Shiganshina had killed nearly everyone, Erwin included. He had heard in passing that you were killed by the Cart Titan when it swept through to take Reiner from Hange. You had shoved Hange out of the way, and the last thing anyone there was you and Reiner being swallowed by the Cart Titan before it disappeared out of sight. Your loss had hit him hard, but it was just another hardship he had to stow away.

A month before the Scouts' were to invade Liberio, Zeke had idly thrown it out there to Levi and Hange that you were, in fact, still alive. Turns out you were still alive in Pieck's mouth after Shiganshina, so by the time they got back to the Marleyan ports they decided to keep you locked away as a prisoner of war. Levi was too tempted to try and murder the bearded monkey for withholding something like that for so long.

They only had so much time after extracting Eren from Liberio to make a quick detour to rescue you. Once they got you on the airship and got a good look at you, you were unrecognizable.

You were a prisoner of war for four years in some shithole basement cell in the heart of Marley. An "Island Devil" in enemy territory, it didn't take a genius to figure that they had tortured you to an extent before all but abandoning you in an isolated cell. You looked like you had been carved out of wood, a complete shell of the person he saw as his cadet. You looked like someone he would see in the underground; not the rotten shits like he now sees in Eren, but the lost souls who were put in an unwilling position to fight for their survival.

It had been three weeks since Liberio, and he made a habit of watching you from afar, trying to adjust to being back in Paradis as well as coping with a trauma that no one in the Scouts' had yet to experience or know how to process.

He approaches you early one morning on the training field, where you are trying to adapt to the new ODM system, wanting to make yourself useful in the ranks.

"Hey..." He calls out once you've zipped through and landed down.