I hope you all like this new chapter.

If you know my stories, you know that sometimes the love interest takes its time to appear because I want to settle on the worldbuilding. I hope you all don't mind, and if you mind, I hope you all hold on a bit more.

It was already mid-843 when Angela felt like she belonged.

Adawolf hunted and fished, Armin studied and she worked in at the tavern not too far away from the house. Now that she could contribute to the keeping of the house with more than just cooking and cleaning, she felt wonderfully. She could still go home around lunch to make sure Armin ate (even though he did that alone all the time before Angela was there with them) and would go back to work once he went out to play. Around the time she walked out of her work, she would pick Armin up in Eren's house – sometimes, when it was still light outside or the breeze was nice, she would drink tea with Carla.

Nowhere in the anime people spoke about how damn cool Carla Jaeger was.

Sure, she was known as a mother and wife, which was nice – beautiful, lovely, sweet. It was a good personality all around. Carla Jaeger was a retired waitress at a bar nearby and her favourite hobby was cooking and knitting; but what nobody said anything about how strong she was, especially physically.

Carla could move a very big, thick wooden table by herself closer to the door so the tea drinking was more comfortable.

"That's impressive!" Angela gushed, running forward to help her.

The dark-haired woman laughed, putting the table down. Angela raised the chair and took them to the correct placing. The breeze came into the house as the women sat down, waiting for the children to come back from their playing.

"When you work for so long with drunk men, you get very strong. Besides, Eren was a fat baby," she joked.

Angela chuckled, sipping the black tea carefully.

That world's tea wasn't the best, much to Angela's dismay, but somehow the tea that Carla made was very tasty. She was usually an avid drinker of coffee, but she could open an exception for Carla's tea (especially when coffee was so expensive there).

"Wow, what a feeling..." Carla sighed, feeling the breeze.

"What is it?"

"I was about to ask how Armin was as a baby. I forgot he wasn't your son for a moment," she admitted.

Angela blinked, baffled at the confession.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Carla chuckled.

"You didn't know his parents?" Angela asked, surprised.

Carla pressed her lips together, shaking her head as she tasted the droplets of tea on her upper-lip.

"No, we only met when Eren was five or six. Armin had just moved here with his grandfather; his parents had just passed away. We never really asked questions about it, Armin seems very emotional every time we asked. He doesn't really like to talk about things, but that seems to have changed a bit since you came here, he's a lot more honest," Carla said with a sad nod. "It's sweet to see, really. It's like he's back to being a normal kid."

"He wasn't normal before?" Angela asked, frowning.

"He was always too adult for his age, unfortunately," Carla agreed. She sipped her tea again, then put the cup back on the table. "When Mikasa came to live with us, it was Armin that taught Eren what to say and what to hold back for her sake. It seems to be like that today still. I find it hilarious."

"Children usually are," she agreed.

Carla put an elbow on the table, resting her chin on her hand.

"Do you like children?" the woman asked.

"Yes," was all that Angela said.

For the fact that most people believed Angela had forgotten everything before her attack, she had to be careful with what she said, so she couldn't tell Carla the truth. As a teenager, before getting extremely famous, Angela had tried her best to make money to record her songs without relying on her parents, so she had been a babysitter for years until she was discovered and beloved by many. Had she not been a singer, Angela wished to a teacher. One day, she still wished to be a mother.

But for now, taking care of those children was enough.

By Carla's descriptions, her presence had already started to change things.

"How come you never came to ask about Armin's parents?" Carla asked.

"I did," she admitted, looking down at her teacup. "I didn't want to be disrespectful, but I asked. Adawolf only said that Armin's father was his son and that he and his wife passed away. It was implied that it wasn't a peaceful death."

Carla made a sympathetic noise, frowning in compassion. She could only think of sweet Armin losing his parents while so young, in something seemingly so hard to explain to a child. A peaceful death was kinder to the person and to those left behind.

