Beyond the Walls - helena3190 - Shingeki no Kyojin (2024)

Chapter 1: Marigold Hues

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter One: Marigold Hues

Amber skies make vibrant promises they can’t keep. Mikasa watches the remnants of the sunset; not because it’s beautiful, but because it’s a battle with a predictable end. Violent hues of red and blood orange rays make the last attempt on the front line, but an endless indigo already has the cavalry surrounded. The sun is defeated by twilight, a watchful full moon and starlight presiding over its surrender.

From the vantage point on her private balcony, she waits for the streets to finish emptying of market sellers and civilian passersby. Most folks have homes to return to, families waiting for them. When it’s quiet enough that only a few patrolling MP’s remain, she leaps down without bothering to close and lock her patio doors. This far into the Walls, it’s only the occasional breeze that offers relief during the humid summer evenings; and while there’s plenty of stupidity in Mitras, there’s no one quite stupid enough to snoop or steal from her personal quarters.

Years serving as the personal protection for the Queen have given her familiarity with each of the patrolling soldiers, but she hasn’t bothered to learn their names, just their schedules. Only a few of them attempt a nod or salute, most of whom she ignores as she progresses to the familiar outskirts of town.

Even dressed in casual attire of a loose, silken tank belted into matching black pants, she’s not able to remain inconspicuous. Oriental features too rare, sharp cheekbones and stern gray eyes too serious, and a gait too graceful even with the light clink of boot heels. This close to the impoverished, nearing unspoken territory claimed by the Underground, she’s recognized as a soldier as easily as if the Wings of Freedom were still stitched onto her back. What they don’t realize is how much she prefers their openly distrustful gazes and discontented murmurs over the hidden hostility of those she’s forced to spend most of her time.

There are a few decrepit taverns she hasn’t been a patron to yet, but in no mood for a new crowd, she chooses a familiar hole in the wall with a tattered wooden sign labeling it as the Black Sheep Inn. Though she is alone, and has been since The Curse of Ymir took its toll on them, she imagines Armin and Eren walking beside her in protest.

Are you sure you want to eat here? Timid whenever he asks any question, even though he knows the answers just as frequently.

Yeah, this place is a dump, Mikasa. Viridian eyes flashing at her for half a second before turning toward a distraction. There was always something else that stole his attention.

At this hour there are only the few regulars, none who pay mind to her entrance. Most are men without spouses, a few women with no safer place to be; it won’t be until later when the tavern fills with belligerent drunks and delinquents.

Dara, the owner, stands behind the bar with unwashed hair, ragged clothes and kind eyes. Counting lesser coins to prepare change for the night, she doesn’t lift her head in acknowledgement.

“It’s just some chicken and peas tonight,” Dara greets, words warm but hoarse, the toll of incessant smoking throughout a lifetime.

“That will be fine.”

Taking a seat at the bar, Mikasa can’t recall a time it wasn’t “just some chicken” on the menu, though whether it would be peas, carrots, or potatoes varied on the market prices.

After finishing the count, Dara pushes the drawer to a close and goes back to the kitchen. A few moments later, she hands off a hot plate of the aforementioned meal accompanied by a rare addition of sweet bread with raisins. Mikasa opens her mouth to thank her for it, but Dara waves dismissively before she can get the word out.

“What’s it gonna be tonight, love?” Dara asks, turning back to the liquor display.

Though the soldier’s routine is nothing but consistent, Dara knows the choice in liquor depends on the young woman’s mood. One pint of ale if she’s had an easy day and doesn’t plan to stay. Whiskey with two ice cubes if something or someone has pissed her off. Red wine when the memories are haunting her. Whereas most men come in clamoring on about their piss-poor day or flaunting whatever reason prompted their grins, Mikasa was not discernible, nor expressive.

“Wine, please.”

Dara pours the red wine and wordlessly slides the stemless glass in front of Mikasa’s plate, then moves onto the next customer. Mikasa knows it’s not the cheap liquor or bland food that has made The Black Sheep Inn her preferred dining establishment, but the owner’s lack of curiosity or need for conversation.

After clearing her plate, spending more time than necessary on the sweet bread, she nurses her second glass of wine. More patrons come, commotion and ruckus ensue, and Dara wordlessly pours her a third. When she’s on the last sip, considering whether or not to ask for another glass, she thinks of Eren.

Slow down, Mikasa. You’re making horse-face look like the responsible one. A weak attempt to scold her, meant more so to make Jean sputter and fuss.

She doesn’t get the chance to imagine what Armin would say next.

“Darling, let me get the next one for you.”

Someone new, someone who doesn’t understand the rules. She glances at him without turning, offers no smile of gratitude, but nods in acceptance. He’s not too much older, has dishwater blonde hair, at least one absent tooth, and a dirt-streaked tan from days spent working in the sun. As if he’s already won a prize in a carnival game, he grins when tossing a few copper coins to Dara. He’s too focused on the quiet woman at his side to notice Dara’s unimpressed shaking of her head.

When the fourth glass is gifted to her, Mikasa does thank Dara.

“You prefer to come sit with me, darling?” He stands, gestures for her to come with him.

Men, she thinks, too unsurprised to be sour. Most take what doesn’t belong to them; the others assume it can be purchased so that it does.

“No,” she finally answers aloud. Her fingers coat the rim of the glass. “I prefer that you leave, though.”

He starts to stumble and stutter. She waits to see if it will be embarrassment, anger or both that cause the inevitable outburst, but then there’s someone old, someone who does know the rules. The intruder is whisked away and she’s given solitude again.

Shame, she thinks. Watching flustered reactions is a game to her as much as it is to them.

Though she noticed him enter when accepting her third glass, its a few more moments before he leaves a table from the back corner to take up residence on the seat beside her.

“Ackerman.” As blithe as usual.

“Captain Levi.”

She doesn’t need to look over to see the slats of slate that are him reminding her how he feels about the retired honorific.

“Didn’t think you were the type to let a man buy a drink for you.”

“It can be humorous,” she admits.

“How so?”

“When that’s all you let them do.”

“Hn.” The same curt acknowledgement as from when she’d just slain an exceptionally tall titan.

Dara spends a moment evaluating the newcomer at the bar before she greets him. To ensure the owner knows she doesn’t mind the company, Mikasa orders his preferred drink for him.

“Whiskey neat, please.” She knows his favored brand, but there’s no top shelf to order here.

Dara knows better than to lift her brows in surprise, but pauses before nodding and then moves to pour the drink. Once it’s delivered to him, Mikasa turns to acknowledge her unexpected guest.

In civilian clothes too, though it’s impossible to describe them as casual with that damn cravat at his neck. White pressed linen, a black blazer made with expensive fabric and perfect stitching. Same precise undercut, a fringe of ink-black hair a curtain over disinterested eyes. Even though he’s the one who’s spent more time in the Underground, it would be impossible for an outsider to know it. For the first time she wonders if that is precisely the point of his extravagant attire.

He doesn’t miss it, though. The mild disdain for his clothing veils her search to ensure there aren’t injuries beneath it.Eventually, she speaks first.

“I almost thought you weren’t going to say hello.” Unconcerned, but still, she’s curious.

There’s a touch of surprise that crosses over him, a fleeting admission he thought his earlier arrival went unnoticed. Though he doesn’t voice it, she knows he wonders how she could have seen him with her back turned from the door.

Mikasa lifts a hand to the array of liquor bottles behind the bar. “Saw you when you first walked in.”

Levi follows her pointed gesture to the reflection coming off burgundy red, absinthe green and cobalt blue glass. Despite himself, an ironic smile quirks at his lips. Once upon a time, he’d used the same sort of reflection to spot an Ackerman’s entrance into a bar, though the circ*mstances were markedly different.

“Didn’t want to interrupt your reveries,” he answers.

But he knows most of her reveries scream to be relieved, or at the very least interrupted, and she’s too buzzed to banter patiently with him. “What are you doing here?”

“Hange told me I would probably find you here.” He’s too arrogant to mask his contempt for the establishment when he scans the room. “Though I’m not sure for what reason. The quality wine?”

She matches his sarcasm when she sees him pause at the sight of the man who purchased her most recent drink. “That, and the quality suitors.”

A slight grimace, but it’s gone by the time he faces her again. “You don’t belong here.”

Mikasa frowns. Even though she’s invited to the Queen’s table for breakfast, it doesn’t mean she belongs there, either. “Alright, Levi. Where do I belong?”

This time she drops the previous title to remind him they’re not just peers, not just equals; they’re also in the same position. She doesn’t belong anywhere, the same as he does not belong, either.

Unlike her, he’s sober and patient. Levi makes some sort of apathetic grunt and takes a shrewd sip of whiskey, finding no reason to answer her.

It irks her. When it comes to her old captain, there’s often more that irks her about him than doesn’t.

“Why did you ask Hange where I’d be?”

“Technically, I didn’t ask. They assumed I wanted to know and told me.”

The blunt words might have held the capacity to sting, except she knows he did want to be told, or else he wouldn’t be here. Mikasa takes another sip of wine, but then reconsiders; after securing Dara’s attention, she asks for a glass of water instead. Knowing there are all sorts of fights she can win but verbal bouts with Levi are not one of them, she changes the direction of the conversation.

“When did you get back?”

He’s no longer a Survey Corpsman slaughtering titans, but still he travels past the Walls to guide settlers, leading expeditions and helping build encampments. She hasn’t asked him, but she wonders if it is a sincere aspiration of his, or simply a distraction.

“Last night.”

“When are you leaving again?”

“Next week.”

Too late in the effort of sobering herself, the clipped words leave without being filtered first. “What’s the point of coming back then?”

He tosses her a halfhearted glare, perhaps gracious it was the wine at fault. “I’m not allowed an occasional visit with old friends?”

Friends. It feels strange to consider Levi a friend; what she shares with him is not like the familiar comfort of Armin’s presence or predictable interactions with Eren. But since they no longer served together in the Survey Corps, he couldn’t be labeled a comrade. They weren’t family, either. At first it wasn’t clear the Ackerman lineage, but sufficient research proved that while a shared ancestor might be at the top of the tree, their prospective families led them several, separate branches apart. Not comrades, not family - friends.

Though it doesn’t seem the best description, she supposes it is the right one. Mikasa considers how she can probably count on one hand how many people knew her first by name, then the famed melodramatic moniker; he is one of them. Whenever Levi visits the inner Walls, he makes a point of visiting with her at least once, sometimes even bringing back tea leaves or pressed flowers from her old home in the Shiganshina District. He probably has as few friends as she does, if she has to guess, and each of them remain within the Walls.

“You know, everyone thought you’d stay in the city and open a tea shop.”

Everyone being the few survivors from their squad.

“You all appropriately estimated my love for tea.” Impressed at first, but then ending with a slight shake of his head. “But overestimated my willingness to engage with customers.”

Despite herself, Mikasa smiles some thinking of that; Levi offering a warm welcome when the door opened, happily making small talk while accepting coins, patiently watching the droplets of spilled honey and sloshed tea at tables busied with customers who held no interest in remaining clean. No, he had no patience or love for potential customers.

“I suppose that’s true.”

Mikasa assumes it will transition to their usual companionable silence, but there is a discontent manner in his movements as he takes another sip of whiskey and slides his glass back down. He doesn’t look at her when he speaks.

“None of us thought you would settle in Mitras.”

“I haven’t settled.” She thinks of her personal quarters in the royal keep, a borrowed space she rents, not owns.

“You stand still and stare at a bunch of idiots every day, feigning significance to protect a Queen no one plans to attack.”

Mikasa’s grip on her water glass tightens. “You read the research, same as I did. We were designed to protect the throne.”

“Oh please, Mikasa.” Unimpressed by the patriotic sentiment.

The holier-than-thou attitude that used to make her want to drive a fist into the side of his skull resurfaces with surprising ease. Before she can temper herself, he looks over to her, bored.

“First you lived only for Eren, and now only for Historia?” He makes a tch noise that sets her blood to boil. “You’ve traded one scarf for another.”

It could be blamed on her inebriation, his smug attitude, or even the essence of her being that constantly aches for adrenaline provided only through an earnest fight. But she blames the godforsaken cravat that is just asking to be yanked when she snags the linen from his neck. She pulls so hard that his unsuspecting head snaps forward.

Her words are quiet, but fervent. “I’m not the one still wearing their scarf.”

It’s meant to be a blow beneath the belt, but he doesn’t cringe. If anything, there’s a glimmer of amusem*nt in the stone-gray shades of his serene irises that frustrates her even more.

“I know you’re not a woman who cares for fashion, Ackerman, but this is not a scarf.”

She can feel the countless pairs of curious eyes, and immediately there’s an uncomfortable knot in her gut. Dara ordinarily has a no-nonsense policy that prohibits bar scuffles that could develop into damaging fights, but the older woman is too surprised at the uncharacteristic display of wild temperament to put in a reprimand. Refusing to let embarrassment discolor her cheeks, Mikasa releases her hold.

Levi is unbothered from the recent strangulation and simply readjusts the cloth. Though she doesn’t need the lecture on style, he tells her. “This is a cravat.”

She finishes the rest of her water in one gulp. Nearby, she hears the murmurs of excitement from her recent display, and she takes out her wallet without another thought. It’s ordinary for her to overpay for the meal by double or even triple, but Mikasa presses even more silver coins on the bar in absence of an apology to Dara. Not finding it necessary to say farewell to the man who was far more intrusive than the one who bought her a drink, she takes her exit.

“Mikasa.”

Without the undertone of arrogance, he says her name with such an ease of familiarity that she actually stops in her tracks. It’s a tone that suggests they are friends, yet reminds her again, it doesn’t feel quite like the right description. She doesn’t turn back to him, but pauses at the door.

“It’s Hange’s birthday tomorrow. I’m having a few people over on Friday evening to celebrate.” It isn’t an explicit invitation, but she knows he’s telling her to come. “Dinner is at seven.”

Mikasa pauses for another half second, and then exits the establishment.

Awe, you know he didn’t mean to make you mad, he’s just a little indelicate sometimes. Too soft, too willing to see past others flaws, Armin would make excuses for him.

Eren would laugh, though. That’s right. Leave him uncertain whether or not to make you a plate.

.

.

This time of year, this far into the Walls, the heat is insufferable. Her hair doesn’t reach her shoulders, but still she lifts half of it back with a tortoise shell barrette gifted from the Queen. Mikasa searches for the thinnest material she can find in her limited closet and settles for a sleeveless, silken top and well-worn black skirt.

Armin would compliment the dark red currant shade of her top. That’s a good color on you, Mikasa.

Eren wouldn’t notice.

She slips on sandals and sets off for Levi’s often-abandoned home, reluctantly forfeiting her quiet Friday evening alone. Not because she particularly wants to see her old captain again so soon after the recent altercation, but because if Eren and Armin were still alive, it's what the two of them would have planned to do. And she undoubtedly would have gone with them.

.

.

She is late to Hange’s birthday festivities, arriving a half hour past the time when Levi stated dinner would be served. She has no doubt he had the meal prepared precisely for seven on the dot. Even from outside of his humble house, not too far from the old barracks, she can hear the thunderous laughter of a drunken Jean and excited shrieks of the previous commander. Once she approaches the door, she recognizes the infectious giggling of Sasha and lower bass of Connie’s humored protests.

Though she doesn’t need it to count, Mikasa lifts her hand and curls each finger to her palm as she names them. Hange, Jean, Sasha, Connie; and then a brief pause, but she folds her thumb into her palm, too. Levi.

These are all of her friends left, and she can count them on one hand.

Before she can knock, the door in front of her is abruptly opened. Unamused by her tardiness, Levi is prepared to scold her. “What’re you waiting for, brat? You’re already late.”

She drops her hand. “Sorry.”

Narrowed eyes follow the clenched fist that has fallen to her side. He then lifts a brow, but she steps past him to enter, and he doesn’t have the chance to ask.

“Hey, is that Mikasa?” It’s Jean who is the most excited, and she tells herself it’s because she’s the one he sees the least.

When Mikasa rounds the corner into the dining room, she is somehow surprised to see amidst the busied table of her friends and several dishes of food, there is one emptied plate waiting at the far right corner. The white porcelain and its accompanying silverware shine from a perfect polish.

“It is you,” Jean exclaims, fast to leave his seat and encapsulate her with a hug.

Though she offers only a sliver of the same affection in response, he doesn't seem to notice. “Come on, sit down. You aren’t too late for dinner. Captain Levi is a surprisingly good chef.”

“Just Levi now, Jean.” Tired now, surely not the first time he’s said it tonight.

Mikasa offers a tepid smile to everyone, but she finds Hange first. “Happy Birthday, Commander.”

It is no longer their title, but Mikasa finds it is impossible to forfeit using it.

“Thank you, Mikasa,” Hange cheers, ale spilling from their full glass. “I’m glad you could join us.”

Though he flinches, Levi makes no comment and promptly finds a towel to take care of the spill. Sasha knows better than to assault Mikasa with an unwanted embrace, but she gifts the other woman a smile with no less affection. When Mikasa takes the seat next to Connie, he places a brotherly hand over her shoulder.

“We made bets on if you’d come or not,” Connie admits, releasing his touch. “Can’t say I’m sad to have lost, though.”

Sasha groans at his impropriety, but Mikasa isn’t offended. “Who won?”

“Hange and Levi,” Jean answers, as though none of them should be surprised.

Levi wears something akin to pride on his visage when he takes his seat across from her, but she looks only to Hange seated at his left.

“And how much did you each win?” Mikasa asks with false frustration.

