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A week before his thirteen years are up, Reiner Braun tries to slink away like a dying animal. He quietly leaves civilization, packing a bag of supplies for reasons he can’t consciously understand. Despite his attempts at suicide, he cannot bring himself to a needlessly uncomfortable end. A quick death would have been mercy. Discomfort feels both appropriate and grates on the last wisps of his survival instinct.
That particular part of him has gotten stronger in the last month, some primal thing inside panicked by the last of the sand falling, and so he resolves to continue to feed himself until the armor consumes him.
The only slow death he can accept is one he cannot help, and so with a bag over his shoulder he leaves silently in the night, wearing neither his Marleyan coat nor his scout cloak, re-gifted by Mikasa on a cold night while they were allies trying to save the world.
He’d tried to return it after the job was done but she’d given him a funny look. “That one is yours. You left it behind last time.”
Left it behind. Like he’d simply taken a trip and not betrayed them all a second round over.
Can it really be betrayal, he wonders, sitting with his back against a rough trunk with a half-eaten sandwich in numb fingers. Can you betray people you started out deceiving?
They’d certainly felt betrayed. He certainly feels like a betrayer.
He rests his head against the trunk and sighs, letting the food sink into his lap. He stares up between leaves at the sunlight glimmering through them and thinks he doesn’t deserve this. He shouldn’t be spending his last days in the woods where he can breathe free air and sleep under stars. He should be locked underground already, if not with his wrists in chains then at least his body behind bars. This is too peaceful. He was supposed to die between the teeth of the next warrior. It would have counted as some kind of justice at least.
But the old ways are gone, and the only people he trusts to inherit his armor are the two people he’d die a hundred times more to protect. He won’t dare burden Gabi or Falco with his titan. He’d considered Falco, since the kid is already bound to the timer the Jaw titan left him with, but a pure titan eating someone and a conscious titan are two different things and he doesn’t want Falco’s last memories of him to be the pop of blood on his tongue and the snapping of bones between his teeth.
He gets up, and he keeps moving south.
The forest grows thicker and the crickets come out at night, and Reiner has dreams of the child that will be born with what he’s leaving behind.
That’s the trade off, he knows as he washes his face in a cool stream and lets the water soak into the collar of his shirt. Once his heart stops beating, some child not yet thought of will be bound to the armored titan and be doomed to die young with no chance of really understanding what they’ve been saddled with.
He feels the tension of guilt in his shoulders but his body doesn’t have enough energy left to properly manifest as a stress response so he just hangs his head and takes a few extra moments to get back up. The water glitters in his pale hair and he closes his eyes in a sunbeam, listening to a bird singing in the canopy.
He’s helped kill thousands of innocents he didn’t know, children included. What’s one more to spare Falco and Gabi the horror of eating their family?
He still feels the weight of his last sin, and he can’t honestly tell if it’s the titan or the burden of his soul that’s draining him by day four.
He just knows he cannot hike much farther, so he starts looking around at the place his body will remain.
It’s beautiful here. Another mercy he doesn’t deserve. A carpet of moss and flowers, a little pool by a rocky overhang some might call a cave. Tracks from deer and rabbits, which means he won’t even have to guard against predators.
He’ll be able to die quietly, gently. He’s never seen someone bearing the nine die of the fatigue of it, so he doesn’t fully know what to expect. That's a small thing, really. He doesn't believe anyone fully knows what to expect in death, even if they'd pictured it and know exactly how it is going to happen.
He lets himself sink down by the pool and watch colorful fish reflect sunlight.
He eats, drinks spring water, and sleeps at the mouth of the cave where sometimes he's so still he wakes to a curious animal nosing at him. None of them are scavengers yet, and they quickly flee when they realize he's still warm and might be a threat.
A few realize he's not, and that he has food, and on his last day a bird even alights on his open palm. It hops to his fingers and dips to snatch a seed before leaping skyward in a flurry of blue feathers.
He feels a great lump in his throat and finally breaks down sobbing, fingers curling around the seeds while his shoulders shake. He buries his head in his arms, drawing his knees up and feeling both far too old and far too young at the same time. When he cries himself into a headache and manages to stop, he lifts his head and sees the bird is back, perching tentatively near his boot. He takes in a shaky breath and scatters the rest of the seeds into a sunbeam where suddenly a dozen more birds land to accept the offering.
He doesn't consciously choose when to close his eyes for the last time. One moment he's leaning against a rock still sun warm, watching the stars come out, the next his eyes sink closed and he sighs, body settling into exhaustion.
It's this way, deep into the night, Gabi finds him.
"Reiner," She breathes, dropping her pack and sprinting the last dozen yards to him. Her heart is in her throat, body buzzing with a suppressed weariness after forgoing sleep the night before.
Catching up to Reiner had been harder than she'd thought it would be, his tracks too faint to follow easily slowing her down. Falco runs in behind her, the red stripes from his use of the Jaw the day before still not faded completely from his cheeks.
Gabi reaches Reiner first, falling to her knees next to him and immediately framing his face with her hands.
