushed houses; a church corridor or courtyard was kindness enough and they all knew it. Still, it was hard to now smell the sweat, ash, iron and fear in the gathered people, all trying to keep warm to sleep.

Angel sat on the cold floor with her back against a crate, knees drawn up slightly to make room for the small bodies around her. Armin had found a comfortable position between her and the wall and had curled inward, head against her chest. Mikasa lay heavy and boneless across her lap, her dark hair spiling over Angel's knee, but one of her hands was holding onto her dress as if to make sure she would still be there when she woke up. Eren was slumped against Adawolf's side, mouth parted and brow creased – even asleep, he looked worried.

Ten-year-old, all traumatised by death.

Bitter, Angela thought that the world had no right to touch them yet.

"Your hands are still shaking," Adawolf whispered.

He was right. Her hands were shaking, though not as violently as they had done before, but a fine tremor that seemed to live under her skin now that seemed to worsen when she tried to relax. A way of her body saying that she wasn't safe yet.

She had never seen death in real life before.

Angela had seen dead people – an aunt that passed from cancer, an uncle after a car accident and a botched amputation. But she had never seen someone die before, and so many people had died around her that afternoon.

"Yeah," she whispered.

She was exhausted, but sleep wouldn't come. That had to be helping her to keep shaking, certainly.

"Anyone would be shaken after today," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Especially someone that saw what you saw. And now, with so many people around, after everything, it's hard to relax. But you were doing so well..."

Angel's breath stuttered.

She had forgotten what most people believed.

A nameless man in the wood with imagined violence. A tidy explanation that fit into their world and allowed Angela to be accepted without the torture that would come from the Military Police if they as much as imagined she came from outside the walls.

She shook her head. "No," she whispered.

Adawolf frowned, concern deepening the age lines in his face.

"Angel, you don't need to be scared or ashamed –"

"I'm not scared of that," she said, cutting him off. "I'm scared you'll hate me when I tell you what I need to tell you."

Adawolf stiffened slightly, holding onto Eren a bit better.

"Hate you?" he echoed, baffled.

They stared at once another for a few seconds, until Adawolf's eyes went to the children draped over her, as if wondering about their safety now, because his mind was working overtime and he had seen something that others hadn't. Angela couldn't forget that Adawolf was Armin's grandfather – that big brain had to come from someone.

"When you came, you told us the wall had been breached," he whispered. "You couldn't know that, not from where you were."

"Correct."

"So, you knew somehow."

He studied her face in the dim light, seeing the fear – real and naked – behind her eyes. She looked like a child bracing for rejection, not a woman confessing a crime. That was the only reason he didn't call for the officers right away.

She took a deep breath.

As she prepared, she thought of the years she had spent with them, building her life. Adawolf looking at her as if she was something precious and fragile, Armin holding her hand and teaching her how to read, Eren trusting her and seeing some kinship, of Mikasa's sharp and wary gaze softening with time.

All of that could vanish now.

"I wasn't born here," she started. "In this world, I wasn't born here."

Silence fell between them.

She expected him to laugh and not believe her, but Adawolf just stared. She took it as permission to continue.

"My name is Angela Elizabeth Relish, I come from a place without walls like these, without Titans. I was a normal person then; I was a singer."

"Angel –" he started.

She shook her head, wanting him to wait a bit more.

"I died there. I was killed the day we met," she continued softly. "A man came to my concert and he shot me, then I woke up in the forest and you found me... I know things, things that I shouldn't know because they haven't happened yet. Things that will happen whether we want them or not."

Her chest was hurting. Every word seemed to stab her lungs to come out, but the weight off her shoulders was enough to make it worth it.

"I knew about the wall falling," she continued. "I knew it years ago. At the day that you found me, I already knew that people would die... that Carla would die. But I wasn't sure when, so I tried to stay close and change little things – I kept close to Eren and Mikasa, I took care of Armin, I took care of you. I tried to make it better, but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough!"

Adawolf stared at her like the very ground he sat in had dropped away beneath his feet. He reached for her hand.