But Hange pulls out their wallet and hands a few bills to the now smirking Levi. Confused, Mikasa turns to him. If Hange won too, why would they be forfeiting their bills? Taking the old commander’s cue, the rest of her friends cough up their coins or bills, too.

“To keep it interesting, I bet Levi double-or-nothing over whether or not you would arrive on time,” Hange clarifies sadly.

Mikasa’s lips settle into a thin line watching Levi neatly fold the bills. Without looking at her, he says it simply. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

One of the bills from Connie has a smudge of something sticky on it; perhaps jam from an earlier sandwich. Levi promptly loses his smirk, disgust apparent. Holding it from the tips of his fingers, he tosses the bill back to Connie, whose grin suggests he doesn’t mind in the slightest.

There’s a brief moment where grief sinks heavily into her heart. If it came to betting about her habits and social tendencies, both Armin and Eren wouldn’t have lost.

Whatever conversation had taken place prior to her entrance is fast resumed, some sort of debate on which abnormal titans from their past could be rated the ugliest on a scale of one to ten, and Mikasa listens but doesn’t help with ratings. Less out of hunger and more to distract from the pressing weight of grief, she takes a small portion from each dish Levi prepared. Grilled teriyaki salmon, white rice, steamed vegetables, and fresh bread and butter. The salmon must be from his most recent trip to the sea; briefly, she wishes she had arrived earlier simply to see if Sasha lost her absolute mind over its reveal.

Without prompting, Levi takes the decanter of red wine from the center of the table and pours her a glass.

Mikasa looks up at him, surprised.

“Consider it an apology,” he says, too quiet to be playful.

She takes the glass from him, her calloused fingers brushing over his scarred ones. Mikasa looks down at the wine, watching it swirl after an expert tug from her wrist. When she dips her nose in to smell the aroma, she’s for some reason not surprised to find it is more earthy than citrus, the kind she prefers. No doubt, it’s also an expensive vintage, perhaps taken from Erwin’s old collection for the special occasion of celebrating one of his old friends.

“Consider it accepted.”

Mikasa ignores his subtle smile when she takes her first sip.

.

.

Enamored in the newness of their recently formed relationship, Connie and Sasha leave first, making some sort of excuse no one believes but everyone accepts regardless. Hange held no reservations on celebrating themselves to the full extent that a birthday allowed, but overindulging in liquor brought about a premature end to their own party. Levi set them up in the guest bedroom with a huff of annoyance that was less believable than the new couple’s reason for departure. Jean was the most reluctant to leave, though a commitment he’d made to help another friend at dawn forced him to be responsible enough to go.

After another embrace in farewell, he lingers. “Hey, you know next weekend is the summer solstice festival, we should hang out.”

“I think Historia will need me.” She says the words without remembering if the Queen has mentioned requiring her services.

“Right.” A hint of disappointment, but no less genuine of a smile. “Then maybe I’ll see you there?”

Nodding in farewell, she watches him leave and suddenly wonders how it’s come to be that she is the last person to remain at the party. If it hadn’t been at Levi’s own home, she would have at least beaten him out of the door.

You deserve to have fun every once in a while, Mikasa! Armin would flash a warm, uninhibited smile.

This isn’t Mikasa’s idea of fun. Fun is flying on ODM gear and slicing through the napes of titans. Eren would say it as a joke, but he would be right.

Since she is the last to remain, or at least the last to remain sober and conscious, she busies herself with cleaning up from the dinner table.

“You don’t have to,” Levi tells her, meaning it. There’s an impressive stack of dirty dishes in hand as he heads toward the kitchen.

“Least I can do.” Mikasa collects the rest of the used silverware onto her own stack and follows him into the kitchen.

“No, least you can do is help me finish the wine,” he counters, a brief nod to what can’t be more than three glasses left in the decanter. “Erwin would kill me if I let it go to waste.”

It confirms her theory that it belongs to their old commander. “Thought you didn’t like red wine.”

“Depends.”

Mikasa returns to the dining room to find her used glass and his untouched one, pouring a healthy portion for both of them. Only a few sips are left in the decanter. She makes a mental note that whoever finishes their glass first will have to honor Erwin by returning to them.

Once back in the kitchen, she sets the glasses down and goes to Levi’s side. As though transported back to an older time, they fall into a familiar ritual of cleaning and drying dishes together. It’s been awhile since Mikasa has needed to clean so much dishware, and though she wishes there were two more of everything, it still provides some comfort. Even she has not been able to completely adjust to being so alone.

“Depends on what?” Her question comes several moments later, when the dishes are dried and stacked in his preferred methodical order, but he remembers the last point of conversation.

“The occasion.”

He picks up the glass for the first time and studies it, seeing things she can’t see, remembering moments that tick on a different clock than her own yet sound very much the same.

“Erwin thought white wine was for frivolous affairs and entertaining guests.”

“And red wine?”

But Levi takes a sip of the wine and doesn’t answer her. Before she can determine whether or not to negotiate for a response, he exits the kitchen and she supposes she’s meant to follow. Over the years, she’s been to his home only on a number of rare occasions but knows the general layout of the first floor. There are large glass doors that overlook a wraparound porch and enormous backyard with hedges serving as a privacy fence. The first time she saw the backyard, she knew it was the reason he picked this house to own. Despite the cramped lifestyle within the city, this view almost makes one forget Walls even exist in the first place.

Levi takes his preferred seat on a handcrafted wooden chair and Mikasa is content to lounge on the swing bench, her legs gentle in starting the rocking lull, both hands clasped on her full glass of wine. There’s a gentle breeze that offers a slight relief, the cool touch welcome on the sticky nape of her neck and bare skin of her shoulders. Soothed by wine and the recent chaos of companionship, Mikasa allows herself to be content, admiring the starlight and quiet neighborhood.

Instilled training from the years prior is what enables her to notice the slight movement; Levi tilts his glass onto his knee, as if inspecting the contents of the red wine for the first time. Noticing it caught her attention, he offers an explanation.

“‘For the moments that matter with the people who do.’”

It’s been far too many years since Mikasa has heard their old commander’s warm, authoritative voice, but she remembers Erwin vividly now through those reminiscing words.

Though Levi looks to the starlight, she looks to him. It’s not the first time he’s said something that almost prompts a blush; but in her practical mind, she filters it through how she’d react if someone else said it. If Jean said it, she’d hear a romantic overture. If Connie said it, she’d know it was the bittersweet sentiment of an old comrade.

Considering Levi’s blithe tone and apathetic disposition, she assumes it's the latter and turns to the stars, too.

These days it only takes a few glasses of wine to dislodge the ordinarily stubborn and unspoken thoughts in her mind. As she sits with a half-emptied glass, she turns back to her quiet companion.

“You don’t approve of my post here, that I’ve taken the role as the Queen’s personal guard.”

“You actually care what I think, brat?”

“No.” Though she means it to be a willful display of her independence, it has the opposite effect; she sounds childish even to her own ears. Mikasa sighs and corrects herself. "On certain things, I do.”

“Tch.” Levi sends a warning glance. “I apologized for starting an argument in public, not for what I said.”

She clenches her teeth. “Excuse me?”

“We’re not in public anymore, though,” he says, bored in his continuation, as though he can’t tell she’s already frustrated. “No, I don’t approve of your pathetic position; an outdated political figurehead at best, a decorative statue at worst.”

It takes effort to unclasp her jaw, but she’s humiliated and drunk enough to seethe. “Who are you to talk? We were disbanded, we’re irrelevant, but you still go beyond the Walls, as if there’s something significant to face, instead of endless, boring grasslands.”

They’re both fully aware it is not endless, boring grasslands; eventually, it leads to the coast and the sea. But neither of them has been able to consider life beyond the ocean, so neither of them find it prudent to mention now.

“We fought to go beyond these Walls.” He reminds her unnecessarily, blunt as a dull knife. “Not to keep cowering behind them.”

It almost knocks the breath from her. “You think I’m cowering?”

For the first time he looks at her; his words may have been dull, but his eyes are sharp as a blade. “I know you are. You’re not living up to your potential, Ackerman.”

Levi is adept at deciphering and predicting many things, including the variant moods and internal mechanisms of Mikasa Ackerman. It’s perhaps the reason he is one of the few, maybe even the only one, who can crack her calm facade with a few minced words.

Belatedly, it occurs to him he’s either gotten too complacent, or maybe the stretches of time between them have taken her further off than he’d noticed. While he anticipates a bark of laughter or snide remark, he instead sees her trembling fingers and the dip of her chin. There’s no scarf there for her to hide behind.

“I didn’t ask for this potential.”

She says it quietly, the only hint of passion from her earlier fury revealing itself in the way she makes potential sound like a lethal curse. Because that same potential erupted from him, he knows hers came as a consequence no child should have had to suffer.

Without her watching to notice, she misses the flash of concern in his widened steel gaze. She closes her eyes, forbids them to shed tears into wine that is special not because it's vintage or expensive, but because of whom it belonged to and how he wanted it to be consumed.

“And I certainly didn’t ask to be one of the ones left living.”

Her words are not melancholy, but the simple statement of an inner truth.

Even though she hears the careful steps in his approach, she is startled when she feels warmth over her hands. His battle-hardened fingers wrap firmly around her trembling ones, an attempt to steady them. One, traitorous tear falls and she presses her lids tighter to halt the rest of them.

“Oi, Mikasa.”

Her shoulders tense in preparation to be annoyed by whatever verbal onslaught he plans next, but when she listens, his words are still serious yet uncharacteristically soft.

“They wouldn’t want to hear you say that.”

She wants to bite back and ask who he thinks he means by ‘they’, but she knows he knows. Resentment rips out of her. “They would want to be here. Doesn’t matter though, does it?”

“It still matters to me what Erwin would think. It still matters to you what they would think, too.”

Not for the first time, she wonders if he talks to his ghosts the way she speaks with hers. Maybe it’s the wine, the recent admission, the searing pain of Eren and Armin’s absence, or maybe it’s the manner in which he still holds her hands tight within his own, but her shoulders slump in defeat.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, or what I should do next.” She glances up at him briefly, not for answers, but to verify their mutual understanding. “Every day, I can focus on just one day. If I think any further ahead, I - I…”

It’s trust in this mutual understanding that gives her an assurance that even if she fails to verbalize the sentiment, he knows. He knows the struggles she has, but can’t voice aloud. Looking up to Levi, she lets the words die off.

“Hn.”

He loosens his hold over her hands, a warmth she’s surprised to find she immediately misses despite the summer weather, but then he traces her knuckles, as if searching for scars and remembering when each of them were given.

“Here, every day is the same.”

He says ‘here’ like it is the object of disdain, so she knows he means here, not just within the city, but within the Walls.

“But out there?”

Her prompt is too vulnerable; it’s an accident when she lets it slip she’ll consider going beyond them. She wants to steel herself, to roll her eyes or release a scathing scoff; but instead, she watches his thumb trace over the raised scar at the base of her pointer finger.

The breath he lets out sounds like laughter, but it isn’t the sort that is evoked by mirth. He releases one of his hands from her knuckles; she is almost startled when two of his calloused fingers rest under her chin. He lifts her face to look at him, and she isn’t able to see what else is in his steel-slanted eyes other than sadness, though she senses something stirs beneath them.

“Out there, every day is different.” Now, a brief quirk in his lips, as though it is bittersweet. “When every day is different, you have to at least think about the next day enough to prepare for whatever it might bring.”

She sighs, another accident when she rests into the hold he has on her chin. For a split second his hand fans out, the back of his fingers brushing against her loosened jawbone, but then his touch is absent from both her cheek and her wine glass. When she reaches to touch her chin, she blames it on the instinctual habit from reaching for her old scarf. She drops her hand to her lap.

“Queen Historia needs me here,” she says, her last excuse, one they both identify as weak.

“It’s true you’re worth a hundred soldiers,” he says, a mild-mannered grunt. “But if there’s anyone who can afford to replace you with a hundred good men, it’s the Queen.”

Out of excuses, Mikasa meditates on it. She finishes her glass of wine while Levi finishes his own. It’s to pay a debt she owes to Commander Erwin, not her current companion, when she mentions there are a few sips of wine left.

“All yours,” he says, disinterested.

Together they return inside, the loss of the nighttime breeze and entrapment in the home almost immediately suffocating in comparison. Mikasa sees him take a turn to another room, but she returns to the decanter at the dining table.

While Mikasa takes the remainder of Erwin’s wine, watching to ensure each drop makes a safe landing into her glass, she sees Levi resurface from the other room, a well-worn book in hand. For a moment it’s quiet while each of them look to the other person’s hand: Mikasa, with the last few sips of a precious wine Erwin never had the chance to taste, and Levi holding a book whose title doesn’t matter, because it’s not about the words on the page but the flowers pressed in between them.

(No, not friends, Mikasa thinks vaguely as he slides the book over to her.) She is as gentle to lay the glass of wine down as she is to pick the book up, past precedents guiding her to open to the pages to find the center. (But is there a word to describe two people who share a similar, relentless grief and nurse each other’s wounds?) She admires the vibrant colors of three recently plucked dandelions, flattened from weight but not yet devoid of their marigold hues. (If there is a word that could describe what he is to her, she doesn’t know it.)

Her fingers graze over the soft petals, not wilted or dried just yet, and a hundred memories of home surface to her mind.

It occurs to her then that he’s come back with a variety of flowers over the years, different ones each time, yet this is the second time in a row she’s opened the book to see dandelions. Last time, did he see in her reaction what she didn’t speak? Another moment passes, but she shares her thoughts aloud.

“These were Carla’s favorite. We told her they were weeds, but she loved the vibrant colors and simplicity of them. You know the wild bushes on the side of the house? The kitchen window overlooked them. Once, Eren and I trampled through them, we were racing or fighting, I can’t remember. It’s one of the few times I can recall her being upset with us.”

It takes focus and precision to handle thunder spears, but lifting the loose flowers without damaging them requires an even more attentive touch. “I’m not sure why they don’t grow here, but I’ve never seen them this far in the Walls.”

She lifts her gaze long enough to see Levi finish the last sip of his wine. Though she’s almost confident he doesn’t even like the taste of it, he studies his emptied glass regretfully, as if the longer he stares at it, the more he hopes for dark red liquid to appear from thin air. But it’s gone, just like Erwin.

Eventually, he turns to her. “It’s too warm here. They’re in bloom everywhere beyond the Walls.”

Mikasa wonders if it is no coincidence that Eren’s father took up residence in a district nearest the outermost wall. Perhaps the dandelions were not just Carla’s favorite to admire, but his reminder of the life, opportunity, and truths beyond the wall. She looks at the soon-to-be-withered flower in her grasp and thinks of the rest of her collection of browning, dried flowers it will soon join. She is careful when she lays it back onto the meaningless page, and then she closes the book.

“Alright,” Mikasa says, almost to herself.

She tucks the book firm into her side and takes hold of her glass of wine as she approaches him, abruptly nervous, but excited to be a free woman making a choice, instead of a soldier adhering to a command.

“Alright, what?” Gruff, but not unkind.

With her free hand, she removes his emptied glass and places it on the table. “Alright, I’ll go with you.”

“That’s not what I told you to do.”

Levi is always blunt, but this time especially adamant, something akin to desperation in his visceral stare. She wonders if he has been responsible for the fate of enough soldiers for a lifetime; if his insistence now is because he cannot fathom to be responsible for her fate, too.

Mikasa blinks, looks at him with an apathy he’s more used to seeing in a mirror. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t even ask me.”

He’s about to offer some additional level of protest, but Mikasa places her glass of wine into his hands, knowing he would not have taken it himself if she’d offered it.

Drawn to it, the words halt in his throat and Levi looks down at the few sips left of Erwin’s wine, the ones he told her to finish but she’s given to him instead. The ones he wishes he had left in his own glass to sit with for the remainder of the evening.

He’s made no request for privacy, but Mikasa knows all too well when the ghosts demand one’s full attention. With that, she makes to leave. She steps across the threshold, takes the first step into the front room, but he calls to her.

“Mikasa.”

Once again, it’s not just the use of her first name that makes her pause, but the manner he speaks it: half a declaration of protest, half a sigh in surrender. She wonders how this has become habitual for them - if it is because she is the one who leaves too soon, or if he is the one who speaks too late. This time, she turns back to face him.

Gentler now, he evaluates her retreating figure. “What were you doing earlier, outside the door?”

Mikasa looks at him blankly, uncertain what he means, but then he lifts his hand and mimics her earlier movement, a fist half-closed with the palm facing upward. She almost blushes, but the night spent in the company of those she still cares for has given her renewed strength. She lifts her own hand too, looks down to her curling fingers and whom each one represented.

“Counting,” she eventually says, too sad to be timid. “Counting how the friends I have left are on one hand.”

Levi looks at her hand and counts: Sasha, Hange, Jean, Connie, and Historia. That is five; they are the amount that fits on only one hand. For some reason, he finds his usual audacity is lacking when he plans to point this out. His clenched fist loosens and drops to his side instead.

Her eyes flash when she notices. Before she can rationalize his movement or add doubt to her observation, she tells him. “The moment I swore the oath to protect her, she wasn’t Historia my friend, but Historia my Queen.”

Levi is the fifth she counts. It’s impossible to tell if his exhaled breath is in amusem*nt, appeasem*nt, or something else. Mikasa focuses on the book he’s given to her, holds it tight between both of her hands.

“I’ll talk to the Queen tomorrow.”

This time she leaves without interruption. On her walk home, she massages the spine of the book that protects the dandelions from her home, while Levi returns to his seat outside, a tight grip over the glass that hosts wine belonging to a man more like a lost father than a fallen commander.

