It's not until everyone's out of his office that Erwin Smith lets himself collapse onto the floor. He grips the stones, mind whirling and shock still rippling through him.

We have the armored titan and the colossal titan in our custody.

We have four more titans on our side.

You were right, Father. The outside world does exist. Humans weren't wiped out. And Erwin could almost cry. You were right. You were right. You were right.

Merry Christmas.

Below him, Erwin can still hear the jingle of bells and the sounds of so many soldiers laughing. He inhales so deeply his lungs sting.

The door flies open behind him. Erwin jumps.

"Just me," Levi says sourly. "Mike's handling them. And Hange's examining them. She's in heaven."

Erwin smirks. "I can only imagine."

"Shit," Levi says, meandering towards the window. His head barely touches the wreath he and Hange taped up there. "I can't believe this."

"It's overwhelming," Erwin agrees.

"You think it's overwhelming?" Levi's eyebrows rise as he turns to face Erwin.

Erwin shrugs. This feeling coursing through him, wrapping around each organ—is it relief? Is it dread? Those two feelings shouldn't be remotely similar. "I always wanted to prove that my father was right. That humanity wasn't extinct."

Levi waits, arms crossed.

"Now that it's happened, I—" Erwin shakes his head. "I don't know what to say, or what to do."

"I suggest we begin by interrogating the entire 104th training corps," Levi observes. "So far we have three spies, a reincarnated titan princess from outside the walls, a Reiss princess from inside the walls, and that's not even mentioning that we also have an Ackerman and Eren Jaeger. Plus two Military Police turncoats who are probably extremely unnerved right now."

Erwin snorts. "Call them in. One at a time."

"Will do." Levi strides towards the door.

His heart lifts. "Levi?"

"Yeah?" Levi pauses, his hand hovering over the handle.

"Do you think we have hope now?" In his mind, Erwin sees Isabel and Farlan, all of the other soldiers he led to their deaths. It has meaning now. We'll solve this problem. Humanity will win.

"It is Christmas, right?" Levi questions. "Maybe cultivating a season of compassion actually worked as your most brilliant scheme yet."

"I didn't intend it to ferret anything out beyond the Military Police, though," Erwin admits. He'd hoped, of course—he knew someone in the Military Police was working against humanity's survival. But he hadn't the slightest inkling that some of them were titans from the outside.

Erwin cringes as he remembers the three of them sobbing on his floor. Like errant children, like Erwin sobbed after he killed his father and had no way to retract his words and bring his father back to life. No way except to resurrect his ideas.

Which he finally accomplished. Today.

At the expense of how many lives?

"Maybe you're smarter than even you think you are." Levi yanks the door open. "I'm sending them in one at a time, ranked in order of 'most likely to be oblivious' to 'something stinks.'"

First in is that Military Police girl, Hitch Dreyse. She sobs that she had no idea about Annie, that she just wants to help her friends. And Marlowe Freudenberg reiterates that he wants to help the Survey Corps, wants to change the world for the better. He's basically a calmer Eren.

Sasha Braus and Connie Springer claim to know nothing at all, beyond that Annie and Armin were acting strangely lately. Same for Historia Reiss—although she confesses to knowing about Ymir—Mikasa Ackerman and Eren Jaeger.

"How do you feel, Jaeger?" Erwin asks, leaning back in his chair and studying the headstrong boy in front of him. "Knowing that the person who kicked down the Shiganshina wall, who trapped your mother, is in the basement?"

Eren narrows his eyes. "Sir, I—" He gulps.

Erwin doesn't like provoking the kid. But it has to be done.

"I meant what I said," Eren says. "They're my friends. And they want to switch sides. They want to help us."

"Hm." Erwin rubs his chin.

"He's wild," Levi complained after their first meeting with Eren.

Maybe he's actually growing up a little. "Thank you, Eren." Erwin dismisses him.

Next is Marco Bott, who confesses to knowing after Jean told him. And Jean, who tells Erwin about the day when they went ice-skating. Ymir claims she didn't know, but has lots to spill about the history of the world.

"You were a mindless titan for sixty years?" Erwin asks, aghast.

Ymir scowls. "I don't know how many people I ate during that time. I may have eaten some of your men and women." But her tone is anything but cavalier.

We could have killed her.

We have killed so many people like her, victims of an endless nightmare.

Levi presses his head against the glass once again. Erwin hears him inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling.