"You are in shock," he said, but his voice wavered without conviction. "Angel, this... this is just survivor's guilt. The trauma can –"

"No!" she said, fiercer than before. She pressed her lips together, making sure the children were still asleep. "I know what it looks like, Pa, please. This isn't it. Please, believe me. You need to trust me, alright? Even if you don't understand, you need to trust me."

"What comes next?" he asked, curiously.

Angel swallowed.

"The government will soon ask for volunteers to retake Wall Maria, but they won't find many. They'll send refugees, because food will start running out soon. They'll call it a mission, but it'll be an execution." Angela was feeling sick. "They'll ask you to go, you mustn't. You can't leave the children."

Adawolf's voice was hoarse. "How can you be sure?"

"Because I know it," she answered. "Because where I came from, this story was just a story; entertainment like the tales the travellers tell, the ones about princesses and knights."

That did it.

Adawolf's breath shook and failed.

"You're asking me to believe something impossible, Angel," he said, grief obvious in his expression.

"Believe me, if you told me about Titans in my world, I'd think you were crazy as well," she said, laughing weakly without any humour. "I sound insane, I know that."

"You're not insane," he said.

She smiled, her heart twisting.

"I just wanted them to be normal children for as long as possible," she confessed. "But I can't protect them if you don't believe me. I can't do this on my own."

What a silly dream! What a romantic notion that would never come to life! Of course she had failed already. She had allowed hope to blind her to reality.

"I don't understand," Adawolf responded. "And I don't know if I ever will, but... I know you enough to follow you. You are holding these children like they are your own heart and you put your life on the line more than once tonight to get them all back. An evil, dishonest person doesn't do that."

The relief she felt was so overwhelming that her eyes grew tired as more tears came to her eyes. She had kept that secret for years, learned new customs, new alphabets and clothes for the sake of staying while she figured out a way to get back home, and then grew attached to the little children that needed friends, needed parents.

"Thank you," she whispered, shaking finally stopping.

"I don't need to know everything to trust you. Some things are better left unknown," he said, not letting her talk. "If you ever tell me something, what to do or not to do for our sake, I will listen and I'll make the children listen too when the time comes."

She nodded, sniffling.

Armin shifted against her, murmuring something incoherent in his sleep, trying to warm up against her body. Without being able to stop herself, she pressed a kiss to his hair without a second thought.

Adawolf watched her do it.

Neither of them was sure when it happened, but they both slept.

It was time enough for Eren to fall in the hands of Grisha, and – if she wanted to survive the rest of the years – she needed to let him.

Adawolf watched as everything that Angela described happened.

He started cutting meals to make sure the children would get enough to eat once the food started running out. He watched as Angela did the same, but with a smile a lot more convincing than his own. He watched as the Garrison Officers did nothing to separate fights over food and medical attention not getting to the newcomers in time, letting a few of them die out of silly reasons – a head wound (that could've been treated), an infection (that could've been treated) and anything remotely dangerous that had a cure was ignored.

He knew, with dread in his chest, that soon the Wall Maria would have an attempt to be retaken, and they would fail.

Unfortunately, he also watched Angela's growing concern and anxiety take over her.

The woman was sleeping less and less, leaving Adawolf to care for the children as she stumbled around, trying to think of something.

Several days into the refuge, the announcement came without ceremony.

There was no formal gathering in the square or discussion of fairness, no speech of courage and sacrifice for the greater good. Men just started walking around the refugees, content smiles on their faces and voices loud enough to carry as the soldiers inspected the men and women like livestock, stopping at every cluster of survivors and ever family with an adult as they spoke of necessity and duty.

They said 'volunteer', just as Angela said.

And Adawolf knew it was a lie.

It was around the second night in a row that Angel had not slept when the officer stopped in front of them.

"Adults of able body are requested to assist with the operation," he said, voice firm but not unkind. He was from Wall Maria, contrary to many others that seemed happy to be rid of the refugees. "We are taking names."

Adawolf shifted, instinctively straightening his spine despite the ache of sleeping on the ground.

"No," she answered for him.

The officer barely glanced at her.

"This conversation is for –"

"He can't. He's injured," Angel repeated.

The officer frowned, turning to look at her properly. First, he seemed to recognise she was an adult even though she sitting in the corner, tucked into herself and hunched. Then recognition flickered across his face and turned into pity.