.

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Chapter 2: Significant Number

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter Two: Significant Number

Vaulted ceilings, pine wood banisters, and natural light filtering in through the large glass windows; Levi would have admired the place, if it weren't for the film of dust on every shelf and general assault on his olfactory senses. He could appreciate lavender hung in the laundry quarters, enjoyed basil with tomato sauce, relied on peppermint for headaches; but the conglomeration of varied herbs is an indistinct aroma that turns up his nose.

"What else?" Hange asks, hands skimming over the edge of each bottle in their repertoire.

"Nothing," Levi tells them, fitting the collection of medicine and first aid supplies they’re gifting to him into the small wooden chest. Then, noting his first response was too blunt, he adds, "You've been generous enough."

Hange is too busy checking over the supplies. "Oh! How much willow bark do you have left?"

"Enough for this trip."

Hange doesn't consider his response trustworthy; they turn, pushing their glasses further up the bridge of their nose while peering into the chest.

"That's half a bottle," Hange observes.

"Like I said, enough."

But Hange is dissatisfied, plucking it from the chest. "You're traveling with Mikasa, aren't you?"

His eyes narrow to watch the scientist's hands put together a supplemental concoction of the pain reliever. Uncertain what the two have to do with each other, but he nods. "Yes."

"Then I'm sure you'll be needing more," Hange says with a laugh, gesturing to the now full bottle, one eye widened from amusem*nt. "Whether it's spontaneous or from sparring, I don't expect you'll make it out unscathed."

He lets them place the bottle back into the chest, uncertain whether Hange's prediction is based on his violent nature lurking beneath the indifferent surface, or Mikasa's volatile one that he is notorious for bringing out of her.Perhaps both,he thinks to himself, buckling the chest.

Though he does not offer a response or seek clarification, Hange doesn't appear to drop the subject. They study Levi with the smug oversight of a curious scientist, and worse, a lifelong friend.

"What, sh*tty glasses?"

"Oh, nothing," Hange says in sing-song, feigning to be aloof. "Just grateful you asked her to go with you."

"I didn't ask her."

His forceful response is observed in their laboratory as an outlier phenomena compared to the rest of his ordinarily static and composed ones. Levi knows if it weren't for the eye patch, both of their brows would be lifted and wiggling; he inwardly curses himself. Before Hange thinks it acceptable to dissect him for his words, he takes hold of the chest and makes to leave.

"Here nor there," Hange says dismissively; even without looking back, he can tell they’re attempting not to smile. "It's a good thing she's going with you, is all."

Levi reaches the door, wishes he could leave without another word the same as he would if this had been anyone else, a stranger or otherwise. But it's not, it's Hange; one of his few true friends, their previous commander. So, he looks over his shoulder, offers a lackadaisical shrug.

"Yeah," he admits. "She needs a break from the mundane."

Hange's covert smile blossoms into an ornery grin. "Well sure, but rather, I meant she's good foryou, Levi."

Levi does not give them the satisfaction of anything but a bored glance, then nods farewell. When the large door swings from his exit, there's the light clinking of bells and Hange's jovial chuckling behind him.

.

.

.

.

What she opts to leave behind feels as if it weighs more than the luggage, equipment and supplies that she brings. The awards and accolades from wartime, pointless in purpose except for their reminder of times spent alongside Eren and Armin. Her beloved, tattered scarf, retired to the safety of her trunk once it became too threadbare to risk daily wear. The jade teardrop necklace that replaced it— Levi said he'd been "forced into the purchase" by one of those "insufferable market sellers", but what little she knew of her Oriental heritage told her the gem was authentic; rare to find, costly to purchase. Her collection of hair pins Historia handmade for her each birthday she spent in service to the Queen: pearl-infused, tortoise shell, delicate white lace, and even one trimmed with gold lacquer, all of them too exquisite for a rugged trip beyond the walls.

It's the moment when Mikasa's horse trots through the gates to exit Wall Sina, the clapping of hooves against cobblestone beneath her and the joyous spirits of caravan members surrounding her, that she realizes it has not been the heat that was suffocating her.

There's a sort of thrill in escaping what has become such an emptied, thoughtless routine of her life. The enthusiasm from the others is almost contagious; she finds herself eavesdropping on their excited exchanges, occasionally smiling at their childlike wonder.

For the first time in a long time, she wonders, too.

.

.

Maybe there are some fears that cannot be beaten into submission entirely. As a child born inside the walls with the continuous threat of mass extinction, Mikasa can't help the swell of concern that erupts in her gut. An endless expanse of grasslands, unclaimed territories, and quiet settlements reaching out to the breathtaking coastline, all of it overlooking the crystalline blue sea, full of salt and mysteries. What lays ahead isn't entirely unfamiliar to her, but still, it seems larger than life, larger even than the man-made walls.

It is no less difficult to reconcile logic with instinct now than it was when the truth of the titans unveiled itself years prior. Moving beyond the walls feels rebellious and dangerous, even when reality reminds her it is perhaps safer in the open wilderness than it is in the clutches of a corruptible government or the criminal underbelly of civilization.

Riding on horseback alongside caravans of a rather diverse, wide-eyed and curious crowd, she feels the absence of gear strapped on her waist, misses the billowing of her military-issue cloak behind her, and almost itches to hold weapons with far more power than the simple knives expertly hidden on her persona. Of course the most difficult pain to swallow is riding beside strangers, instead of Armin and Eren.

Still, there is a degree of nostalgia that is more comforting than grievous; the thrill of quickening her horse to sprint, the toss of strong winds blowing her hair behind her, an elevated mood from an activity far more invigorating than routine exercises in the walls. It doesn't take long before Mikasa realizes how sorely she has missedmoving; whether it is moving in general or moving with purpose, she isn't certain.

It is also difficult to reconcile the branded visions of Humanity's Strongest in her well-cataloged war memories with the Levi she sees chaperoning the caravan now. Though he mostly attempts to keep to himself, there are many who know he is their guide and they apparently consider him approachable. It seems like there is always someone riding ahead to pose a question or asking for his assistance, keeping him busied and surrounded.

Mikasa does not present herself as approachable. Instead, she dedicates herself to holding the rear, occasionally breaking from the group's arrangement when she wants to ride alone or at her own pace. She makes herself useful, though; tearing down camp in the morning and setting it up each night is an ordeal in and of itself. She outmatches all of the men (except for Levi, naturally) when it comes to setting up tents and other temporary structures. She accepts their gratitude, but otherwise evades casual conversation and further engagement.

After the first few weeks of traveling, Mikasa surmises she's already done more than she has all year at the Queen's side.

When the sun goes down and a shared meal is passed around, she continues her new routine, to disappear from the social activities in favor of exploration or stargazing, returning to her private tent on the outskirts of the encampment once the others are asleep.

There is nothing else that can be considered routine, though. As usual, Levi had been right; depending on weather, terrain, and morale, each day requires a different strategy and there are always spontaneous adjustments. It is not comparable to wartime in the slightest, but admittedly, it keeps her on her toes in a way that tells her she had both feet flat on the ground for far too long.

You like it out here, don't you?Armin waits for her response, blue eyes sparkling, a gentle smile.

Eren, rougher but no less certain as he answers for her.Of course she does. Bet you've neglected to admit it to Captain Levi though, eh?

Mikasa has a feeling even though she hasn't told him, Levi already knows.

.

.

.

Butternut squash soup, a chunk of sourdough bread almost but not yet stale, and a handful of today's collected berries and nuts make for a surprisingly good dinner. Mikasa sits on the fringe of the crowd and finishes her meal with quick, deliberate bites, storing half the bread and nuts for breakfast tomorrow. She soon after takes her travel bag and slips out from the crowd, in search of the nearby river stream others had bathed in when camp was first settled. Though there is a distinct system in place to separate bathing from latrines, and men from women, she tracks the river's edge for several more miles, something akin to peacefulness resting inside of her on the long trek.

Her plan is to take a brief dip into the river to bathe, but the cold water is soothing, the genuine solitude and stillness a welcome reprieve. In the limited breaks of the forest canopy, Mikasa sees the stars in a vivid clarity that is not possible within the walls, where light, fire, and smoke from the cities obscure the view. She rests in the calm water and looks to the heavens above for longer than planned.

For the first time, she allows herself to admit she has been not only bored, but miserable in Mitras.What's the alternative, though?

When it becomes too daunting to think about, she permits herself to let it go. She focuses only on the soothing water running over her bare skin, listens to the chorus of nighttime creatures as though they are performing just for her.

Eventually, her pruned skin and fatigued muscles ask for relief.

There is a surreal sort of serenity that comes with being naked and alone in the wilderness. Mikasa lets herself bathe in the moonlight next, the gentle summer winds taking their time to dry her wet frame. In this moment, she would not be with Eren or Armin; their silence in her mind and absence from her presence is not discomforting. Too often, they outnumber her, their thoughts louder than her own.

Someone does come to mind, though; his warm hands confidently tracing the scars on her knuckles, the pointed glances he means to conceal what she can decipher better than most, the low, gravelly tone when they are alone and honest with another.

Mikasa stubbornly dismisses the mental imagery, explains the warm ache beneath her abdomen on aspects of nature, not a particular persona. She takes a towel out from her pack to finish drying off quickly, tugs on fresh clothing; favored black pants and an ivory camisole. Illuminated only by the crescent moon and starlight, the satin linen almost blends into her skin.

Forfeiting socks and boots, Mikasa instead props her pack against a tree trunk. She folds the towel and tosses it on top, taking a seat to rest against the pack, the towel a cushion as good as the pillow in her tent. For just a few more moments, she wants to (need to) enjoy the peace and quiet. Even when it requires pushing the thoughts of him firmly outside of her mind.

If her future feels like an impossible mathematical equation, she's not sure how he's come to be such a significant number in the calculation.

.

.

It is the snap of branches and approaching footsteps that alert her, waking Mikasa from an unplanned rest. Twilight shadows her vision but she briskly turns to the direction of an intruder, unafraid.

"Would be a real shame if the girl worth a hundred soldiers was mauled to death by a bear in her sleep."

Levi comes to a halt several steps before her, silvery light illuminating his serious features. When she stares, she tells herself it is because she is still waking up.

Mikasa considers his melodramatic sentiment. "Or eaten by a pack of wolves, I suppose."

Levi seems to muse over it. "Well, that might make for a marginally better tale."

She lets out an amused breath and straightens up, but refrains from wiping the tiredness from her eyes, lest she reveal how heavily she'd been sleeping. Even so, she feels his disappointment like heat flashed from opening an oven.

"Must have dozed off for a few moments." In no rush to leave, she doesn't reach for her socks and boots.

"Hours." Levi drops the word heavily, and with a pointed scowl he steps closer, almost towering over her. "You left the camp several hours ago."

Despite herself, she looks up at him, the dash of surprise apparent; not that she's accidentally slept for so long, but that he's been up waiting for her to return.

"I didn't mean to worry you."

Levi all but rolls his eyes. "Don't think I actually need to worry about your safety, brat."

It is probably a compliment, but she ignores it. Perhaps being half-asleep makes one as honest as being drunk; the words leave her lips before she can censor them. "Yet you waited to make sure I went back, and came all the way out here when I didn't."

This time, he tosses her an unimpressed glare. "When I fall off my horse from exhaustion tomorrow, make sure to blame yourself."

Subtly, she lifts both brows. "You're getting old if one sleepless night results in that."

He fights the quirk of his lips, she thinks, but that's all he does. Agitated, she turns to the river in front of her. It doesn't go unnoticed that he evades her question. It is more often than not he simply doesn't respond, or if he does, deflects with sarcasm.

Her words aren't loud, but they are bold. "I'm starting to wonder if I should keep count of how often you don't answer me."

"Hm." Levi turns to look at the gentle stream too, and she assumes he will be as unresponsive as all the other times.

Mikasa presses her lips together with the frustration she refuses to voice. She goes through the motions of putting on her socks and buckling her knee-high boots as though she is not unsatisfied.

Her fingers are wrapped around the last buckle when Levi takes a seat; though he hasn't moved abruptly, it startles her. She had been preparing to leave with him, but he instead plans to stay longer with her?

Levi grunts, unhappy. "We both know there are things worse than wolves that bother you."

Though his words aren't harsh (really, the opposite), it's the reality behind them that makes her stomach drop. Mikasa is glad he isn't looking towards her. An unconscious habit; she wraps her arms around her knees until she feels calm enough to respond.

"Do they bother you, too?"

Her words are so timorous she can't blame him if he doesn't respond this time around. He must have heard though; she watches his shoulders roll in a slight, unassuming shift.

"Often." As honest as only Levi can be.

Mikasa swallows hard. After a moment of deliberating, it's ultimately the exhaustion that lowers her ordinary defenses. As though she's asking about a technical malfunction with equipment, or optional maneuver in a strategic plan, she asks him, once again the protégé and her mentor.

"What do you do?" As vague as only Mikasa can be.

She wonders if he'll spit out some apathetic nonsense or tough bullsh*t, but instead he looks over to her, unafraid to respond.

"Accept it." He's flippant, but serious. "When I can't, find distractions."

Mikasa tightens her hold on her knees. "I might need to find more of those."

"Is that what this was about?" Levi lazily lifts a hand to gesture to their surroundings.

She considers this. Despite the unexpected nature of the conversation's content, she finds it isn't so difficult to discuss with him. If anything, it almost feels like a burden is lifting, to be able to speak on what is ordinarily a silent oppression over her heart.

"I'm not sure," she admits, her accompanying sigh the sound of an apology. "When I'm on guard or at home, it's like I can't help but imagine what it would be like to have Eren and Armin with me. But when I'm doing things that I know even if they were alive, they wouldn't be here for it, then I can… I can…"

Breathe.

Think.

Be.

"Just be." Levi finishes, still looking at her.

She frowns; not because he is wrong, but because he is right.

"Yeah." Only one syllable, but it is laced with self-loathing.

Mikasa stretches the toe of her boot out, knocks a loose pebble in the dirt forward. "Awful, isn't it? I'm supposed to miss them and honor their memories, and instead, I'm … relieved when I don't have to think about them."

Her frown deepens. The very nature of the dialogue disables her imagination from wondering what Armin would say, how Eren would react, but she thinks to them:You deserve better than someone like me.

"Eh," Levi is dismissive as he leans forward and grabs the pebble she's toed. "If you spend every waking moment you have grieving over them, might as well be dead with them."

Levi runs a thumb over the flat side of the pebble, then looks up to the river, scanning the distance between his seated position and the water's edge. Before skipping the small stone, he looks back over to her. Mikasa is like a stilled frame, frozen between one shot of shock and the other, a photograph of grief.

"Better you're not dead or the equivalent of the dead. Dead people can't remember their loved ones. Besides," he adds, returning his focus to the river and tossing the stone. Both of them watch the soft ripples as it skips across, interrupting the calm surface. "You'll never stop missing them; but maybe the less you think of them, the more you can honor them."

There's such sincerity in his somber words that her instinctual response to argue with him fades as soon as it surfaces. This isn't some random man, a clueless civilian; it's Levi.

Levi, who hates the "f*cking vinegar" taste of red wine, but regularly consumes what Erwin left behind.

Levi, who shrugged when she thanked him for the jade necklace, but always lets his gaze linger for several seconds too long when he catches her gratefully holding the smooth gem in absence of familiar fabric.

Levi, who took hold of her shaking, sobbing frame, pulling her back from depths no one else could climb down to in the days after Eren had passed.

Since it is Levi saying these words, she doesn't rebuke them. She almost even considers accepting them. Instead, she studies him. "Do you think of Erwin less?"

He rolls his shoulders again and she watches him busily scan the dirt, discontent. Mikasa looks to her left, sees a flat-sided stone, and collects it for him. Levi doesn't take it at once, but looks at the rock in her opened palm.

"I still think of him as often, but once I do, I don't think of him for as long."

Mikasa's hand wavers. "Do you hear him? What he would say, if he were still here."

Levi tilts his head. The manner in which he studies her is so determined she almost shies away from him; but the pebble is still in her hand, waiting to be taken. She bites her lip, wishes for the red scarf or the jade pendant, or at least half the determination she had when she'd made the decision not to need them anymore.

"Yeah," he answers, taking the pebble. There is a curtain of dark hair falling over his eyes when he shakes his head. "Who do you think was worried about yourpotential?"

This time, it is him who says it like it's a curse.

She blinks. It takes a moment for her to realize the meaning behind his words. It is not just an admission that he only challenged her because he thought Erwin would have wanted him to, but that he's sharing this now, a sort of apology for what he'd said to her the last time.

"You're not worrying about my potential, then." She says it flatly, but it is a question; an invitation for him to add clarity.

"No," he says evenly, tossing the pebble across the river's surface with ease. "I don't worry about your potential, I worry about you."

The casual manner in his words doesn't make them less startling to her, and Mikasa's mouth opens, prepared to make a dismissive remark. There's nothing, though; no sharp words readied when she hasn't actually spent time to consider for herself if there are things worth worrying about or not. She closes her mouth with a soft sigh. As though respecting her privacy, Levi stares ahead and says nothing else on the subject.

Mikasa finds it difficult to even let her mind wander down this path. Like she's a child again, she finds it easier to shut down, to walk away. If she could, she'd fight it off, distract herself with fractured ribs or sprained ankles. Dip her chin beneath the worn scarf, clutch onto smooth jade. None of these things are available to her now.

"Guess we should go back," she murmurs.

"Why?" Levi is brisk. He lifts a hand toward the towel stacked on her bag, gestures for her to hand it to him. "Apparently, this is far more comfortable."