"I lost my parents young," Carla admitted, looking out the door, into the streets. "My mother was killed and my father couldn't take it, so he killed himself. By the time I was ten, I was an orphan. It wasn't easy handling things on my own, doing what I needed to survive. I did a lot of what I'm not proud of nowadays, but it was a way to get food in my mouth." She took a deep breath in the pause. "When I met Grisha, I just knew things would get better. And they did. Now I got two beautiful children that I love and I'd die for without thinking twice, but most of all I have children that I want to live for."

Angela stared at Carla, taking in her words.

Carla, who died without showing her anguish and fear to her children, who was terrified and still begged her children to survive. Carla, the stronger woman she had ever seen, had never received much of an explanation.

"Living is a lot more difficult than dying, right?" Angela managed to say.

With a chuckle, the other woman agreed, nodding.

"What I meant to say with all that is that Adawolf isn't as young as he was before, and sooner or later he won't be here anymore. I'm glad Armin has somebody else to lean on," Carla added, smiling at Angela. "We like friends, and they help us grow. But we all need mothers."

Something in Angela's chest twisted.

Armin's mother. That was how people saw her, and perhaps how Armin himself was starting to see her.

"I don't know what to say," she admitted.

For a moment, Angela allowed herself to miss her own mother.

Growing up, Angela had thought her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. Camila was an Argentinian woman that had gone to United States for university and got married into a rich, military family. She was everything that Angela had taught herself to want to be – skinny, tall, blonde, extroverted, smart, kind. Loving.

She missed her mother's hands through her hair, her kisses on her cheek, her hug, her comforting words. She really missed her mother.

"You don't need to say anything," Carla answered, biting the corner of one of her fingers curiously.

Without much time for Angela to gather her thoughts and put them into words, Eren came running into the house, complaining loudly about Mikasa's attitude. Ever since she had been adopted into the home, Eren and Mikasa would fight like cats and dogs, but they followed each other blindly anyway.

Armin came soon afterwards, cleaning the knees of his trouser and opening a smile at the sight of Angel there, sitting and drinking tea.

"Hi," he said.

She smiled, reaching over and ruffling his hair. He took a step back after.

"What's wrong with those two today?" she asked as he fixed his hair meticulously.

"Mikasa won from Eren in a race, but he thinks she was cheating," he explained.

"Was she?"

Armin giggled. "No."

Angela laughed, shaking her head from side to side fondly. It was expected that Eren was a sore loser; she should've seen that one coming.

She looked down at his trousers.

"Were you in the race?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I fell," he said, looking away as his cheeks heated up. "But I got up on my own. I didn't hurt myself."

"Did you continue running afterwards?"

Confused by her question, Armin looked at her and frowned, shaking his head. He cocked his head to the side.

"Why would I? I knew that I wasn't going to win. I was too far behind," he complained. "I don't know why I even try; they are just too fast."

Angela frowned and cocked her head to the same side, copying him deliberately.

"You don't need to win, Armin, you just need to run too," she said. She fixed her head and expression. "Sometimes competing and getting to the end of it is a lot more important than winning anything. Some things are very hard to do, and just because it doesn't come out perfect the first time, it doesn't mean that you should give up on it. It's important to try again and resist, persist."

As if she had said something magical, Armin's eyes seemed to shine, taking her words as complete truth. He nodded, not even blinking.

Angela got up from her chair and smoothed her skirt, smiling at Carla and saying her farewells before stepping out of the house, taking Armin with her.

She didn't even flinch when Armin held her hand.

That world's guitar wasn't different from Angela's familiar instrument.

Her fingers travelled through the chords rapidly as she sang, barely needing to glance down to make sure her hands were obeying her. Her fingers seemed grateful that her calluses had not disappeared.

Unsurprisingly, most of her songs were far too modern to sing in public – the mentions about phones, cars, calls, trains seemed to just be too much for her to dare anything. However, Angela had always liked doing surprise covers for her fans, so she knew a song or two by heart, especially the ones she liked to play for herself back at home.

"...and in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat, I tried to find the sound. But then, it stopped. And I was in the darkness, so darkness I became – The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. You left me in the dark!" Angela said, voice confident.

Some people were listening to her with attention, some were laughing amongst each other, some were just there to drink themselves into oblivion after a long, hard day's work. She kept an eye on all of them, hoping that her attention would be translated into tips later in the night.