"I know I'm selfish," Ymir says. "I know I kept secrets from you—just because I wanted a chance to lie my own life. But Historia—she's—I love her. I love her, and I would do anything for her. If she's on your side, I'm on your side. Because she said she's always on mine." Eyes downcast, Ymir grits her teeth.

"You are the one who made a deal with the devil?" Erwin asks.

"Do you even want to work with such a person?" Ymir demands.

"Do you want to work with a murderer?" Erwin asks as his father's face fills his mind.

"This whole world is my fault," Ymir whispers.

"You may claim you want to live only for yourself and for Historia, Ymir Fritz, but you don't," Erwin comments. "You feel the weight of the world and the people suffering in it deeply, don't you?"

Ymir doesn't so much as flinch. She meets his gaze, her own hard, stony.

"You're dismissed," Erwin tells her.

"You think we can count on her as a reliable ally?" Levi questions.

"I thought of you as a reliable ally," Erwin points out. He shivers as a chill rolls through the room.

Levi scowls.

"And you have been," Erwin adds. His breath catches. "Thank you, Levi." For being more than humanity's best soldier. You're my best friend.

Levi jerks his head in a nod, and he marches out only to return with a pale Armin Arlert.

"So," Erwin begins, taking in the trembling kid. The genius, really. "How long have you known?"

"Annie saved me the night we were lost in the forest," Armin reports. "By transforming into a titan. She told me the truth a few days later."

"And you didn't immediately tell us because…?" Erwin prompts.

Armin wrings his hands. "Because I knew she wasn't an enemy of humanity any more. Annie's a terrible liar. I knew that—that in order to persuade Bertolt and Reiner, or capture them, we'd have to listen to her, go by her schedule. She always planned to tell you on Christmas." His breath catches. "She's not a bad person, really."

"And what is a bad person, Armin?" Erwin asks. "Because, considering the amount of people she's killed, some would think that—"

"I know she's done bad things," Armin interrupts. "But, like Eren—she wants to help humanity now. She's been a bad person, but does she have to stay that way?"

I was a bad person, Father, Isabel, Farlan, Dietrich... "No," Erwin says finally. Have I made it up to you? Can I ever? "She doesn't."

Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt will never, ever be able to make it up to any of the hundreds of thousands they killed, Erwin knows. Does that mean they have to let it drown them?

Not if they want to fight for hope, for a future, for no more lives to be ripped away from this earth.

And me? Do I have to stay a devil forever?

Or can I be like Ymir, and have a new life?

"It seems like Christmas is about second chances," Erwin remembers Armin saying a few weeks ago. You knew by then, didn't you, Erwin realizes. Sneaky kid. "For everybody. They can have a new year and a new life, new hope. It's about love for people, and it comes from this story about a God coming down to a hellish earth to save people."

Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt might be no gods—they might even be victims in their own country, but they decided somehow that the people in the walls are worth helping.

Erwin clears his throat. "Do you want to see her?"

Armin's eyes dart around the room. "Yes."

"Let's go." Erwin rises, heading for the door. The spicy, sweet smell of pine coats the hallway. Levi follows.

"Are you disappointed in me, sir?" Armin asks as they trod down the stairs.

Am I? Erwin pauses to consider. "In some ways, yes."

Armin's shoulders slump.

And if Marie had been a titan? Nile? Erwin can't even imagine. "But I'm also proud of you. And where I'm disappointed, well, I can't say I would have done anything differently."

Levi snorts. Armin glances up at him, eyes shining.

"Hey," Oruo grunts as he sees them. "Hange's in with the girl right now."

Armin glances at Erwin. He marches towards the cell.

"Armin!" Annie cries, chains around her wrists clanking.

He pushes past Erwin, throwing himself at her. She clutches him. "I love you."

"I love you," Armin tells her.

Erwin's nose wrinkles. He glances behind him to see Reiner, the large boy everyone seemed to respect and admire, slumping against a wall, Nanaba guarding his cell. Bertolt is in the cell directly across from Reiner, Mike at the door.

"All three of you," Erwin says. "I want the story. The full story."

"All of us do," interrupts a voice that Erwin really shouldn't be surprised to hear. Levi groans.

Eren stands there with his hand clutching Mikasa's. Jean, Marco, Ymir, Historia, Sasha, Connie, Marlowe, and Hitch all gather.

"I don't know that you do," Annie says as Hange slips out of the cell to stand next to Levi.

"I do," Erwin says. There's no place to sit. So he drops to the floor. Reiner's jaw hangs open.

Everyone else slowly eases themselves onto the floor. Erwin notices Hitch clutching a doll. Weird.