Mikasa looks at him while several heartbeats pass, then she turns for the towel. "More peaceful, not more comfortable."

"Hn."

Levi takes the towel from her and tugs it open, spreading it evenly over the dirt with perhaps more familiarity than replacing sheets on a real bed. He rests, both arms tucked beneath his head and facing the tree's canopy, and Mikasa briefly scans the length of his resting frame before taking out another towel from her pack to do the same. She evaluates the several inches between their separate linen, a distinct and important patch of soil between them, and then rests beside him.

It's quiet, too quiet for Mikasa. She is used to their companionable silences, and has even become fond of them. This is a different sort of quiet, one in which she hears each breath, worries what every movement might betray, feels the tension between them as though there's an electric current.

"I'm fine." She says it roughly, too blunt.

It's more of an attempt to ease this foreign tension between them than an honest declaration.

"Me too." Levi doesn't hesitate, nor does he need to look over for her to recognize the words as sarcasm. "Hange says that's the problem."

She deliberates, decides to walk down the path, to figure out for herself what there is to worry about or not.

"I'm better than before." Her words are gentle, softened from the truth.

He turns toward her, taut planes of a handsome jawline, starlit gray eyes serious and probing. Eventually, he believes her. "Good."

She looks to him, less to prove that she means it, more because she's determined to prompt an authentic response from him. "Are you?"

Levi studies her, too. It's almost a full moment that passes. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

Eventually, she believes him, too.

.

.

Her breath hitches. The sound is soft, but for a sleeping Levi, it is loud as an alarm. He wakes fully at once, his eyes sharp to immediately scan their surroundings. The forestry clearing is devoid of intruders, the running river still calm in its ceaseless cascade, and the only company can be found in critters rustling through fallen leaves, birds chattering as they flit through the tree branches. Dawn's first light has woken them.

Certain there's no threat that warranted her caught breath, Levi turns to look at her. Mikasa's features are often smooth and cold as marble, as deliberate and comfortable of a facade as his own, he presumes. But in her sleep, she is more honest in her display; there's a gentle crease in her forehead, a flutter of dreams (or more likely, nightmares) behind her closed lids, and her lips parting, as if in protest. It's her hand that surprises him, though; rather, that he didn't notice whenever she first placed it over him.

He can't tell if it was meant to reassure herself or to reach toward him: it's almost desperate in grip, protectively placed on his arm with fingers stretched across the width of his bicep. He stares at her touch, acknowledges the pressure it carries, warm and strong. Then he hears her inhale again, too sharp to be natural, and his storm-gray orbs ping toward her face.

She doesn't seem disturbed, but then he notices her brows furrow, her lips pursing together; the hand on his arm tightens.A nightmare, then, it confirms.

It doesn't surprise him; he's seen half the same sights that warrant such hellish dreams. Whatever compromises the other half, he's not sure he'll ever know.

Levi takes his eyes from her, turns again to face the morning sky and fringe of lush green canopy. "Rise and shine, Ackerman."

His words wake her at once; her grip on his arm tightens as she pulls him toward her chest, almost frantic.Protective,he decides.

Levi glances from his peripheral vision. "What, Titans planning to enjoy me for a delicious breakfast?"

She's never been a morning person. There's a gradual acknowledgement as she blinks awake, staring at her firm grip and how it continues to rest on him, as though it isn't even her own hand holding him. When she finally removes it, there's a slow reluctance he determines must be from either exhaustion or embarrassment.

"Not sure you're fat enough to be considered delicious." Her tired words start as serious, but then are interrupted from a yawn. Almost sheepish, she half-covers her parting mouth with the back of her hand, a motion so uninhibited he finds himself openly staring. When she catches him watching, he's prepared with a smart remark.

"Is that a compliment?"

Mikasa's lips twist into a small, silent smile. Not responding, she turns upward, repositioning to face the sky, same as him. Nightmarish sights still blurring the edge of her vision, their morose conversation from last night resuming its residence in her mind, she stares into the morning light. Part of her wishes the sun shone brighter, its heat radiating stronger, as though maybe it would be able to burn what she feels out of her. Turn it to ash.

Levi had said there were things worse than wolves. He was right, of course. Their gnashing teeth and snarling bites don't compare to what persists in her mind.

"You know when we were younger, Eren saved my life."

Maybe it is strange to be saying these words aloud; or maybe it is stranger that something so deeply woven into her being doesn't get spoken about more often.

"Thought it was you who did all the saving," Levi quips.

She doesn't hesitate. "Not the first time."

Levi does not push for more, and she does not need, nor want his reassurance. She has already made the decision to talk about it; now, it is a monster that claws its own way out.

"My mother was targeted for her Oriental features. Their plan was to take her and – and profit from her. My father was taken by surprise, and she fought back, t-to protect me."

From her peripheral she can see his attention fully fixated on her, but she cannot will herself to turn toward him. Mikasa blinks against the strengthening light.

"They were both killed." Her words are clipped, blunted from the all the years she's spent numbing the pain associated with the memories. "They took me instead, and I let them. Not because I was young, or in shock, but because even then I already knew. I already knew—"

There's no tremor in her voice yet, but she can feel her words start to wobble. She swallows once, then twice, before finishing the sentiment.

"I already knew that I'd rather die with them than live without them."

Levi does not tell her that he'd been sick and starving at the foot of his dead mother's bed with the exact same sentiment, but when she risks a searching glance in his direction, he knows that is exactly what she finds from him. Her cool gray orbs soften from impervious rock to malleable clay, wet from withheld tears. She turns back to the sun, blames it on staring into the vibrant rays.

"We had been waiting for Dr. Jaeger when it happened. When Eren and his father arrived, the three men had taken me, but still, Eren searched for me. He was just a boy, he'd never k-killed before, but… well, you know Eren."

"Hmm." It's a murmur of appreciation for Eren, something Mikasa doesn't realize until then how glad she is to hear it. She turns to Levi, wanting to see more. Levi is quiet because he's so close, but not less certain in what she is alluding to: even as a child, Eren would have had the tenacity to kill without hesitation if it meant protecting an innocent person. "Yeah, I know Eren."

Mikasa hums too, grounded for a moment in Levi's steadfast gaze; but the violent strength of the memories yank her back into the past. This time, she doesn't turn back to the sun.

"He was able to kill two of them, but he didn't know about the third. I warned him too late, I was useless, couldn't move, and Eren was almost killed, too. T-that's when it happened."

Her quieter emphasis on 'it' tells him that she's referring to the moment her so-called potential, the Ackerman bloodline, their shared enhanced abilities, erupted to life. Levi's nod is almost indiscernible, but it tells her he understands this, too.

"Eren was screaming at me, but I couldn't move; and then, then I could. Then I couldmorethan move. After that, w-well we were inseparable. I'm not sure what Dr. Jaeger would have done with me if it'd been just him, but after he watched Eren give me his scarf, he told me I'd go home with them, be part of their family from then on."

Levi is surprisingly devoid of disdain when he mentions it. "That's the scarf."

"Yeah." This time, Mikasa almost flushes, looks at the patch of dirt between them instead of directly toward him. "I know you hated it, I know you found it gross that I didn't wash it as often as you said to, but the more I did, the faster it deteriorated."

He exhales a humorless laugh, and Mikasa's eyes lift toward him. "Well, good thing you never listened to a f*cking thing I said."

Mikasa can't help it. She smiles, not humored so much as relieved; relieved that there is one more moment in which she knows she has his understanding. It's more than bloodlust and lethal skills that have brought them together, to moments like these, conversations like this. Though it would be appropriate to apologize for her insubordination, both of them know it wouldn't be sincere.

Levi acknowledges her amusem*nt with a quiettch.

Mikasa's smile thins to a straight line of determination, the horrid monster erupting from its last barrier of imprisonment, breaking free.

"When Eren was alive, I had a family, I had a purpose to protect him, … a debt that I owed him. That would have been enough for me. That could have been enough."

Levi is too astute. Her upcoming confession is already apparent to him, his mouth settling into a hard line.

"Now he's not here. I couldn't protect him, I couldn't save him." Mikasa grits her teeth, returns her vision to the dirt, stares at it hard. "Eren was the only reason I had to live after my family was killed. Since he's gone, sometimes it feels like I might as well have died with them."

At her side, she can feel more than see the pressure of Levi's unblinking stare. Already the inside of her feels a weight lifted; the dismissal of the monster, the darkest thoughts brought out to be burned by the light. But she is tepid when she looks for his response, wonders if he'll find her stupid or selfish.

There's not a single sign her words have bothered or alarmed him. Free from fear of his judgment, Mikasa almost sighs.

Still, there's something unfamiliar in Levi's settled tone. "What would Eren say?"

Mikasa blinks; when her lids open, heavier tears appear, threatening to spill over. "I don't know. By the end, I don't think we understood each other anymore."

I don't think he'd understand me now, is what goes unsaid.

Levi pauses for half a moment. "What did he say back then?"

Mikasa stares. "When?"

"You said Eren was screaming at you. When you were able to move, it wasn't just because you're an Ackerman. It was because of what Eren said."

She pauses, but he can tell it's not because she doesn't remember. Mikasa sighs aloud, though her words are resolute, garnering strength from their original orator.

"To fight. He said, 'If you win, you live. If you lose, you die. If you don't fight, you can't win.'"

Levi looks at her, remembering Eren vividly through her words. "The world was much simpler in Eren's eyes."

One tear slips when Mikasa begins to nod. She abruptly stops and takes a breath instead; regardless, another tear falls downward. Embarrassed, or perhaps frustrated (probably both, she acknowledges warily), she takes another sharp inhale, plans to pull herself up and off the ground.

But Levi turns first, not intimidated at her admission or the accompanying tears; instead of flat on his back with his neck slanted toward her, he turns onto his side, an elbow propped so he can openly look down at her. He doesn't have to say anything; the willingness to hear and see this part of her without admonishment or judgment is comfort enough. Mikasa finds her shoulders relaxing into the comfort of soil beneath them.

One more tear slips down, feeble in its attempt to slide past the bridge of her nose, the last of the sorrow in her soul. Levi watches it intently; the last time he'd seen her cry, he distracted himself with her scars on her hands instead of the droplets in her eyes. This time, he does what he should have done (wanted to do) last time.

Levi sweeps the back of his pointer finger along the soft skin at the corner above her mouth, collecting the tear before she'll taste its salt. He holds his hand in place, the tear trapped between his touch against her cheek.

Mikasa reaches for his wrist; he prepares to be knocked off, but instead she latches onto him, her calloused fingers resting on the vulnerable skin of his inner wrist.

She asks him (not the protégé to the mentor, but something else, something else he doesn't know the name for), her words level, eyes searching. "What would you say?"

Almost scoffs. "You care what I think, br—"

"Yes." Slight annoyance at the 'brat' remark, but then she softens. This time, unafraid to admit it. "You know I do."

Levi has plenty of strength, but his hand is tired of holding itself in the precarious position of trapping the tear without cradling her face. His restraint weakens; the rest of his fingers go slack against her soft skin. That's all he plans to permit for himself, until his thumb snaps forward, taking the tear and brushing it off her cheek entirely.

It's a methodical movement. It was a practical plan. Levi doesn't believe this, but he knows it's what she'll tell herself.

Certain that if he doesn't answer her, she'll drown him in the river (or worse, never speak to him again), he decides to respond, direct and honest.

"You're not alone, Mikasa."

Mikasa's grip on his wrist falters, the only sign she's even heard his words; but just as soon, she tightens her hold, leaving him to wonder once again if it is to reassure herself or protect him.

It's not him he's worried about, though. Narrowing his gaze, he leans forward, ensuring he has her full attention. Levi sees her eyes widen, how she darts her vision to his lips, bites down on her own.

But her safety comes first, his selfishness last. "And don't ever f*cking think about leaving me alone, either."

It's not a threat. It's not a command.

It's both.

Mikasa is so close she can feel his warm breath mingling with her own.

"That an order, Captain?" Her words are a whisper, mere syllables spoken through breath.

He's just as quiet in his response. "Not your captain anymore, brat."

Never has she heard the insulting moniker said with such affection.

What are you then?Her eyes seem to say. (No, that's not the right question, not really.)What are we, then?

Before she'll blush, before he can see the inevitable pink tingeing the height of her cheekbones, she pulls herself over to the sun, now glaring and bright. His hand falls away; the touch against her skin is still so hot she can feel it imprinted onto her. Its absence is one she immediately regrets leaving behind.

For a moment it is silent between them. There is something deep inside of her, a swirl of anxiety, curiosity burrowed into her gut (no, her soul), but she forces it back down. Thinking of his recommendations mentioned last night, she recalls one of his suggestions.

"Acceptance, huh?"

"Acceptance." Levi sits up, begins the process of shaking dirt out from the linen and folding it up into a neat square. She follows suit. When they are both finished and the two towels are tucked back into her bag, she looks over to him.

"And distractions," he adds. "Come on, I have an idea."

.

.

As though her lungs are on fire, she falls to her knees with quickened breaths, an ancient ritual to suck in cool air. Cords of muscle are wound together and strained so tight it hurts even to press against the grass as she kneels. Mikasa shamelessly slumps to the ground, ragged breaths and sharp movements as she turns to rest on her back. Like her heart is pounding to get out, her chest heaves, breasts rising and falling beneath her silk top.

She wonders if one of her ribs is cracked, if she's strained her left wrist, if there's already a dark purple blotch of a nasty bruise on her lower back. Even as she targets these specific injuries, the rest of her limbs ache too, her entire frame riddled with pain. Yet, it feels so wondrously good. (No, more than that; it feels so precisely right.I was born for this.)

No longer soaring through the air or slamming into him, still the adrenaline courses through her system. The flood of hormones from the sparring stream through her like a tidal wave of infinite energy; though it can't be called happiness, the exhilaration is almost enough to convince her it might be.

Levi is no less ragged in breaths, and she's sure almost as injured, but he's kept himself standing and stretching for longer. He stumbles gracefully to kneel beside her, and she is both envious and amazed (though not surprised); if anyone could be fluid in weakness, it is him. He shudders at her side, the exhaustion betraying his hardened features when he looks over to her.

She's not sure why, but she smiles. Then, warmed up from this preamble, she laughs. It's short-lived; there's not enough air in her lungs to sustain it, and it hurts far too much, anyway. But her mirth lingers brazenly even as Levi keeps his steadied gaze on her, perhaps wondering if she's gone mad.

"Thank you," she manages to say aloud, one hand dropping over her heaving chest, the other falling to her side, almost but not quite touching his knee.

When Levi offers no quick remark, she turns to him fully, cheeks falling on thin blades of uncut grass and rich, warm dirt in the meadow. He's too worn down to wear the mask she has come to know as his ordinary face. Mikasa watches with the clarity of primal instinct still commanding her body; she sees himlookat her, like he's gulping down for a breath of air. His eyes rake over her frame, their focus moving from the length of her legs, to the beads of sweat centered between her breasts, landing on the curve of her upturned lips. She sees how he pauses at the sight of her smile, first surprised and thenwanting. As soon as she notices it, he turns from her.

This close, this familiar with him, she notes the tight clamping of his jaw, a deliberate act of restraint so unproductive to the way his own lungs must be begging for fresh air. He no longer looks at her, but looks at the ground beneath him, as though it were just as serious a threat as she'd been a moment before.

It is the first time she cannot filter this on how she'd perceive it if another man had done it. Because this is not another man; this is Levi, and only Levi would do that. Perhaps to feign indifference, he loosens himself until he also shifts to the ground. A sharp inhale when he turns onto his back tells her the blow she'd landed on his abdomen has awarded the pain his blows have gifted to her.

Like a veil has been lifted, she understands what it is that she has not been able to name between them. Though she was always intelligent, one of the sharpest in the class, her social cues weren't as adept as others.

This is a simple mechanism that can be blamed on biology, the laws of attraction no different than the reliable laws of gravity that have carried her soaring body so predictably on ODM gear. Levi is stoic, but still, a hot-blooded man with as much testosterone as the rest of them. And her; well, Mikasa knows she is attractive the same as she knows she is strong, one fact no more and no less interesting than the other. Toned muscles on a curved, lithe frame, pert if not large breasts, a beautiful face, not just because most find it exotic.

It must be physical attraction. And if that's all it is, Mikasa knows there's a solution for that.

There is no wine, no sleep deprivation, and no sanity when she speaks. "Maybe we just need to get it out of our system."

"We just did," Levi says, misunderstanding her intent.

"I'm not talking about fighting."

He doesn't look at her, which tells her more than if he had. It's too late to turn back now, so Mikasa stares at him; this isn't hand-to-hand combat, but a different sort of battle that holds the same challenge. In the following seconds that he does not respond, she wonders if she has outmatched him. But then he turns; his sore frame surprisingly agile, as if she hasn't just brutalized him. He meets her gaze, unflinching.

"You're talking about f*cking."

A different sort of thrill shoots through her, calling every nerve within her to full attention. Though a part of her assumed he would not take the bait, leaving her unprepared for his blunt words and unapologetic stare, the rest of her remains on fire, anticipation immediately numbing most of the pain.

"Yes." He's not blinked once while looking at her, so she continues. "But I'm not sure you'd be able to f*ck me outside in the dirt."

A muscle in his cheek jumps and shealmostthinks she's won; her first victory round after years of defeat in their verbal warfare.

Prideful now, she continues. "Not clean enough for you, right?"