"Oh, it's you, from the forest," he said.

Angel didn't miss the tone.

The woman from the forest, from the woods – without a past and memories, as they all thought. People spoke of her of hushed tones, shaking their heads in pity, acting as if her mind was a cracked vessel.

"She's unfit, clearly," the office said, dismissively before turning back to Adawolf. "But you, sir –"

"No!" she said again, sharper. "He has severe pain in his joints. His knees swell and his hands lock, sometimes he can barely walk in the mornings because of his back!"

Adawolf looked at her. He knew it was lie. Sure, his joints ached, but never to that level, but he knew that he had to believe her – he had promised her that he would believe her in whatever came their way.

"How convenient, eh?" the officer muttered.

His eyes narrowed, looking at Adawolf with attention, searching for any sort of signal of bad joints.

"He has arthritis," she continued, trying to get his attention back. "It's advancing quickly."

The officer raised a single eyebrow. "Who diagnosed him?"

"The doctor," Angel said, holding his gaze.

The man snorted.

"The dead one?"

"Yes," she said, nodding.

"Do you have proof?" he asked.

"No," she admitted. "Please, sir. He's not well."

The officer exhaled through his nose, lowering his head with some pity again. He had seen quite a few daughters holding onto their fathers, desperate to keep them in the streets rather than sending them back. He couldn't blame her for that. Adawolf had taken her and tried to get her back into society – that was her father regardless of blood.

"We'll need to see some proof by the morning," the officer said.

Angel felt her stomach drop, because she knew what it meant. She would have to get a doctor's note.

"You will," she answered.

Adawolf turned to her, confusion creasing his face. "Angel –"

"A doctor's note, signed. Is that enough? I'll bring it by morning," she said firmly, not looking at Adawolf.

The officer sighed again, turning to Adawolf and giving him a look.

"She's confused. The poor thing's been through a lot. Keep an eye out for her while you can," he said kindly.

"By morning," she insisted, refusing to be made crazy. "Or you'll take me instead."

Her confidence made the officer and Adawolf pause, exchanging a little look.

The officer moved on.

Only then Adawolf turned to her, eyes wide in horror as he spoke.

"Angel, what did you do?"

She swallowed, her mouth tasting like ash.

"I told the truth," she said. "I'll have a doctor's note in your name by morning."

He studied her, worry deepening into something heavier. Dread. He needed only one look at her and he knew that she had a plan, and he wasn't sure he liked that, because there was reason Angela hadn't mentioned that plan.

"You said this would happen," he whispered. "You said that they would come for me."

"Yes."

"How can you even get a note?" Adawolf asked. "We don't know any of the doctors here, we don't have time for exams for proof that doesn't exist and –"

"I can do it," she said, shaking her head as if that was enough soothe him.

Truth was that all she was doing was making sure he'd stop asking questions that she couldn't and didn't want to answer. She had a plan, one that she was too embarrassed to talk about out loud.

He searched her face, reading the fear and resolve there, watching the way she was bracing herself with something unpleasant in time.

Understanding dawned.

"The hours you are walking around these days. You were looking for a way out of this," he whispered.

"I met a few people," she said, not looking at him, fiddling with her sleeves. "Including the doctor. He's much older than expected, he doesn't hear very well, but he likes to talk. I'll make him write it. He likes me."

As night deepened, her resolve was firmer as the time got shorter.

The warehouse behind the church was quiet, where a group of survivors was still sleeping away from the light drizzle outside. It wasn't nearly warm enough, but it was more comfortably than the courtyard they had been the first night. Still, it was quite difficult for Angela to get up from where she helped Adawolf tuck the children in.

"I'll be back by dawn," she whispered, standing up.

Adawolf reached for her, holding her wrist gently. He frowned, not liking whatever he was seeing in her face.

"Angel, please –"

"Pa, we need you," she said, glancing at the children.

It was cruel to manipulate him like that, to make him accept whatever plan she had while danglin the children right in front of him. She knew that they would be ok without him, the story had made it clear that grief had only pushed them forward to get a better life. Had she been honest, she would say that she was the one that needed Adawolf alive and well.

He let go of her wrist.

"By dawn," he insisted.

She forced a smile, nodding.

With that, Angela slipped out.