The door opened and more people walked inside.

"No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight – in the shadow of your heart," the continued, looking at the newcomers. She fingers almost slipped, but she tried to focus. "I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map, and knew that somehow I could find my way back. Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too. So I stayed in the darkness with you."

Across from her, the newcomers were sitting on an empty table and she recognised them right away.

Three people.

A tall man of blond hair, darker eyebrows and sharp, alert blue eyes. An older man of short black hair and brown eyes, the lines of his face and tired expression telling people his age. And another person, tall and slim of brown hair pulled back in a haste, messy.

Erwin, Keith and Hange.

They were all out of uniform, using civilian clothing and keeping their heads down.

Angela forced herself to keep singing.

"The stars, the moon – they have all been blown out. You left me in the dark! No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight, in the shadows of your heart!" she finished.

Once the ad-libs were done and the chord progression finished, some people started to talk over one another to compliment her and some stomped their feet to the wooden floor to get her attention. It was a nice culture piece that she had never known about – apparently, they didn't clap much there, especially people from poorer or simpler areas.

Putting the guitar to the side, she took a drink of water from the hands of Odo, the old man owner of the bar she worked at.

"Good job," he said. "Now go on and attend to that table."

Odo wasn't very kind or gentle, but he was honest and didn't flirt with her or was inconvenient towards women as she had seen some of the men she had seen. Adawolf often hunted with Odo's son and was a good friend of the man. Angela felt safe enough to work there even during the night when Adawolf was home to stay with Armin.

"Odo, do you know who they are?" Angela asked, curiously.

The man looked at the newcomers.

"Not from around here," he answered simply.

It was hard to recognise them without the uniform; she had to admit. She wasn't surprised that he didn't get to the conclusion.

"I wonder why they are here," she mused.

Odo shrugged, uninterested. He shoved some paper and a pen on her hands and sent her on her way towards the table.

Angela couldn't find a reason for three of the highest ranks of the Survey Corps to be inside Wall Maria so early, it was just 843, there was no expedition – gosh, Levi wasn't even part of the Corps yet. Her curiosity was simply overwhelming, even though she was quite controlled.

"Good evening," Angela started.

Her voice shook.

Fuck.

She was too nervous to meet them.

How come someone that was used to singing to so many people, dancing and dragging herself around the floor to look sexy in front of so many people couldn't talk to these three people? Sure, they were people she admired a lot.

But fucking hell! Pathetic!

Keith sighed, lowering his head.

"What can I get you all?" Angela continued, forcing herself to ignore the awkwardness.

"Beer!" Hange said, voice excited.

"Sure thing," Angela said. "Anything to eat?"

Keith looked up at that, taken aback.

"There's food here?" he asked.

Angela smiled, nodding. "Sure thing, sir."

"Bread!" Hange said, voice just as excited as before.

"Brown bread, please, miss," Erwin said.

"Of course, sir. Two loaves?" she asked.

Erwin nodded, still looking at her. Even relaxed, he seemed suspicious of her. Logically, Angela knew that there was no reason for him to be looking at her like that, let alone have something to think about her since they walked into the bar to her singing casually, still a sense of fear settled in the pit of her stomach.

She made her escape swiftly, gathering the orders into a platter in silence.

While she worked, her mind wandered to the reason why those people were in there again, settling on the theory of a training exercise by the time she put the bread and beers onto the table.

Before she could step away, Keith Shadis reached over, holding her wrist in place.

Startled, Angela pulled her arm away and twisted her body to stumble backwards. She stood frozen, shocked by her own reaction's velocity.

"You almost gave me a heart attack!" she complained, breathing heavily as she stared at Commander Keith Shadis. "How – How can I help you?" she managed to ask.

"Sorry!" Erwin answered in place of the commander, eyes widened in horror. "He didn't mean to startle you; we were just discussing something and –"

"You have an accent that I haven't heard before," Keith said, interrupting his Section Commander. "We were trying to find out where you are from."

Angela blinked.