He's even faster than before; her caustic words are lost when he steals her nearest wrist, dragging her toward him at the same time he pulls himself upward. Levi is effective more than sensual in the manner he uses both of his knees to pin her down. Mikasa's free hand is fast as lighting to strike his throat, but he anticipates the move and cages her. Both of her wrists now caught in each of his hands as he slams them to the ground above her head.

Mikasa tries to free her wrists, but her dominant one is strained and though she might be as strong, his dominant one holds her uninjured one with more force than she can muster. At the same time, she tries to lift her hips to break her legs free, but he pushes down harder, the stronger one again. Defeated, Mikasa presses her lips together and finally looks up at him.

Belatedly, she realizes he is already studying her face, waiting for her to look at him so he can respond. (Oh,nowhe has something to say?)

"You think I won't f*ck you right here?" A dark timbre in his tone that matches the intensity in his gaze.

Mikasa pauses for a split second. Like a top that spins wildly, she is keenly aware that the power to halt it or spin it again is a decision that will be made by her own hands.

Then, because the momentum is pulling her so hard she is unwilling to fight against it, she raises her hips. With a delicacy rarely seen in her power, she aligns herself into him. He ishard; though she planned to make an equivocal statement of audacity, anticipation blooms from the weight of him between her thighs. Her response is almost breathless.

"I think you want to."

Though she doesn't again challenge him, she twists her wrists to reach for clumps of dirt, her fingers filtering through the soil. It speaks for itself.I think you want to,but will you?

It surprises her again, his undertone of amusem*nt instead of scorn; he tightens his grip on her wrists, dirt tainting his own hands, an unspoken admission.

At this, Mikasa doesn't have time to be surprised.

Levi is swift, dipping into the curve of her neck, his chin sinking onto her shoulder. It sounds like the start of a dry laugh, but its cut too short. Still, Mikasa feels the exhale from his lips so close against vulnerable skin, another jolt shooting through her.

He lowers his waist onto her, pinning her lifted frame fully to the ground. She can't tell if his quiet words are meant to taunt or tempt. "And what do you want, Mikasa?"

Mikasa loosens. Tough as he sounds, strong as he holds her, she doesn't miss this confirmation for consent. It sparks a different sort of warm within her, one she attempts to ignore.

"I told you," she says briskly, leveraging her legs to push into his hard member again. "Let's just get it over with."

.

.

It's as wild and consuming as their sparring, almost as violent. Collaborative movements to swiftly remove clothes, each tug and pull of fabric as harsh as it is effective. An unspoken agreement that this isjust physicalbutnot intimatekeeps Mikasa's neck craned and Levi's bruising lips focused from beneath her ear to the dip in her collarbone.

Every one of his open-mouthed kisses is like a summoning, arching her closer to him. She's not sure who holds who tighter, both of them uncaring about their recent injuries, strength unleashed again.

The rest is a blur. It initially took years for Mikasa to strengthen, train and excel enough to feel on par with Levi when it involved slaying titans, but she finds herself once again clamoring to keep up. The grazing of his rough hands against the uncovered parts of her bare skin is unlike anything she's felt before (well, she's never felt Levi like this before). He's firm as he explores the span of her supple curves, deft fingers lingering on the sensitive spaces that make her breath halt.

She cards one hand into his hair, her other hand taking on a mind of its own to bravely explore him, too.

.

.

Mikasa thought she'd done this before; propositioning a man who seemed capable enough to help her scratch an itch she couldn't reach. None of them compare, all of them are forgotten with Levi's overwhelming force. He's too deliberate, each touch (f*ck, the flicker of his tongue) alternating from gentle to rough, confusing her on which she prefers more. While the electric tension causes friction and heat, Levi does not rush.

No, heknowswhat to do, where to angle his touch, how to caress with his tongue — and it drives her absolutely mad.

Especially when he isn't even f*cking her yet.

.

.

She's too stubborn to let half the exclamations she feels bubbling in her throat actually escape, but he makes it impossible.

First, an incoherent string of expletives.

Then, grinding out from her clenched teeth, unable to hold it any longer. "P-please."

Mikasa shifts to the side; it pulls his dexterous fingers from their expert work inside of her, but she aligns their hips together. She can feel his hardness so achingly close to her slit; she's dripping wet, more than ready to take him in.

Still, he doesn't oblige. His words are dark, taunting like she's never heard him before, his palm returning to her swollen cl*t. "Not until you come."

Mikasa's eyes open with a flash. It is the same as (it is nothing like) her younger years: the need to buck at his authority, simply because she can, always with the knowledge that (for some reason) he lets her. Her next move is more instinctual than calculated, giving him no opportunity to counter her; she takes a rough hold of him and flips them, ramming Levi hard into the ground and straddling across him.

"No. I'll come when you f*ck me."

Levi looks at her with something of a scowl, but it is far from genuine and she can see his thoughts as transparently as if they are inscribed to his forehead.Mikasa Ackermanwouldinsist to come on her own terms.

Despite herself, her lips almost shift into a smile. She sees Levi's storming-gray orbs narrow onto what she thought was an indiscernible micro-movement. Before she can wonder why, why this and why now, he grabs both of her thighs and pulls himself upward and into her. He's so fluid it actually catches her by surprise, an uninhibited moan at last released—Oh, Holy Walls,he's finally, finally inside of her.

.

.

Mikasa makes an effort to avoid his heated gaze, doesn't allow her lips to be found anywhere near his own; but in the existential seconds between each of his thrusts, when she's grinding into him with equal authority, she comes alive within (because of) their connection.

Somehow, she's not surprised that Levi Ackerman doesn't feel like a stranger.

(Somehow, being with Levi isn't strange.)

.

.

Late morning sunlight bears down on them in their seclusion of tall grass, surrounded by dandelion weeds and lilac flowers decorating the meadow. She immediately slithers back into her underwear, exhausted. Levi quietly finishes buckling his pants, dark hair mussed at the edges of his vision, a sheen of sweat lingering on every inch of his skin. He's more winded than he cares to admit, and it's not from the strenuous activity (though, he's keenly aware he's never f*cked a woman as fierce or powerful before) – no, it's because of the unexpected partnering.

Is this unexpected?Levi looks down at her, taken aback once again at the sight.

She's stunning; not a hardened soldier from wartime but a half-barewoman, her features softened from pleasure, lavender-dusted gray orbs almost dazed in confusion, her lips still parted in the aftermath of an org*sm. It's fascinated him to see her strength as she soars through the air in pursuit of titans, but this mesmerizes him, too.

It's not planned on his part; from temptation far greater than earlier, he is drawn toward her again. Levi takes hold of her face to gather her attention; it's just enough time for her to respond.

His lips meet hers with a brazen confidence; not the timid attempts ordinary to a first time, but with an immediate expectation of mutual engagement. Mikasa finds herself stunned for a full second, but immersed in the ongoing radiation of explosive pleasure, her lips betray the shock of her mind, desperate to meet with him.

An overdue kiss, pent up passion finally released.

Levi's mouth slants over hers, a guide for her to follow; he seems to know the perfect pace that allows her languid responses to awaken from this different (somehow, more sensual) connection. Soon, it's a competition— who can deepen their kiss further, who can kiss the other for longer. When Levi's tongue slides over her bottom lip, it is not a demand but an earnest exploration; still, Mikasa's lips part easily, inviting him.

She finds herself willing to let him lead, her tongue dancing after him, blissful and eager. Needing to stabilize herself, both her hands reach for his chest, tethering herself to him.

How markedly different the intimacy of this moment feels compared to the wild vigor from before is a thought that flits through her mind briefly, but she is distracted at Levi's careful touch with the back of his fingers grazing her bare stomach. He lingers over the edge of the fabric she just slipped back on; she leans back half an inch, unwilling to separate further.

"I already came." A whisper, a weak protest.

Levi halts his touch but doesn't remove it, resuming their kiss as if it hadn't been interrupted. Their mutual release from a few moments before isn't forgotten, but it pales in comparison to the boiling heat, this frenetic energy now that they've given in, now that they kiss.

Even in such a sensitive place, his hand starts to feel as though it's in an ordinary placement– an exhilarating contradiction. Mikasa wishes she hadn't interrupted him. Her subtle but deliberate shift of her hips drags his knuckles south, their gentle pressure enticing her further; it's an inaudible moan in their next kiss, but he feels it.

In response, he turns his fingers over; now they're intentional, drawing a circular pattern atop her, making her frustrated at the fabric's interference.

In Levi's next kiss he takes hold of her bottom lip, firm but tender when he tugs, and Mikasa's last ounce of self-control is absolved.

"Oh, please," she manages with a breath before tugging at his own bottom lip, pulling into him.

Levi doesn't hesitate; he slips beneath the fabric, leading with fingers that only ruminate over her wetness. Mikasa's hold on him tightens, one hand wrapped around his arm, the other above his waist. She clamps her jaw down, cheek resting against his own; she's stubborn, unwilling to beg twice.

When Levi at last presses in, two fingers deep and probing, she struggles to withhold tremors from her lips. Pride dissolves; she immediately searches for him, drawn at once into kissing him again. Shockwaves from her last org*sm haven't settled (a fact of which his capable hand seems to be fully aware of, Mikasa gasps). His thumb is an authoritative leader, finding the bundle of nerves with expert patterns that weaken her resolve to remain silent.

Mikasa shudders, her lips falling from his by accident; he finds the corner of her mouth for one last kiss.

Distracted from the overwhelming pleasure, she doesn't notice he's lifted not only his head, but his entire frame, too. Levi's electric touch withdraws from inside her; he's repositioning himself, lifting her left leg, bending it at the knee. Her eyes flutter open, lids lifting just in time to see him dip into the soft skin underneath her knee. She sees and feels him, an open-mouthed kiss so light that it disarms her.

Levi can feel when the taut muscles in her legs loosen, trusting him; he tightens his hold over the base of her thigh, pulling her further into him. Her excited hiss elicits his primal need formore; seeking further affirmation, he takes his time to settle the weight of her leg onto the base of his neck, mouth not once lifting from the bare skin of her inner thigh. With his free hand, he finds the center of her; she's soaking wet. Enjoying the proof of his handwork, he runs the pad of his thumb over the wet fabric, tempting her again with the vast distance between 'above' and 'beneath.'

As he continues his descent down her inner thigh, his kissing more firm, morehungry, his other hand transitions to her waist. Like scouts sent ahead, he curls two fingers on the waistband, prepared to be ordered to remove the undergarment. With his mouth, he claims the sensitive corner between her thigh and soaked garment, the last of her defenses. His tongue is almost bruising, a warning of what's to come if she'll let him in.

Mikasa's flooded with a high more intoxicating than soaring and slaying titans; even lying down, she needs to hold on, and her fingers find the strands of hair above his undercut, clasping them tightly.

When she speaks, it is not a plea, but a demand. "Levi."

Like a puppet pulled by the master's strings, his cool gray (no, now they're frenzied) eyes find hers at once, the pressure of his lips lifting off her skin. His clutch on her waistline is rough and expedient to tug the fabric; Mikasa clumsily lifts her hips to assist in the removal, but Levi is tactical enough to compensate. Unwilling to separate from her, he waits until the garment reaches the cords of muscle on her mid-thigh and rips the material off in one, strong pull.

Mikasa finds that she is not grieved by the ruined clothing; instead, she watches him discard the fabric, the sight of it an exhilaration. It's evidence he wants to reach her as much as she wants him to reachher. Whatever tepidness she still holds abruptly dissipates.

Levi tilts his head, the bridge of his nose preceding the touch of his lips as he at last meets her slick folds; warm, wet tongue on wet, intimate skin. Reminiscing on her earlier words ("Let's just get it over with",crisp and unaffected),he finds himself dedicated to patience, determined to make her affected. His tongue is teasing; deliberate in the manner he glides it first on the left of her outer lips, again on the right, not yet greeting the center of her sex.

He doesn't think she means it when she pulls his hair hard enough it's actually painful, but it is the opposite of unpleasant. Levi glides his tongue inside of her, the taste of her as tantalizing as her moans; he needs more of her, more of what (everything) she has to offer him.

Most of Mikasa's earlier moans were bitten down, self-prohibited from being released; now, he coaxes them fully out of her. His gentle teasing is gone, his tongue powerful in its directed purposes instead. She drives her thighs upward to bring him closer; he wraps a hard grip around them, pulling her into him, needing every inch of her. Neither of them is concerned with the fingerprint bruises sure to be found by tomorrow.

Too much,Mikasa thinks wildly,too close.She moves to grab him, can't reach him.

"C-come here," she begs, fists grappling to clutch onto something sturdier than his thin hair or the loose dirt. "I- I need to hold you."

It's difficult for him to pull back, but he listens at once, drawn like a magnet due to the transparency in her words, aware it's rare for her to speak them. Levi lifts his frame again, her thigh draped over him falling off and down his side; he moves toward her torso, his hand swift to replace where his tongue had been, what it'd been doing.

He understands what she needs when she lifts herself upward, both arms wrapping around his neck, the weakest he's ever seen her; trembling, she anchors onto him.

She wouldn't have asked if she wasn'tcloseand Levi pulls into her, feels her chin firmly rest into the crook of his neck; her breath hot and fevered, her moans a genuine melody sung (to him, for him). With several adroit fingers, Levi finds the right rhythm, learns the proper pressure meant for her, the pad of his thumb a sensational scandal atop her cl*t. Inside of her, he can feel her inner walls tighten and contract, the potential of her upcoming org*sm no less of a high for him, too.

"Hold on tighter," he tells her, not because he needs her to, but because he realizes she does.

Mikasa almost whines from relief; with permission to release the strength she's so used to withholding, she tightens onto him, pulling herself up and into him with a painful vigor. Levi almost cringes at her bruising strength on his recent injuries, but instead, he searches for her lips.

She's too close to climax to be graceful but it's utterly satisfying to him; he leads their kiss amidst her simpering, feeling her come from his touch, proof of her torrential pleasure in the twisting of her lips.

"O-oh," she cries, pulling him closer.

Levi finds her bottom lip and holds it for an overdrawn, endless kiss, focused intently on her ascension through climax; then, still as intent, watching her descend, letting her soak in the bliss without further distractions.

Both of them are out of breath against each other's lips, chests heaving and hearts racing.

After another moment of regulation, Mikasa looks to him, starry-eyed and weakened from explicit pleasure. Levi moves to kiss her again; lips already parted, Mikasa is ready for him this time, no lesswantingof this than when she'd been led to beg before.

This kissing is still competitive, but there's a new familiarity, a different objective now; it is a slow, steady pursuit of the other, the final seal of a newly formed intimacy. Belatedly, Levi withdraws his hold from inside of her, instead resting wet fingers between her thighs.

When neither of them can breathe, they're reluctant but required to pull back from one another.

Possessed with an instinct he doesn't realize he has, doesn't know how to name, Levi brushes back loose strands of her tangled hair, tucks them behind the shell of her ear. Now visible, her bare skin glimmering with sweat, he leans into the crook of Mikasa's neck; his deliberate kiss is like one, final statement— gentle, without expectations.

Mikasa looks to him unabashedly, as if for a moment forgetting that he can see her while she looks at him, evaluating him. Levi is not sure what she's looking for, but he can see what she finds.

If he blinked, he would have missed it: a subtle widening of her eyes, the tensing of her jaw, a thought that flashes through her mind so severely it snaps her back to reality. Then, she turns, unreadable features set like marbled stone.

Levi leans back, doesn't (allow himself to) frown. It's been a long time since he's seen anything remotely close to fear within Mikasa Ackerman, but he sees it now.

.

.

.

Chapter 3: Ordinary Route

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter 3: Ordinary Route

It's never dawn that wakes her, but the exposition of a nightmare. Dislocated jaws of open-mouthed titans, the decisivechompwhen their teeth snap bone, shrill cries of soldiers unexpectedly snatched from the sky – death is only loud when it comes as a surprise. Those who have time to see their end as it happens aren't ordinarily able to vocalize a protest.

Mikasa's subconscious is honest, thus selfish. Imagery from battle sequences shifts between unbridled terror to the sweetness of nostalgia, even when the gore spills from bodies with familiar faces. It isn't their whimpers that inject panic into her veins, but the quieter moments of betrayal that have nothing to do with beasts or monsters.

It's alright, Mikasa.Weak for a promise, he hides his disappointment behind overgrown blonde layers.I wouldn't have chosen me for the serum either.

Leave me alone.Viridian eyes darkened by distrust.For once, will you just leave me the f*ck alone?

An echo of Eren's snarl is what wakes her, adrenaline crashing through her system.

Their time spent together in the past and the eruption of a dreamworld in the years since have blurred together. Wounds from the truth merge with the self-inflicted torture of her fictions. It doesn't matter if the words were spoken by the Living or the Ghosts; neither one is less real than the other.

Reluctantly, Mikasa lets her lids flutter open.

In the privacy of her tent, she settles her sore shoulders deeper into the strange comfort of the dismal cot. What must be the bright announcement of a new day outside only filters into her makeshift room with subtle hues. It makes the abrupt transition to the waking world more tolerable, though her aching frame, strained wrist and tender core are too surreal to be classified as reality. Mikasa does the only thing she knows to do for certain; she takes stock of yesterday's injuries.

Lifting her hands to study them at a closer purview, she's calculative. Split knuckles over swollen joints. The one wrist inflamed. Scars so familiar it's easier to believe she was born with them. Hands that never had a chance to be delicate. Admires them for what they're capable of; scolds them for what they've done.

Her overworked muscles beg to be stretched, but there's something about getting out of bed that would signify the start to a day she isn't ready to face. Instead, she arches her back and lifts her legs upward, toes pointed to the linen ceiling. For a brief sliver of time, she can convince herself this is the porcelain skin and sculpted figure of a dancer, not a half-retired soldier.

