On the other side, Eren had purposefully kept himself distant from Marleyan Eldians. Well...there was Falco. He'd been actually sorry to have to betray him. He was a kid, and too kind of one for his own good. Lucky for Eren, unlucky for Liberio and the world. And in the distance there had been Reiner, somewhere. Eren felt closer to Reiner after being in Marley, after finally understanding.

But it never would have mattered, would it? Even if Eren had been actual friends with anyone in Liberio, he would have destroyed the town anyway to take the War Hammer's power, to hamstring their forces, to win at all costs. Eren isn't without guilt or regret, but he would do it all again with few changes. At the end of this, years from now for Reiner, he's not sure if Reiner would say the same.

He hears Reiner's words and thinks of his anguish, his wish to die, the war he fights with himself.

We're the same.

I vaguely remember saying something like that.

Half-assed piece of shit.

I'm worse.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

His hand tightens a little, an involuntary reflex to keep from drowning.

Luckily Reiner speaks before Eren can open his stupid mouth and say something that poisons it. He doesn't want to. He really doesn't. He hadn't been lying when he said he didn't want Reiner mad at him.

(He does and he will sometimes, probably. Just not usually, which had been a revelation to him when he'd admitted it aloud.)

"I told you," he says.

We're the same.

No. Not that. Here, now, time stolen from the world they came from.

"It's your birthday. If that's what you really want, then...okay."

Crisis averted(?).

His grip returns to normal and the present coalesces again.

"Have you had cheeseburgers?"