She had noticed that the way she pronounced the words was slightly different from the way the rest did, but she had never given much attention to it. It was almost imperceptible anyways, so she had never wondered much about it or worried about it. Adawolf had never asked questions and nobody had ever mentioned it before.

But all those people knew, to some extent, about the story fabricated about her attack.

"She doesn't know," Odo answered in her stead. "She hit her head."

She looked over her shoulder, watching the old man limp forward with his cane in hand, glaring at Keith Shadis without fear. With his bad eyes, the owner of the bar had probably not even understood who he was staring at, just saw a man that had touched Angela without reason and made her have a reaction.

Curious, Hange looked at her.

"You had a head wound?" they asked, leaning towards her as if to look for a scar.

Erwin shook his head to the person across from him on the table, warning them against the question.

"I lost my memory a while ago. I don't remember anything," she agreed.

"How did that come to be, if I may ask?" Erwin questioned carefully.

Odo looked at Angel, unsure of how to answer it or if he should answer it at all. He was a good man. He didn't want to embarrass her or expose her.

But Odo didn't seem to understand that Angela had lost her ability to feel truly humiliated around the time she fell off the stage and the video went viral when she was younger, she broke her front tooth at that time and it was an awful sight to see. Everybody saw it.

She didn't care for exposition; she cared about how easy her life could be if she made people uncomfortable enough to stop questioning her.

"I was attacked by someone, I don't remember anything," she said.

Hell yeah, trauma dump! A wonderful way to make people stop asking annoying, invasive questions and blame themselves at the same time.

Erwin locked his jaw, staring at her while trying to find the correct words to continue the conversation politely. Hange cringed, biting their lips and looking the other way with an exaggerated grimace, ever the expressive face. Keith continued looking at Angela for another moment, pursing his lips.

"Have they ever got the man?" he asked.

Angela shook her head. "No," she simply answered.

"My name is Keith Shadis, I am the Commander of the Survey Corps. If I find out anything about this attack while we are in a group training with the Garrison Guard while we are here, I will take care of it," he said confidently. "I apologise for my curiosity, miss."

He would find nothing.

She smiled again.

"Thank you so much, sir. You are so kind!" she said.

Slowly, she gave a step back, wanting to get the hell away from that table again.

"What is your name?" Erwin asked, leaning over the table.

"Angela," she said.

"I'm sorry for the trouble, Angela," Erwin said, putting a hand on his pocket and offering her a few bronze coins. "Here, for your fright."

It was somewhat humiliating, being paid so openly over something so small; it wasn't like being paid for a service. It felt like charity.

But still...

Armin needed new shoes. Adawolf needed a new fishing rod. She needed a warmer coat for when the winter came.

She took the coins.

"Thank you, sir," she said.

As soon as she felt dismissed, she scurried away and did not get back to that table for the whole night, only collecting the money once they were already at the door and giving it directly to Odo's hand.

Odo held her hand before she could leave to go home.

"If your Pa finds out they were asking about you, he is going to get worried. If somebody tells, just says that I handled it. He won't like that you were talking to the Corps without reason," he warned, frowning in concern.

"I know," she whispered, shifting nervously. "I'll just say they were off-duty and were curious, I'll say that you handled it and I barely spoke."

"Good. I need you here, girl. I can't lose you because your Pa is scared of letting you walk by yourself at night," Odo said, any softness that he had before disappearing in his harsh honesty.

Angela wasn't sure she liked all those important characters already knowing her name before she had expected them to.

That night, she barely slept, thinking back to Erwin's eyes over her – suspicion. He had seen her far too soon; he had been too curious. There was still something about her to be seen, which meant that she wasn't doing something right. She needed to fix that as soon as possible, before worse people than Erwin Smith got too intrigued by her accent.

For the next three weeks, Angela made sure to copy Adawolf's accent perfectly.

So, we had Erwin and Hange in this chapter! I'm so in love with all of them, it was hard to choose who would be the romantic interest in this story. 

It was born as a Erwin love story, but I changed it because I thought Angela would need someone a bit harsher with the reality, especially as the story goes on. Two idealistic dreamers could only end up in a disaster.