Half-retired. What the Military Police remark in snide comments, noses pinched and lips pressed with condescension. It's meant to be an insult; she's not committed enough, too weak-willed, doesn't deserve special treatment. Shouldn't be the one trusted to protect the Queen. These are the whispers said too loud for her to believe it's an accident she's heard them.

Their resentment can be chalked up to lingering disdain for the disbanded Survey Corps and her refusal to be branded with af*cking unicorn patch despite her responsibilities aligning with their brigade's purposes. Still, there's something about the sentiment that sits with her, the clanging of bells in the depth of her mind sounding off that something in it rings true.

Half-retired.

Half in, half out.

Half steeped in the past, half poised for the future.

The former, a wound so painful it isn't worth pressing further into; the latter, as unknown as what exists across the ocean. Enthralling perhaps, but mostly terrifying. She's heard some of the more ambitious caravan members discuss wooden vessels called ships, capable of floating on the salted sea and steering past the cresting waves. The endless possibilities for those bold enough to sail into the unknown, but also the reminder that it is more likely to result in a so-called shipwreck.

Mikasa finds she is unconvinced by the high-pitched tones of dreamers, instead aligning with the calm rhythm used by placating realists. On a few occasions she's looked across the campfire's crackling logs and rising smoke to evaluate Levi's position on the matter, but if he has an opinion, it's hidden by shadows and apathy. One time, she noticed the sudden pause of his spoon as it hovered over his soup, the subtle widening of his gaze so discreet she would have missed it if she hadn't been loo–

She halts these thoughts on Levi (worse, on Levi's future) at once. Mikasa leans forward to stretch the tips of her fingers to meet with the lifted height of her pointed toes. No more an active soldier than she is a performing ballerina, Mikasa dwells on her half-retired status ("a decorative statue, at worst").

Despite the steadfast kindness and familiar warmth of Historia's presence, thinking of her post as the Queen's personal guard causes Mikasa to frown. The more time she's spent exploring beyond the Walls, the more difficult it is to consider returning to a stand-still in the cities behind them.

For the hundredth time since traveling with the caravan, she wonders what else she could do (wants to do) instead. It wasn't an exaggeration when she'd told Levi she can't think further ahead than one day, though since then, she's made unprecedented attempts to try.

Levi. While she kept her distance from him for the rest of yesterday's events (even skipped dinner and retired early, as her grumbling stomach reminds her), and though she continuously intercepts any thoughts about him now, she keeps circling back to him.

Like an idiotic moth fluttering into lantern's light, she gives into the chase of brighter, fiery thoughts.

She propositioned Levi. She had sex withLevi.

Levi had kissed her. Levi hadmore thankissed her.

Mikasa looks to the wine-shaded bruises he's left on her skin; briefly remembers the fist-sized ones delivered from blows in combat, then ruminates for longer on those given during the intimate moments thereafter.

Soft thumb imprints decorate the inside of her arms.Him above her, ink-blank hair swaying as he holds her forearms tight to thrust deeper, bottoming out.

An impressive set of vivid fingerprints on the outside of each thigh, indisputable evidence that her taunt – "No. I'll come when you f*ck me."– provided the final temptation he could no longer resist.The taunt (no, the quirk of her smiling lips) before he dug his fingers in strong enough to lift himself, hard as iron when he finally filled her.

At the apex of her thigh, a singular mark that can't be confused for anything other than–Levi's tongue branding her at the edge of skin and black cotton, a kiss so forceful her legs quiver as they open wider for him– a love bite.

There are the marks that can't be seen, too. Mikasa finishes tracing over the splotched bruises to traverse the softer expanse of her inner thigh. Unable to determinewhich lips he'd claimed can be faulted for the current coils of heat beneath her abdomen, she graces between her slit (wet, already?) and lets her other hand drift upward to her parting mouth.

She skims two fingers over her bottom lip, feels it as though it's still swollen – remembers the taste ofherself when Levi's mouth slanted over hers again. That had been a moment more startling than penetration; up until then, she could have later convinced herself it had all been an out-of-body experience or lustful dream (because this was Levi, ithad to be a dream). But the tantalizing taste of herself when he kissed her afterwards was a shock of proof.

After spending the entire day prior avoiding all of these intrusive thoughts, letting them come forward now is like a surging tidal wave. In this private moment, the hand between her thighs mirroring movements of her reminiscent thoughts; how he moved, how he felt - it's less terror, more enthrallment.

.

.

"C-come here. I- I need to hold you."

Mikasa pulls herself up onto her elbows with a violent start. Fear rips through her, slamming thoughts of their intimacy behind steel-bolted vaults at once. Worse than anything she allowed Levi to do to her (with her) is what she wanted him (even asked him) to do.

If there is one thing left in this world that Mikasa knows for sure (even without Armin's intellect or Eren's moral compass), it is that she does not deserve to be so blissful as to leave behind the pain of the past.

Half in, half out. Mikasa stubbornly decides to shelve that inner debate as she swings both legs over the cot in search of study ground. After all, the MP's in a post-titan world are as full of sh*t as the ones from her adolescence.

Unwilling to wait for the heat to subside, refusing to finish what she started, she tugs on fresh clothing and haphazardly buttons her top (misses a button, has to redo all of them). Once she unties the flap to her tent's entrance and steps outside, she's immediately overtaken by the vibrant colors, woodland scents of damp moss and pine, and cordial commotion of the caravan's breakfast plans.

Mikasa's last honest thought is to wonder if long before she knew of the sea, she's been afraid of shipwrecks. Then she gets to work.

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.

.

Two weeks pass. It's easier to ignore him than the memories("Not until you come.")but Mikasa considers herself successful enough. Warring the titans taught her (or did he?) to take your victories where you can get them. She takes longer than necessary on ordinary tasks, volunteers to go ahead or stay behind after determining his own route, disappears from camp after hours, and even befriends a few other young women, leveraging their company to ensure she's isn't found approachable.

It's impossible to tell if she's been clever or if he's been disinterested; she's unwilling to explore the unease that comes from fearing it is the latter.

In the moments when their mutual presence is required, she is the practiced statue of the Queen's guard that Levi (no, Commander Erwin) disparaged her for being; reticent and unaffected. And he is no different than before; provides instruction to her when necessary, only turns toward her when clarifying what she's to do. It's in these limited interactions that she doesn't fault herself for the self-modified behavior. She has to make an effort to avoid blushing or to remain nonchalant, but Levi is utterly equanimous.

It isn't shame, or embarrassment, but something similar; something that make her hot, uncomfortable and desperate to be out of his aloof presence. When she is near him, hearing the taciturn commands, unable to see even a hint of him remembering their recent affairs, it forces her to think of him more (bare-skinned and bruising, "Hold on tighter.")

Mikasa plays the tape over and over in her mind, always debating what his motives had been; each time the reel runs anew, she finds no further clarity. Without being able to pinpoint it, the frustration within brews.

On this matter, she hasn't a clue what Armin or Eren would say. It doesn't even cross her mind to wonder as she knows it would not be a matter she'd discuss with either of them.

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Her name is Sari. She has hazel eyes, apple-round cheeks, and hosts more freckles across her face now than when their caravan first departed, the sun bringing them out the same way it has lightened her honey blonde hair. Despite being only twenty-four, she is what Armin would call an "old soul", reserved and thoughtful. Though Mikasa had originally, and awkwardly, befriended her with ulterior motives, she finds that she is grateful for the warm companionship.

Sari doesn't like small talk, but doesn't ask many personal questions, either. She leads conversations on philosophy, religion, and politics; the sort Mikasa is surprised to find she is adept in responding to. Though sometimes Mikasa is blunt, often inflexible in her perspective, Sari never condemns her for it.

It is through Sari that Mikasa learns more about caravan culture and their plans beyond the immediate future of this scouting trip. When it was determined that the monarchy's authority extended only to Wall Maria, it thus proclaimed the outerlands beyond the Walls an ungoverned realm. This led to a scramble for various population sectors to chart territories and lay claim on lands they would make their own. Some have repulsive or criminal purposes (Mikasa vaguely remembers half-listening to the Queen's involvement on discussions about that), but this caravan is led by those who plan to implement a 'people-led government.'

For Mikasa, who had accepted the nature of life within the Walls as a child, relied on the strict structure of the military in adolescence, and spent her entire adulthood thus far standing beside the Queen herself, it is more than radical.

"Oh come on," Sari teases. "Don't tell me it doesn't at least make you curious?"

"Well, sure," Mikasa agrees. "But what does my curiosity matter; how can you know that it will actually work?"

"Because itis working," Sari insists with a grin. "There have been several failed attempts from other groups without an organized governing structure, but it's the coastline territories who've adopted a people-led governing model with fair representation that are thriving."

Mikasa looks at her. There's a reason (a person) that makes this vaguely more familiar. "The coastline territories?"

Sari nods with enthusiasm. "The ones that Mr. Ackerman helped establish a few years past. Most of us were prepared to leave the Walls last year, but Luka and Briella insisted we wait for him."

Mikasa is grateful for the bowl of fried rice and poached egg in hand as she takes another bite. "Aren't there other guides?"

"A few good ones, but Mr. Ackerman is more of an adviser than a guide. He spent a lot of time with the coastline territories when they were first established; saw them through their pitfalls and such. The perspective he's had working with them is invaluable for us."

This time, Mikasa takes a larger than necessary bite, uncertain how to place the reason for the churning in her gut.

"You're friends with him, right?" Sari asks, oblivious as she takes a bite from her own bowl.

If they are, Mikasa certainly can't be considered a good one. She can't recall a time she's ever asked him about in-depth details of his time spent on the coast.

"We served together in the Survey Corps."

But everyone already knows that, Humanity's Strongest Soldier and the Girl Worth a Hundred Soldiers have reputations that precede them, and it isn't what Sari asked. The younger woman flicks her hazel eyes up for all but half a second before returning her attention to the food, astute enough to gather that the nature of their friendship isn't a preferred topic of discussion.

"In any case, it works like this," Sari begins, and a lengthy description follows of how a paper document called a 'constitution' and people-chosen leaders, or rather 'elected representatives', will serve on behalf of the interests of the designated factions in each territory.

The two of them continue dinner together, not necessarily alone at the outskirts but not amidst the busier crowd in the inner circle of the campfire, either. Mikasa is too engrossed in the conversation, comforted by the routine and enamored at the current point Sari plans to make, that she doesn't hear someone else approach them.

Sari waves her bread in the air as she enunciates. "No, it's not that I'm saying the Queen has to make announcements on the subject, just that simply by be- Oh, good evening, Mr. Ackerman."

Mikasa's shoulders straighten. She watches Sari look over her head to where Levi must be standing behind her; her new friend offers a polite smile to greet him. Mikasa means to turn for a greeting as well, but places her bread down on the napkin before her instead.

"Good evening, Sari. Levi is fine, really." Then, without pause. "Mind if I borrow Mikasa?"

"Of course not," Sari says, waving her bread again.

Mikasa half-turns to look over her shoulder as Levi finally comes around to stand beside them. Their eyes meet in a clash of solid stone against flat steel. At this moment, she is certain it was a deliberate maneuver on his part to quietly approach from behind instead of at an angle where she would have seen him coming. Already caught off-guard, she tenses further.

"What if I mind?" Tries to sound flippant, but the look of surprise in Sari's hazel eyes tells her she is too crass.

"Tch. It's not an order," Levi says, amused. "Up to you, brat."

Already he turns and carelessly begins to walk away, leaving Mikasa behind in what feels like a disadvantage. It gives her the chance to evaluate him without interference, though. Relaxed shoulders, even steps in a natural gait, and hands loosened at each side for an all-together neutral position. It's the opposite of her taut, defensive frame. Pride swells within her; it's a wounded ego that makes her snap to attention.

"Sorry," Mikasa says to Sari, her apology clipped but sincere.

"No worries," Sari assures her, looking up and over as Mikasa's agile frame picks itself up and starts after the caravan's adviser.

Levi makes no notion that he hears her follow, says nothing as he leads them toward the front of their encampment. When they near the large, taupe tent that she recognizes as one belonging to him, her spine straightens further. Something in the dynamic is too reminiscent of her younger years; when he was the arrogant captain who beat the sh*t out of Eren and commanded them on irrelevant matters, like deep cleaning abandoned castles, and she was the young cadet, helpless in the courtroom, holding the duster and scrubbing baseboards. It only serves to amplify the frustration she's felt brewing over the last couple weeks.

By the time they reach inside of his tent, the cover flap coming to a close behind her and Levi for the first time turning to look at her, her agitation is apparent in a creased brow and tense frame.

"You got something to say, Ackerman?"

"No." Mikasa responds with certainty, but the falseness is apparent to both of them.

He waits, one brow lifted. Mikasa decides this is as good a time as any to scan her surroundings. The largest tent of their caravan after the mess hall, there's a front room designed for small gatherings before linen hangs to separate out his personal room. In this gathering room there's the only real wooden table in the caravan's equipment, and it is neatly organized with stacks of maps, annotated papers, sharpened writing utensils, and half-burnt candles.

There's one large map that's the most prominent; a marked portion of the terrain is the familiar surroundings of late, most of it is blank uncharted lands, and the rest is the coastline before the sea. Unable to help it, she focuses specifically on the coastline territories; at least fifteen of them are clearly marked with borders, names, and stars denoting central cities.

Why don't I know anything about these territories?No, it's not that.Why don't I know anything about his work on the coast?

Mikasa turns back to him; in an instant, unnamed hurt is redirected into the more familiar fires of anger. Levi asked her if she had something to say.

"Yes," she amends, shoulders taut. "You shouldn't have kissed me."

Levi is unconcerned. "Most of the time, there's kissing involved in the f*cking."

"There wasn't, though."Not at first, Mikasa thinks to herself.Not until – …

The realization that both of them are now prompted into a recollection of the same exact memory (stilled by the shattering of climax, she stares into the distance until the sudden pressure of his palm adorns her face, guiding her to a kiss she'd been desperate to taste) at the same exact time makes her stomach fall to the floor. Too late, she controls her expression.

This time, a pause that lasts several heartbeats. "I don't recall you complaining at the time."

Though she is the one who brought it up, she isn't ready to discuss it. With no clever response prepared, she finds her mouth opening to offer a blithe response that instead comes up empty. When she presses her lips to a close, it's an accidental frown.

He starts to move forward, each step closer reminding her of a predator circling in on their prey.

"You know, I'm not sure whether to be offended or to pity you, that it took your adamant need to avoid me to actually befriend another person." Almost wistful, he adds, "A normal person, too."

Mikasa narrows her eyes. "I'm not avoiding you."

"No?"

A rhetorical question, but still she answers.

"No. I'm doing what you wanted, aren't I?" She gestures around them to the camp outside of the tent, indicating her involvement in the affairs.

But Levi shakes his head. "The only thing I wanted was for you to figure out what youwanted."

"Why do you even care?" Angered, because even after all these years, Mikasa finds that this is the emotion that protects her best.

Something torrid flashes over Levi's face, but then it's gone, replaced with the flat steel gaze from earlier.

"Alright, Ackerman." It's too cavalier of a dismissal; she doesn't buy it for a moment.

"Hm?"

"I think I understand the problem." An undercurrent of arrogance in the placating tone; it knots her stomach.

Ordinarily she's deliberate on her placement in a room, familiar with each vantage point to strike, every step angled toward an exit; but somehow she's already lost her bearings. Levi takes another step forward and her instinctive step back guides her into the table's edge, the back of her thighs square against the sturdy wooden platform. She steadies herself, both hands pressed flat behind her.

"What?" More irked than intended, but she lifts her chin, unwilling to let him know it.

Another step closer, and like there's a shield before him, she's pushed back, knees buckling to lower her frame. Still, he crosses over the last space between them, the tilt of his head revealing a lazy mischief.

"First, you wanted me out of your system." His words are even, but too quiet, too imbued with the sensual memories attached to them.

No sooner than she meets his gaze does he lean fully forward; Mikasa feels the warmth of his breath on the soft skin beneath her ear as he finishes the sentiment.

"Now you want me in."

(In. Finally in; oh, how she simpered from the existential connection the first time he finally, finally thrust inside of her.)

Mikasa's sharp exhale can't be construed as surprise; even she hears that it escapes from exhilaration.

Too proud to wilt further in weakness, Mikasa reaches for the loose fabric in the center of his chest. She forces him out from the hollows of her neck to get a better view of him; though it's meant to intimidate, he looks at her without a single ounce of concern. On the contrary, the subtle smirk from before looks as though it's waiting to be sprung free again.

"You're projecting," Mikasa tells him. It sounds like a threat.

Levi lifts a brow. As though an honest question, he asks, "Am I?"

Even when he moves faster than Mikasa can dodge, he appears calm; Levi takes hold of the wrist she's pushed into his chest and lays his other hand onto the table at her side, caging her.

"Tell me." Unblinking as he evaluates her trapped frame, the low timbre in his tone sending chills down her spine. "What am I projecting?"

Like he knows she has been studiously attempting to avoid the memories of their time together, but now he's prompted their retrieval (a simple,strong tug and the fabric rips easily off her thigh) and brings them flaring to life in her mind(startling white heat radiating through, Levi's throaty groan when he comes, too).Mikasa can feel the flush that tinges her cheeks, burns the tips of ears, drives searing heat into her core.

Levi continues to stare with an indolent brow lifted, but the thunder behind his storming-gray eyes is no different than the morning in the meadow. Whatever bout of anger she plans to unleash is stolen by him; the way he looks at her now makes her feel as though she's already naked.