"I'll start, I guess," Reiner says as he launches into an explanation of the history of the Eldians and the Marlayans. "We lived in a ghetto, and my family decided I was too much of a burden. They put me in the warrior program when I was six."

"My family was talked into it," Bertolt admits quietly. "I just wanted to go home."

"We trained every day. So many fell, couldn't handle it—and when they couldn't handle it, they were beaten until they toughened up, or they were killed," Reiner says.

"That's why you helped all of us," Connie says in horror. "In training."

"When you took my bag," Armin whispers.

Reiner shifts, hiding his face.

"When we were ten, and Annie nine, we were given the titan serum. I ate—neither of us know who we ate."

"I do," Annie says, her voice shaking. "They made me eat my mother."

Erwin's stomach heaves. He can only imagine the guilt Annie feels.

What could someone have said to him? "It's not your fault?" But it was his fault.

It's not theirs.

"I don't want to hurt anyone any more," Bertolt ekes out. "Who—who wants to do this? Who actually wants to kill people? I just want to—I want this to stop. I want this to end." He gulps. "I—I hate myself for doing this. I'm so—"

You were a child, caught up in things you didn't understand, Erwin realizes.

Weren't you?

Forgiveness is not something I deserve.

And them?

"I want to keep people alive," Annie retorts.

"So do I," Reiner says. And when Erwin looks at them, he sees terrified children, desperate for more days of life, of freedom, just like the people in the walls.

Give them a second chance. And maybe, but offering them one, Erwin can imagine a second chance for himself opening up, a life worth living, a life with bloody sacrifices still ahead, but one that he knows will have a purpose. He knows their enemies now; he knows how gray and murky everything now seems, with humans opposing them, humans Erwin's ancestors once apparently committed the exact same atrocious crimes against.

I want to fight for a world where no one suffers like this, Erwin thinks. Not Eldians. Not Marlayans.

Whether all the deaths on his conscience will have any meaning or not, Erwin doesn't know, but he'll try hard to make it so. You died fighting a lie, but we'll see to it that you're remembered.

"We can seal the gate in Wall Maria," Reiner says softly.

"What?" demands Erwin.

"I can call titans," Annie says. "Direct them away from the area, while we go in and Bertolt can lift that boulder, replace it."

"And then?" Erwin asks. "Do you want to stay here? Or do you want to go back to your home village and fight?"

"We want peace," Annie croaks out.

Peace on earth, and mercy mild…

"We'll help with whatever plan you come up with," Reiner promises.

"It's the least we can do," Bertolt whispers.

"We can train Eren," Annie adds. "As a titan."

Eren's jaw drops. Mikasa raises her eyebrows.

"And Historia?" Ymir demands. "Because if we don't get her on the throne, there's no point in trying to broker a peace with the Marleyans. Fake king Fritz won't go for it."

"Your relative?" asks Levi.

"Don't bring that up."

Historia kisses her on the cheek.

"We put Historia Reiss on the throne first," Erwin agrees. He rises, peering into all three of the cells. "Let them out."

"Are you sure?" asks Eld.

"I'm sure." Erwin straightens his spine.

Armin leads Annie out. Gunthur unlocks Reiner's, and then Bertolt's. Reiner bounds out, but Bertolt hesitates until Reiner looks to him, and Bertolt steps out.

"Are you ready?" Erwin asks. "It's not an easy thing, to be seen by the people you've vowed to serve as a traitor."

"I'm ready," Bertolt whispers. He was not whom Erwin expected to speak first.

Annie nods. Reiner swallows and says he is, Bertolt taking his hand and squeezing it.

"Thank you," Erwin tells them.

Thank you for reminding me that second chances exist.

That you can be more than murderers.

That I can be more than the son who failed and then vindicated his father.

Petra hums the first cords of "We wish you a Merry Christmas." Sasha starts to sing, and then Connie. Hitch jabs Marlowe until he joins in. And Jean reaches out and grabs Bertolt's shoulder, urging him to join in the chorus.

And somehow Erwin's jaw pries open, and he, too, sings. Levi and Hange, Mike and Nanaba, all of them. A chill seeps through his back, and he can almost imagine calloused hands, his father's hands, caressing his face.

"You're smart, Erwin," his father would say. "You'll go far. You ask the right questions. You're capable."

I love you, Erwin thinks. Wherever you are.

This is Christmas.

Cheesy? I don't deny it. Thank you for reading, and Happy Holidays!