Never let me go

29

A/N: The new cover of this story is a portrait of Iris that I painted. I have by now finished the 35 chapters of this story, and will soon begin the project of a complete rewrite of it. In time I will publish that as well, to serve as a more complete and edited version of this story, which has grown over stages in the year it took to write it. I also have a little side project in which I want to write of the time Kenny Ackermann came to find Kuchel and instead found Levi, seeing as we did not really get to see more than a few slides of it within the manga.

29

"He just tries too hard!" Gabi gestured eagerly with her fork in the air. "You should have seen him, he fell flat on his face. What was he thinking? He can't outrun me and we both know it. For a moment I was really worried that he was going to cry. Can you imagine that? He'd be written off completely!" She laughed merrily. "I think he understood that much, because he just clamped his mouth shut and got back up."

"You kids are such hard workers." His mother smiled. Aunt and uncle, although brimming with pride, looked like they had already heard this story more than once today. Uncle put a hand on Gabi's shoulder.

"Gabi, Aunt Karina has gone through a lot of trouble to make this food for us." he reminded her. She nodded impatiently at him, shaking his hand off her shoulder.

"Reiner, let's walk to HQ together tomorrow morning, yeah?" she beamed at him.

"Alright, I'll come by and pick you up." Gabi was in a splendid mood tonight, and he did not want to ruin it. He had always imagined that once his father could come live with them he would have had a sibling, but Gabi was the closest to it he would ever get. 

"Don't make fun of Falco. One day he might be the warrior watching your back" he cautioned.

"As if! Me watching his back, more like. I'd rather have someone strong beside me, like you or Mr. Zeke."

He made no reply to that, and made a move to shuffle some more of the vegetable stew onto his spoon instead.

"I think they'll test us in action soon to see how we handle it. I can't wait to fight for my homeland" she continued with a smile on her lips. "It'll be just the right time for me to show them all that I'm the only candidate worthy of the armored titan. I don't know what I'll do, perhaps device some clever scheme taking the enemy off guard, or I'll think of some awesome maneuver that'll let us claim victory." Her eyes glimmered. Her parents smiled in a way that said 'Please excuse our daughter, she gets ahead of herself' and he actually felt the corners of his mouth twitch a little.

A tapping was heard from the door in the front room and they all stopped in their tracks. He looked from his mother to his uncle, then to his aunt. They all looked startled, which was enough for him to deduce that no one was expecting a visitor at this hour.

"Should I get that?" He made a move to stand up but his mother leapt to her feet, holding a hand out to stop him.

"No, stay Reiner. I'll go see who it is."

He sunk back onto his chair and watched her walk out of the room.

"Isn't it a bit late to go knocking on someone's door at this time?" Gabi wondered aloud and he was somewhat inclined to agree. Auntie shushed her daughter just in case the visitor was someone who might take offence if he or she were to overhear what they were talking about. He tried to settle his features into a mask of cool indifference, knowing full well that most of the time he just ended up looking grumpy. The older he got the gruffer he appeared to be. The laugh lines around his mouth had deepened although he could not remember smiling much, and the wrinkles underneath his eyes aged him beyond his years. Nineteen going on thirty-five he thought.