Beneath the grip he holds on her wrist, Mikasa feels her hand go slack. This time, there's no injury from sparring to blame. It's a silent surrender, but the manner in which he blinks, slow from heavy lids, tells her that he's heard it.

Levi releases his grip on her wrist, leaves her palm to fall flat against his chest. Mikasa swallows (Walls, how is he still so sculpted?), remembers the last time she had access to explore the muscled expanse beneath his shirt. Her hand is slow in its retreat to hold the table behind her.

She doesn't stop him when his now emptied hand reaches toward the base of her neck. Like combatants searching for their rival’s next move, their eyes stay locked onto one other. He drags the backside of his fingers across her collarbone; she tries (and fails) to hide the breath it forces her to collect. Ever patient, Levi's weighted touch drifts slowly to the center of her chest. His fingers first wrap around the button of her blouse and teases it open with one expert flick. Mikasa focuses on steadying her heart rate, but with his touch so close, it's guaranteed he feels the speeding rate.

Levi leaves the next button fastened; instead, his fingers fan out and his palm glides across her right breast. She waits for him to cup her, prepares to remain still. But he hovers in his touch, damning her to internally admit how badly she wants him to hold tighter.

When he speaks, he looks straight at her. "Is this what I'm projecting?"

This.He rests his thumb firmly on her sternum, then the rest of his hand follows suit, his touch now cradling her entire curve. (Hard to be self-conscious about their modest size, she notes for a second time she's just the right size for Levi to take a handful.) A jolt strikes through her, one he electrifies again as he thumbs deliberately on the clothing above her nipple. Mikasa bites her lip, determined not to speak or move as she meets his steadied gaze.

He doesn't wait for a verbal response (a peaked nipple is response, enough). Next his touch descends from the swell of her breast down each rib, slows further when he reaches beneath her navel. Levi's one hand finally wraps around her waist, and though it's a strong hold, Mikasa already knows it isn't meant to last.

He's studying every blink of her lashes, measures the time span between each breath. Then, he trails the pad of his thumb down her pelvic bone, closing in on the center.

Eyes piercing, spoken several octaves lower. "Or this?"

This.Not the sternum this time, but the stitching of the buttons on her pants. He's proven capable of unclasping buttons with just one hand, but he doesn't undo these ones without her consent. His thumb traverses the vertical line of stitching, presses in deeper to compensate for the thick material. With the expertise (no, the familiarity) in which he found her nipple, he finds her cl*t beneath the fabric, begins to encircle it.

It's instinct, pulsing desire, entirely thoughtless; Mikasa leans into his touch.

Her lips betray her further when they part in anticipation, but he betrays himself, too. The corner of his mouth gradually lifts into a subtle, yet unmistakable smirk. She simultaneously wants to slap it off his face and feel it crushed beneath her lips.

As if he can tell, Levi draws closer, hovers over the shell of her ear. The heightened awareness from his looming presence, close enough to breathe in his signature scent of clean linen, cedar and today's sweat— it's too much.

"What's it gonna be, brat?" His whispered words are gravelly, no less the reason there's a pulsing heat between her thighs.

It's tangible; Mikasa feels the burden of indecision release from her at once. Though it was a heavy weight, it was admittedly not securely tied down- it's lifted too easily, gone too fast, and she doesn't have the mental wherewithal to question it.

She tries to keep the words stern, but they're breathy and broken. "J-just don't kiss me this time."

He grunts, but she barely has time to register the sound; it's an aggressive vigor much like the first time they collided, fast and almost furious. Levi's probing touch over the stitching is replaced by his entire hand as takes hold of her inner thigh. Thumb pressed firm against her slit, the rest of his fingers slide between her ass cheeks. Possessive, as though he is needed to hold her up straight (hell, maybe he is)and Mikasa bites her bottom lip harder, stubborn and silent.

Too heady, she doesn't hear how he turns grim. "You'll have to be more specific. Don't kiss you here?"

His thumb moves deliberately to what would be inside of her if it weren't for the thick material of her pants.

Wilting from the wanton massaging of his hand, the vivid memories of the sort ofkissinghe refers to – it's enough to convince Mikasa there's a thin, thin line between tease and torture. She falls further into his touch, the start of an unbridled moan halted too little, too late.

Levi leans in further, closes the distance of the last possible space between them; his lips rest dangerously close to her own. "Or don't kiss you here."

It's not a question. There's a bitterness that doesn't match the intimate placement of their lips, how he graces over to what could be (should be) the start of a kiss. In this split second, Mikasa realizes the millimeter of a distance between their lips is far worse than the one of fabric blocking his hand. But it's too late.

So abrupt, it feels like she's falling – Levi withdraws both his stilled hand and his nearing lips. By the time she blinks, he stands several feet away; an unimpressed but otherwise stilled expression as he stares at the tent's exit. For a full moment she's too caught up from the intoxication of what almost happened to discern why it is longer happening.

A quick, cursory glance beneath his waistline informs her that he is not unaffected; there's a taut pull of fabric over the bulge of what she can easily visualize is beneath (has been visualizing for weeks, if she's honest with herself). Her knees starts to wobble, but she straightens to full attention at this overt sign of weakness.

It has been sixty seconds too long; she flushes, embarrassed.

Maybe an ordinary woman would be demure, or perhaps be bold enough to question him; but Mikasa isn't ordinary. Instead, she removes her hands from their stabilizing hold on the table, ignores the uncomfortable pulsing between her thighs. He appears bored and while she doesn't believe it for a second (only f*cking Levi can remain so composed with an erection), she knows two can play this game. And swear-by-the-Walls, she's determined to play it just as well.

Mikasa clears her throat. "What was it that you needed me for?"

Levi looks at her as if he expects nothing else (and she supposes he doesn't; after all, it was her who mentioned their last intimate encounter). He gestures toward the prominent map she noticed earlier; though he doesn't point to it in particular, she can assume he's referring to the metal L-shaped ruler. It frames around a southern valley their caravan camped at a few weeks past.

When he speaks, it's strictly back to business. "Luka and Briella have spoken with the other family leaders."

Levi joins her side at the table. It is furiously attractive that he is so shameless about his arousal. Her jaw clenches, she tries not to press her legs together to halt the dissatisfied tension. (The game is short-lived; she lost before it even started.)

He places two fingers on the valley she's already identified. "Half of the caravan will set up a temporary encampment here under Luka's direction, the other half will return back to the Walls with Briella."

"Temporary?"

"For a few months, before it's the thick of winter. That should be enough time to map out the center of the territory and lay a framework for roads." Here, he points to the highlands outside the valley that are nearby a strong river. "After winter, Luka will return with the builders. Then after basic infrastructure is set, Briella will bring those ready to start farming."

Mikasa is glad he's still focused on the map; it gives her enough time to hide the abrupt epiphany (what about you and I?) and straighten up. Levi turns to her, his own thoughts veiled.

"That's a good location for agriculture," she says, a seemingly safe remark, and the truth, too. Sari has spoken extensively about her favoritism toward this valley's potential yield for crops. Mikasa looks back down at the map. "I remember the soil was rich."

Levi quirks a brow. "You've been minding the soil, have you?"

She swiftly glances to him. Unbidden thoughts (her wrists bound beneath his strong grasp, her lean fingers pulling through soft dirt) are promptly suppressed. "I'm here to help, aren't I?"

Even though all he does is blink and retreat one step from the table, she knows he's impressed with her nonchalant response. There aren't many things that impress him, even less people who can, but she's often been the exception.

"I'll make sure to let the farmers know you approve," Levi says dryly, and it takes everything in her not to roll her eyes.

She's still too bothered (wet, and wanting) to banter. With no steam left for anger, apathy is an adequate alternative.

"Then what's next?" For some reason, her tongue won't move to say what it means.What's next for us?

What she doesn't anticipate is the long pause. He returns his scrutiny to the map; something in the manner he avidly stares down at it reminds her of the way he focused on the dirt instead of her when she first propositioned him. An empty cavern or violent storms of thought, there's no way for her to guess which is more likely. It's almost a full moment before he turns back to her; unreadable as always, but something about the severe set of his jaw tells her it is deliberate.

"There are some things I need to take care of on the coast.” He says it carefully, like it’s only the first half of a statement.

But there's no additional verbalization.

Mikasa stares at him. During the war, his words were always given as orders, her responses often restricted by obedience. After the defeat of the titans, she noticed his deliberate attempts to reverse this trend. He isn't only adamant about the removal of 'Captain' before his name, but in other matters, too; he rarely makes suggestions and never extends invitations. For an event as ordinary as Hange's birthday celebrations, he had simply told her the time. When it came to her joining the caravan, he had only mentioned she'd been cowering behind the Walls.

Is this the same approach now to ask her if she'll go with him to the coast?

But he doesn't ask, there's nothing in his disposition that offers her a clue one way or the other, and Mikasa can't afford to misread the sentiment. Sari having knowledge of Levi's accomplishments that she knows nothing about is still a fresh wound. More than that, it's evidence that points toward her misinterpretation.

She's not sure why she told him not to kiss her, but it is the same reason she decides not to inquire if he wants for her to go with him or not.

It's already been too long that she hasn't spoken; Mikasa's response comes out rushed, perhaps even rude. "I'll help Briella lead the caravan back."

Levi nods. The nodule in his throat lifts briefly, and Mikasa wonders if it's from swallowing the rest of his words, but he's casual when turning back to the table. Like he was prepared for her to say as much, he pulls over a well-worn map and tells her she can take it with her.

Same as the other map, half of it is unfinished. It stretches from the coastline, throughout the outerlands, and into the center of the three Walls. Unlike the cartography of her youth, this one ends with Mitras at the edge of the map instead of the center.

Levi finishes smoothing it out, drags over paper weights to hold down the edges. "Which route do you want to take back?"

Mikasa wonders if this is a trick question. She answers promptly, unwilling to be intimidated. "Whatever is safe, and fast."

"Alright. You'll recognize most of it." He places his index finger on their current location north of the caravan's chosen valley and starts to trace the route backwards.

He offers a few tips as he goes, makes recommendations for campsites, warns about a common trail stalked by potential bandits or thieves, notes the best river streams. Mikasa listens attentively and looks on without so much as blinking, abruptly nerved at the prospect of a leadership role she just unceremoniously inherited.

Nearing the end of the outerlands, she watches him trace the route past Wall Maria, where he recommends taking the caravan through one of the newer gates built south of the Holst District. Though this is the same gate they originally left through, she starts to interrupt him. This isn't the ordinary route he takes back; he always passes through the Shiganshina District before returning to Mitras.

Mikasa stops herself just in time.

Levi notices her clamped jaw and stiff shoulders; she knows that he does because his gaze passes over her like he's assessing malfunctioning equipment. He doesn't inquire, though. Instead, he finishes tracing the route back to Wall Sina.

This time, she doesn't hear a single word that he says. While her vision appears like it's focused on the map before them, in her mind the only thing she can see is her collection of dried flowers.

White daisies from Eren's gravesite in their hometown.

Nightshade vines in violet hues that took the door to the Jaeger basem*nt hostage.

Vivid blue chicory flowers sprung through unused paths in the war-ravaged district.

Other wildflowers too, but her favorite, the dandelions. Not confined only to Carla's kitchen view, but prevalent throughout her old backyard.

"Oi, Mikasa. You listening?"

She isn't. Flustered, Mikasa looks up; as a cadet, she might have lied, nodded to him at once to cover herself. Now though, she just mumbles a half-apology.

He is surprisingly not annoyed to repeat himself, albeit the sarcasm from the original remark remains. "That's all. Think you can make it home without getting lost?"

But he has not given her the route that leads through what she considers home. Looking at the map again, Mikasa sees now that in order for him to make it through the Shiganshina District to collect the flowers for her, he would have to go out the way each and every time. In fact, based on the map's measurements, it'd take several days to get to her old home, and then another several days to return back to the most sensible path. Why would he do that?

An old, half-forgotten memory comes to mind—

Sasha snickering, "Captain Levi doesn't bringmeflowers." Mikasa oblivious, a polite response, "Oh, what does he bring you?" Sasha laughed as though it was as obvious as it was hilarious. Mikasa assumed then that it was – meat of course, probably wild boar from the outerlands or fish from the sea.

Now, Mikasa wonders if she misinterpreted that laugh, misunderstood the entire implication of the conversation.

Because the laws of gravity do not send a soldier without any ODM gear sailing upward into the sky the same as the laws of attraction do not send men on a week-long trip to gather a handful of wildflowers.

Since she hasn't answered yet, and appears to not be listening for a second time, Levi scowls.

"What's wrong with you, Ackerman? Did you fall off your horse earlier, hit your head?"

She's too busy in her own thoughts to be offended. The one and only moment from the morning in the meadow she adamantly refused to revisit now springs into motion; it's greedy, impatient and vibrant, demanding for its own turn to be seen.

Levi is dazed too, eyes softened without the familiar capability of one who kills (no, it's not that, it's something else – softened by something else she cannot or will not name). With more care than she's ever seen him wield a weapon, ever seen him take hold ofanything, he gathers her loose strands of hair and places them behind her ear. But that's not enough; whatever he can't speak aloud he can speak into her skin. Hand still gentle as it cradles her, now he leans forward to meet the most vulnerable nook of her bare neck– not to bite, not to mark. It's a kiss so tender she forgets he's ever held a blade, that she's ever followed his lead into blood-soaked battle. No, it's a look, a touch, and a kiss that anchors her fully in the present and convinces her she is safe. And though it asks for nothing, it promises everything.

Mikasa takes three abrupt steps backward. Her thoughts are colliding into themselves at a velocity she can't keep up with, her mind whirling so thoroughly it feels like her entire frame is spinning, too.

She should tell him he doesn't need to waste time rerouting a caravan. It's never been about the ground the flowers are plucked from, but the thrill of realizing he thinks of her while he's gone, that he always intends to find her when he comes back.

She should admit how she thought to be cared for meant to have a scarf given in the aftermath of tragedy, but really she has known for awhile now that it is the moment he even noticed her need for a jade necklace pendant to hold onto.

She should kiss into his skin the way he kissed into hers, silently speaking her affection (OhWalls, who is she kidding, this is and has been love) without the necessity of words.

She should—

Levi takes a step toward her, a rare look of concern as he almost takes hold of her arm to keep her standing straight.

Like a strike of lightning, it overtakes her: not her natural strength, but that of the Ackerman bloodline. Steadies her position, fortifies each and every nerve, and permits (demands)her body to move, to escape the enemy that is herself.

"I'll find Briella and discuss details with her in the morning." Her voice is small, but it does not shake.

Curious but unquestioning, Levi offers a curt nod. Though it is not a dismissal, her presence was not ordered. She gives half a nod before promptly exiting the tent. Mikasa maintains the even strides of a typical departure despite the screaming of her limbs, until she at last reaches the entrance of the forest. When she's certain she is out of sight and deep into the woods, her legs quicken without conscious thought; she takes off into a full-fledged sprint, leaves crunching beneath her boots and branches snagging against her skin.

Titans could be chasing her and Mikasa wouldn't be running any faster.

.

.

Levi stares at the map she's left behind from her abrupt departure. Fearless when it came to a stealth attack against the mocking and murderous Beast Titan; a coward now, dreading the moment in the morning when he'll have to find her and hand it off to her. He sighs, rakes a hand through ink-black hair.

If there are Gods, they'll have to forgive him. Right now he'd like nothing more than a swarm of titans brought back to these lands. He'd slay them all.

Though they are an imaginary set of scales, that doesn't make them any less real: years of choosing careful words, planning the pace between their interactions, weighing what he shares and how much he'll give to be the precise amount she can carry. All of it to avoid what has now happened regardless.

He can't blame her. An Ackerman is built for fight or flight.

Inviting her to the coastline, or letting her draw her own conclusions about the caravan's ordinary route back – those were planned, had been weighed and set accordingly. But she tipped the balance of the scales when she confided in him at dawn by the river; she destroyedthe scales by propositioning him after their sparring.

Maybe if he hadn't kissed her, maybe if he'd just—

No point deliberating on it now. So-called Humanity's Strongest,what a load of horse sh*t. He had no strength at all to restrain himself that morning in the meadow, barely had it in him now.

Levi puts two hands to the table, stares again at the map. Oblivious to the half of what he's done or spoken over the years, but not about those damn dried flowers; she noticed at once the differential routes.

He looks next to the coastline territories, tries to focus on the sound of crashing waves and cawing of seagulls, not those waiting for him to make the final decision on a position he's being offered for the last time.

Seated behind his desk, a dark chuckle as he pours himself another glass of red.If you think she's frightened off now by knowing you go out of your way to get her a handful of weeds, wait until she finds out the reason you've stalled for so long in moving to the coast.

Levi pinches the bridge of his nose. "Shut up, Erwin."

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Chapter 4: Already Convinced

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter Four: Already Convinced

Lost then found as he stares into the nexus of celestial skies and infinite sea. Their coupling blurs: iridescent glimmers dip down to the constant rhythm of dark waves. Marred on occasion by an ephemeral wink; the sun's reflection is too pure to be called white. He has a half-formed theory that the color of a soul isn't marine blue, but the full depths of an ocean.

Levi tries to place a pin into their conclusion, but it's futile – the sky and sea have a perpetual connection. At the furthest point the eye can see, it should be an end. Instead, the horizon is just the beginning.

"Thought I'd find you here, mate."

It requires too much effort to turn from the view. So, Levi doesn't. Harlo seems to understand; says nothing else, tucks both hands into his pockets and waits patiently beside him. No less enamored, Harlo and his shock of red hair also look onward.