"Reiner? Come on you idiot, why would you leave us like that??" she scolds, tears well tracked down her cheeks. His skin is still warm, and when she feels at his throat for a pulse she finds one still beating weakly.
Her face crumples with renewed tears and she throws herself on him, hugging tightly. Weak has never fit Reiner, and even when he'd collapsed on her in the ruins of enemy territory his pulse hadn't been this thready.
The armor is killing him, and it breaks her heart to realize he is probably too weak to wake and say goodbye.
"Gabi is he–"
"He's not gone, just too selfish to say goodbye," she snaps, anger surging. "How could he do this to us, Falco?" she asks, turning to look at him while keeping her hands tightly fisted in Reiner's shirt. She doesn't know when she grabbed hold of him. "A week left and he just… ditches??"
Falco has tears in his eyes too, and he kneels at Reiner's other side, feeling the weary pulse himself. The expression on his face makes Gabi want to slap Reiner even more.
"You bastard, wake up," she says through her teeth, giving him a little shake. She's grown since the last time they'd been in this position, and Falco reaches out in alarm to stop Reiner's skull from hitting the stone.
"Gabi don't," he says through his own tears. "He's too weak. Shock him like that and he might just…"
She stares at his sunken eyes, at the rough exhaustion painting his features and she knows Falco is right.
"I hate him," she spits, then loosens her fingers to smooth away the wrinkles across his shirt. Her fingers come to rest over his heart, but she feels nothing and she sinks down at his side to lay her head on his chest.
The soft sound of Reiner's heart beating still finds her ears, and with the anger dissolving she cries herself out on his chest.
Falco lays his head next to hers and covers her hand with his own, and together they lay with Reiner and wait for dawn.
Gabi falls asleep.
Falco is the only one awake when the first sunlight changes the sky, and he listens to Reiner's breathing while the stars begin to fade.
When the sun is high enough to cast a beam across Gabi's shoulders and Reiner's brow, she begins to stir, tension gripping her at first until her conscious mind recognizes that Reiner's heart has not stopped in the night. Slowly, she shifts to sit up, but just before she can she freezes. Falco looks at her, alarmed, and his hand goes to Reiner's wrist.
"What? What's wrong?"
She stares like she can't believe what she’s hearing before whispering: "His heart got stronger for a few beats."
"Wait, really? You're not imagining?"
He's gripping Reiner's wrist tightly now, leaning a little closer, and Gabi shakes her head, actively listening. She covers her ear and shifts against his chest, listening intently.
After a moment: "It's definitely stronger."
Falco is dumbstruck. "How??"
Gabi sits up, studying Reiner for a long moment. Falco almost thinks she isn't gonna answer at all when suddenly her expression drops and she looks up at the sky, then at Reiner, then back at the sky.
"Hold on," she exclaims suddenly, like she's gravely offended, and before Falco can stop her Gabi has grabbed Reiner by the front of his shirt and hauled him out into the full sunlight.
"Gabi!" Falco yelps, scrambling after them "Delicate! Remember??"
She's ignoring him, falling back to Reiner's chest to listen like it's her life on the line here.
After a few moments more she sits back up, indignant. "Bastard gets stronger in the sunlight!" she declares, and before Falco can process that the entire landscape changes like a switch being flipped.
"Of course he does," a voice says, calm and unnervingly familiar. Both teenagers look up to see Eren Yeager standing there with something half carved in his hands, a small knife scraping away sand. "He's a subject of Ymir. And a titan. We thrive in sunlight, just don't depend on it like pure titans do."
He blows away dust and turns what he's carving, the dunes and aurora burst of stars stretching out endlessly around them.
"So…." Gabi looks down at Reiner, who hasn't moved any farther towards consciousness. "He isn't going to die?"
"He will. The sunlight is helping, but he's too complex to survive off of it. His heart will give out at sunset."
He says it matter of factly, without emotion besides maybe a subdued regret.
"Then what are you doing here?" Gabi asks, a surge of anger showing on her face. "Come to watch?"
"Came to fix it," Eren says, strangely calm. He makes another sweeping curve with the knife and then pockets it, turning what he's been working on so Gabi can see. She blinks.
"What is that…"
Falco pales, putting a protective hand on Reiner's sternum.
"That's a heart, Gabi."
She snorts. "Made of sand."
"Titan sand."
"The founder can change any Eldian physiology," Eren says, moving to Reiner's side and placing a few fingertips next to Falco's on Reiner's chest. "Without that change the armor will kill him like it was always going to."
Falco feels a sudden dread at the realization Eren can do whatever he likes here and he doesn't think he or Gabi could truly do anything to stop him. He tenses, looking from the heart in one hand to the fingertips resting nearby.
"What are you going to do?" he whispers.
"Heal him," Eren says simply, and scoops a great, sandy handful out of Reiner's chest.
Gabi cries out and grabs at Eren, but he holds fast, staring her down. Falco is fixed looking at the hole in Reiner, at the strange marriage of sand and flesh. He can see the edges of white ribs that crumble into sand, the red swell of muscle and lung, but there's no real gore.
Everything inside Reiner is still, and Falco swallows, pointing.
"It's too late," he says hoarsely.
"No it isn't," Eren says, removing his wrist from Gabi's shocked grip. "Neither of your hearts have beat since you got here. Time doesn't exist in the founder's sands. Reiner won't die while he's here."
Gabi's expression changes but Eren adds: "He won't wake, either, which is for the best," he says, nodding to the hole. "Will you let me finish?"
Gabi looks pale but she sits back on her heels for a moment before nodding stiffly. Eren rests the sand heart on Reiner's chest and Gabi shifts to move his head and shoulders into her lap. She strokes a hand through his hair while she watches Eren work with a numb fascination.
He sweeps out more room, scooping away bone and tendon and muscle that dissolves at his touch. Reiner is warm under Gabi's fingers and she holds onto his shirt, wondering what's real and what's hallucination.
Eren keeps working until he uncovers Reiner's heart like an archeologist, and then without too much pause he scoops it out with one deft curve of his fingers, bisecting arteries in a single swipe that leaves the heart Reiner had been born with cradled in Eren's palm.
Gabi can't help a little sound of distress when he goes to discard it, her hand darting out to stop him.
"Can't you just fix that one?" She blurts, meeting his eyes. "He….he fought so hard for it."
Eren considers, then nods once, discarding the first heart instead. "So he did. Hang on."
And he goes to work with the knife and the sand on Reiner's heart.
He carves some away, adds to other places, shapes and turns and shapes and turns without hurry. Falco watches too, morbidly fascinated. Eren tries the heart back into its place twice, backtracking to make modifications both times before the third attempt seems to satisfy him. He nods, swipes his fingers across the sandy arteries, and like he's just brushing away dust they show red and whole beneath. He leans forward and blows the rest of the sand out of the chest cavity before scooping up fresh and carefully re-constructing Reiner's ribcage and then the muscle and skin covering it.
When he's done, there's nothing left to show for the strange surgery.
"Is that it?" Gabi asks, running nervous fingers again across his hair.
"Yes and no. I've placed the cure in his heart. In a few days his whole body will be able to bear the armor until he dies of old age, but in the meantime while he gets stronger he won't die."
"Are you doing that for all of us?" Falco asks, and Gabi reaches a hand out to him, squeezing sympathetically.
Eren blinks. "Of course. The nine don't need to be a curse anymore. Any Eldian born with one of the nine when the previous host dies will also be born with a body strong enough to bear it a normal lifetime. I've already healed yours."
Falco looks green around the gills. "You–okay. Uh." He looks down at Reiner and touches his own chest.
"You think Reiner will remember this? I took care of you while you slept last night.”
"O-oh….okay." He does not feel less weird. "Thank you."
For the first time, both teenagers see Eren Yeager smile, and then with a blink they’re back by the pool.
Gabi immediately looks down, but Reiner is still in her lap, and when she leans over him to press a hand into his chest she can actually feel his heart beating against it this time.
Her eyes well with tears and she looks at Falco, smiling broadly. “He did it! It was real!”
Falco puts his hand next to Gabi’s and processes, shoulders slowly sagging with relief. “That means–Gabi.” He laughs, gulping a sudden, giddy breath. “I won’t die either!”
“Like I was going to let that happen anyway,” she says through her own happy tears, and she punches him in the shoulder.
“Gabi, don’t hit Falco,” Reiner mumbles, and they both look down to see him squinting up at them.
He lifts a hand to block the sun from his eyes and takes a slow breath, but before he can process anything Gabi is smothering him with an awkward hug.
“You are such a bastard Reiner Braun why would you leave like that??” she scolds, clinging tight around his neck. He makes a strangled sound and he grabs at her forearm, shoving his back against her knees to relieve the pressure on his throat.
“Gabi, don’t strangle him,” Falco scolds, but he’s still smiling. “Even if he does deserve it.”
There’s a muffled beat before Reiner coughs and Gabi gives him a final squeeze and then lets him up. He sits up slowly and shifts around, leaning on his hand and trying to understand what’s happened.
“I can’t have gotten the days wrong,” he says. “Did I?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. Eren used the Founder to rebuild you.” She taps at his sternum. “In there. You won’t die until I kill you for ditching us now.”
He blinks, staring at her like she’s just told him the past 13 years were a dream.
“What?”
Falco smiles, getting up and offering Reiner a hand. “Come on, we can explain on the hike back. Pretty sure you owe us a ride at this point, we followed you for miles. When you’re feeling strong enough to transform of course.”
Reiner stares at the hand before taking it, letting himself be hauled up like he’s in a trance.
Once on his feet, Falco pulls him into a rough hug, and Gabi joins. They squeeze him between them for a stunned moment before Falco lets go. “Happy birthday, Reiner,” he says with a smile, and leads the way back towards home.
After becoming a warrior, four thousand, seven hundred and forty-five days were all Reiner was supposed to get. At the most.
It took him most of his four thousand, seven hundred and forty-sixth day to understand he’d somehow miscalculated by not packing more food.
Fortunately, Gabi and Falco hadn’t made the same mistake.