From an aerial view offered by the blunt edge of a cliff, the ocean is endless. Promises of eternity are made and kept with the resurgence of tides. Uncertain on where it is sapphire-shaded greens or rich oil painting blues- each unidentified hue has a dimension made hypnotic as sunlight slants into the sea. The longer Levi stares, the more shades he sees.

The real hypnosis is how easy it is to believe there's nothing else that exists behind him: not the unmapped forests of the outerlands or the grit of the Underground behind the walls, least of all the rocky terrain of memories in his battle-ridden past. There's only the sea and whatever else lies ahead. Every wave that breaks is another note sung, their melodies the response to his unspoken question: it's never-ending, never-ending, never-ending.

Without his permission, Levi's lids blink for relief. It's a physical interruption from the reverie, enough to remove him from the ocean's trance. Like waking up from a dream, Levi sleepily looks over to the older man beside him.

"Good to see you, Harlo."

Unbothered by the tardy response, Harlo grins easily and extends a friendly hand to shake. The two men clutch onto each other's forearms; while Levi doesn't offer a flash of teeth for a smile, his greeting is no less warm.

"Good to see you too, mate. Been waiting for you for a couple weeks now. You take the long way 'round or something?"

"Or something," Levi admits without further explanation, unable to help it when his boots shuffle, turning him once more to face the sea. "How's everything?"

"Good, good," Harlo says, though it's apparent there's more going unsaid.

Harlo takes stock of the situation; Levi's ordinarily pristine attire is wrinkled and worn, fully packed travel bags are stacked beside him, and his dark bay mare waits nearby, impatiently snorting, like she knows her stable treatment is being postponed by her sea-struck rider. He finishes his scanning and ultimately decides it's not the right time to make an additional comment.

"Tch." Levi notices, tosses him a quick halfhearted glare. Then, without the usual vitriol. "Go on."

Harlo laughs with good humor, grins again. "Oh, I don't mean to bother you mate, it's just I don't understand what's holding you up. You've got the perfect job lined up, friendly community of coastal folks who love the sh*te out of you, that nice private bungalow tucked into the southern coves—"

Levi's sharp glance interrupts Harlo.

"Aye, I know about that." Harlo lifts his hands up, palms facing outward to plea for mercy. "Don't worry, I told the others you were only looking into it, nothing final."

"Hn." Amused, but Levi offers nothing else.

"Besides," Harlo adds, an almost whimsical intonation. "Iknowyou love it here."

Making his point, he gestures to the sight Levi still admires. Proving the same point, Levi can't take his eyes off of the sea.

Thus Harlo's grand conclusion. "What more could a man want?"

Characteristic and expected silence at first. But then, a crack in the ordinarily polished veneer; Levi lets out a strangled laugh. Even with only a few years of friendship under their belt, Harlo can spot it with ease: the other man might be looking ahead, but it's no longer the ocean he sees. Heavy-lidded, eyes clouded over in the paradox of yearning, like there's something else, someone else he's remembering.

"Oh," Harlo says sharply, the sudden realization. Then, too quiet. "Oh, I see."

More than a full moment passes. Eventually, Harlo puts both hands behind his head, relaxes into the bowing of his arms.

"Must be one hell of a woman," he remarks, chuckling.

Reluctantly, Levi looks over to him; somber, in stark contrast to the redhead's mischief. "You have no idea."

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The heel of Mikasa's boot presses down into his neck. Bald, stocky, generally unpleasant features; being drenched in nervous sweat isn't doing the thief any favors. Trembling already, the knife in his clutch falls to the ground at once. She tilts her head, inspecting him.

"How many others?" Spoken less like a question and more like a threat.

He starts to shake his head, but she leans down further, her pointed stare needing no aid from a weapon.

"T-that's all of us, miss." Like he's choking, his words garble out weak promises. "It, it was j-just the f-four of us."

Mikasa briskly scans their surroundings; soft afternoon light filtering through the forest's lush canopy, dense woods interrupted only by an unofficial path of trampled dirt carved out by the first caravans. The other three men lay unconscious beside him in varied states of disarray; a broken wrist, some fractured ribs, perhaps a concussion or two. She turns back to the self-proclaimed last man standing.

"I assume I don't need to tell you what will happen if I find out that's not true."

Mikasa's ordinary composure, calm and collected regardless of the circ*mstance, seems exceptionally cold while opposed to his flushed and frantic one.

"N-no, miss, I ain't lying, I swear." Another shrill whisper. "I swear it."

Standing several feet behind her but peering over with curiosity, Briella offers a disapproving click of her tongue. "Bet they heard the women were leading the caravan back."

"Bet they did." Mikasa digs her heel in further.

It prompts a gargling groan and a slew of pathetic whimpers, the latter of which are misunderstood by a more charitable Briella. Though the caravan's leader has a hardness to her that suits her rugged adventures in the outerlands, she lacks the callousness afforded from military training. Cautious, she asks. "Is he seriously injured?"

"No."

Mikasa's brisk response surprises Briella, who doesn't seem wholly convinced.

"That's the sound of a wounded ego," Mikasa explains, sparing an unimpressed glance to the red-faced man. "Not a crushed windpipe."

Alarmed, he halts his pitiful mutterings at once.

"Huh," Briella muses, enlightened.

Mikasa turns to Briella with half a shrug and then lifts her boot. While he scrambles backward still on his bum, she reaches down for his knife and evaluates the reliable balance of metal and custom engraved hilt. It hosts a common surname.

"Family heirloom?" She guesses.

"Y-yes, miss."

With an easy flick, she sends the knife speedily sailing toward him. It strikes expertly between his legs, sinking into the dirt harmlessly even as he shrieks.

"Perhaps consider a more honorable profession, rather than being the family disappointment."

Redder still, he mumbles some avid form of agreement superimposed onto an apology. Mikasa has already turned away, though. She looks to Briella, unconcerned at the aftermath of her defensive maneuvers when the four-man team tried to hold them up for robbery. Tried, and failed immediately.

"We can keep going," Mikasa tells her.

"What about them?"

An imperceptible shrug. "Impossible to know which men are the vengeful sorts, so I'll keep additional guards in the rear. But I don't expect we'll see them again."

Briella looks back at the lone conscious man crawling over to the others in the dirt and then she breaks out into a glorious grin. With her freckled face and unruly silver-streaked curls attempting to spring free from their pins, it's a smile that suits her.

"Me neither."

Mikasa finishes a sweep of their surroundings, debriefs with a few of the men who help guard over the caravan, and reassures some of the children with a rare smile. The caravan's leader has been waiting with Mikasa's horse at the front of the line. Briella hands the reins over with remarks of gratitude when Mikasa returns.

"No need," Mikasa says, pragmatic and honest.

Once the caravan is back on track at a steady pace, the two women at the front enjoying a peaceful trot, Briella looks over to her travelling companion.

"You know, I feel I owe you an apology. Until now I rather thought Levi might be exaggerating about you."

Levi.The unexpected mention of him sends a searing pain straight through her. It hasn't been easy to keep him from her thoughts (the opposite, each additional day apart only worsens the tear in the seams of how she'd put herself together) but at least he wasn't there to see, no one spoke of him.

Until now. It's a sledgehammer shattering the rib cage meant to protect her heart.

Briella misinterprets her grieved expression for concern. "Oh trust me, it was all good things. Still, I found it hard to believe half of it."

An uncontrollable desire to know precisely how Levi spoke of her, what words he chose and in what tone he said them in, ricochets through her mind. After three weeks apart, it is the closest she can get to some semblance of connection to (affection from) him. No different than a pang from hunger, she realizes now she's starving for it.

"Well, expert thieves can't compare to titans, and these men were no experts." It's the best Mikasa can offer.

"Understandably so," Briella agrees, but her forlorn smile is thin and it doesn't reach her eyes. Mikasa knows the caravan's matriarch is actually keenly aware she cannot understand.

"Well, you know, if this sort of thing interests you," Briella drawls, pausing to evaluate Mikasa while she speaks, but finds no signs one way or the other, then continues. "Luka and I will need a replacement for Levi. I'd hire you in a heartbeat, Mikasa."

Like whiplash from ODM gear, Mikasa's head snaps over. "He's not staying on?"

Briella shakes her head regretfully. "Other commitments or something of the sort. I'm confident we can double whatever else he's being offered, but I have a feeling for a man like that, it's not about the funds."

Mikasa quickly looks ahead again.A man like that.

It's not the most relevant memory with him that comes to mind, but the most recent. Morning dew on the wet grasslands. Muted light announcing the sun's upcoming arrival. An end of summer breeze almost chill enough for her to shiver. His final instructions were spoken softly, as though the others were sleeping nearby and he didn't want to wake them. All the while, his glass-gray eyes lingered on her.

Acutely aware she'd be departing in only a few moments, it felt simpler to stare right back, to let her fingers pause onto his hand when she took the map from his grip. He noticed (of course he noticed, he was Levi) but he only told her to be careful, the words strange to hear. They both knew she didn't need to be told. What she didn't know was the words he actually meant by them.

She was prepared with all of what she meant to say, needed to convey to him. But the possibility of those words remained lodged in her throat, stuck in a thick sludge that refused to let them out. It didn't allow her to swallow them properly, either. (Levi noticed that, too.)

A man like that. It feels like she is finishing a puzzle only to discover it has missing pieces. She knows more about Levi than most, but his priorities or his intentions are never clear. Where she fits as a priority, if she is considered one of his intentions, Mikasa still isn't sure.

Briella remains oblivious, used to Mikasa's quieter disposition. "Any ideas what he's got planned after he gets back from the coast? Think he's going to retire early? I do hope the Crown took good care of you war heroes."

Mikasa grinds her teeth together to keep at bay the surge of – of what? No stranger to loss (the opposite really, her and loss have been lifelong friends), she thought she knew the full potency of grief. Without intending to, Briella has prompted the origin of half her pain.

"I'm not sure. He hasn't told me."

The other half is the vacancy in her chest. Now that her ribs are shattered and pulled apart, she finds her heart is no longer there. It is countless miles away, heading in the opposite direction.

Mikasa reaches for her neck, but finds it bare. At this moment, it's not burgundy linen in mind. She wishes more than anything to feel the thin chain of white gold and smooth jade stone.

Needing to change the topic of the conversation, Mikasa adds. "Thank you, I'll consider it. What does a person like me— well, a person with my skills— do in the outerlands?"

Briella's eyes widen with secondhand excitement. "Oh, the opportunities would be endless, dear."

Mikasa remembers the sense of wonder she felt when she first left with the caravan. It is not something that diminished in the last few months, but seems to have amplified. Maybe if she isn't sure how to plan for the next day, she can at least start by thinking over all the options. With more courage needed than the moment before a battle, she decides to ask Briella.

"Will you tell me about them?"

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Later that night, Mikasa sits alone before the dying embers of the campsite's fire. She remembers again her final moments with Levi, this goodbye different than all the others: not only because of what transpired between them, but because it had been the first time since the war she'd spent so much time with him. For several months, she woke up every morning knowing he would be right there, and every day she had the chance to see and speak with him. It was so much time (not enough time); it's frustrating how mindlessly she'd taken it for granted.

Him passing the map over to her, the one that caused her torealize …, - the one she'd forgotten when she left in a rush. Her fingers paused on top of his own, staring at him, praying to the Gods, to the Walls, to Whoever might be listening for the courage to change her mind.

It wasn't Eren or Armin who shouted at her, but herself.Offer to help on the coast. Offer to go with him. Go with him.

But They had left her to her own devices then, and she remains a bitter agnostic now.

It's not the first time she's witnessed the breakdown in her communication with Levi, thesomething morebetween them like a weak flame waiting to be fanned, a potential fire if only it had enough oxygen to breathe.

Like all the other times before, she's still not sure. Was it Levi who spoke too late, or was it her who left too soon?

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.

There's only one thing she's missed about the cities behind the Walls. Not the markets or crowds, not her responsibilities to the Queen or suite in the royal keep, but the knowledge that her friends who are living are near. Though she's never been consistent in spending time with them, at least in the moments when she's desperate for them, they're always there. Hange's excited chatter on intriguing projects, unassuming bantering over beers with Connie, Jean's introductions to social circles and activities if her interest did pique, and Sasha's easygoing company, always pleased to see her and never bitter when it's been too long since the last time.

It's Sasha who she seeks out the first week she returns to Mitras. Despite never establishing boundaries or expressing limits on conversation topics, Sasha always seems to see the invisible lines Mikasa keeps.

When Mikasa shows up unexpectedly on an early Saturday morning, Sasha doesn't even seem surprised.

"Goodness Mikasa, do you need me to cut your hair?"

There's something about these first words, the strong sense of kinship and familiarity, which eases any remaining reservations Mikasa has on why she decided to seek out her old friend.

"Actually, I'm thinking of letting it grow out."

"Itisgrown out," Sasha points to the length resting over Mikasa's shoulders, admiring it. "Come in, come in. Want breakfast? I'm starved."

Mikasa smiles.Some things never change."Sure, I haven't eaten yet."

The two of them talk about everything and nothing; the caravan's progress, Connie's new business venture, Jean's two girlfriends he had while she was gone, the upcoming autumn harvest, Historia's most recent liberal reform efforts, drunken mishaps on Sasha's birthday outing last month.

"You and Connie, huh?" Mikasa holds her tea between two hands, the approving smile in her eyes.

Sasha grins immediately and turns back to the cabinet to pull out more bread. "Me and Connie. He's moved in, you know."

"Really?"

"Last month. I was a bit nervous at first, even though it's not like we haven't lived together before, but still, it's different from barracks and wartime, of course."

Mikasa lifts a brow, letting Sasha share what she wants to.

"Different and muchbetter," Sasha clarifies. "Walls, I'm so ridiculously happy. What do you think took us so long?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

Sasha laughs. "Right, Connie is a bit daft."

"A bit," Mikasa agrees, soft laughter swallowed by her next sip of tea.

Sasha lifts up slices of bread. "Want more toast?"

Mikasa has lost count of how many extra slices Sasha's already consumed, but she's been full for awhile. "No, I have a normal-sized appetite."

Sasha waves the bread dismissively and reopens the jar of jam. "So, does this mean Levi's back now, too?"

Mikasa is keenly aware the timing and placement of her mentioning Levi for the first time is after her own mention of Sasha's romantic developments. Still, she appreciates the indirect line of questioning.

"He had some business with the coastline territories."

"You brought the caravan back then, did you?"

As always, Mikasa is grateful that Sasha hasn't pushed. "I did."

Sasha seems to notice that Mikasa's lack of additional commentary is because she plans to speak more on the first subject. Sasha looks up, an expectant gaze with lifted brows.

After another breath, Mikasa takes the plunge.

"Promise me you won't talk to Connie about this?"

That's not what she meant to say, and she inwardly scolds herself for being a coward who needed to stall with a preamble.

"Promise." A flash of such sincere honesty, she doesn't doubt Sasha for a moment.

Mikasa puts her teacup down. "I think that I - well, no. I know that I've become attached to Levi."

"Attached," Sasha repeats, a burgeoning smile. "If I translate that from the Acker-talk, that means you love him, doesn't it?"

Mikasa blinks once, and then blinks again. She's unaware, but somehow not surprised, if their friends have named her and Levi's speech patterns.

Since Sasha has technically done the hard part for her, Mikasa finds herself nodding.

Sasha presses a lump of blackberry preserve onto her toast. "Is that supposed to be news? Sorry, 'Kasa, but even Connie already knows that."

"W-what?"

"Everyone does. I mean, I think on some level Jean does, though he's a bit of a willful fool, isn't he?"

Mikasa sits with her surprise while simply Sasha holds the space, munching on her toast.

"I'm not sure that it's mutual," Mikasa finally says, the original reason she found herself craving her friend's company.

"It's mutual," Sasha says easily, unbothered that she's just taken a full bite.

Mikasa's unconvinced frown prompts Sasha to continue, crumbs falling from her lips. "I mean, Hange is his closest friend and they don't have one of those."

"One of what?"

Sasha points her half-eaten toast to Mikasa's neck. Mikasa reaches for it; it's the teardrop jade pendant necklace she had put back on the first night she arrived back to her suite.

"Well, Hange isn't the sort to wear jewelry."

This evokes a spirited laugh from Sasha. "Oh, andyou'rethe sort?"

Mikasa's cheeks blush, knowing she's right. Most girls at least have pierced ears, even if it's with false gems, but Mikasa's never bothered with any of that.

While Sasha prepares her next slice of toast, Mikasa pushes her hair back, abruptly aware that not only does she need another person's advice, but Sasha is likely the best one to give it. Eren and Armin haven't been talkative on the subject, only sharing roguish smiles and snickering between themselves.

"We kissed," Mikasa says, trying and failing for indifference.

Sasha pauses with the knife mid-slather. "Now that's news."

Mikasa nods, distracts herself by running the tips of her fingers on the edge of the teacup.

"Well, come on," Sasha presses, eyes widened with a hunger no less pronounced than when she used to crave extra rations. "You two have had sparks flying for years. Surely there was more thankissing."

What little was left of Mikasa's blush resurfaces at once, but she only spares a fleeting glance to Sasha, neither confirming nor denying.

"Right, you never were one tokissand tell." Sasha practices patience as she seals the jam's lid. "I'm sure it was splendid though, eh?"

Mikasa halts her roaming fingers but doesn't look up.

"Alright, alright," Sasha concedes. "Then tell me at least, are you going with him?"

"To where?" It's out of her mouth before Mikasa can think first.

Sasha shrugs, takes another bite of her toast. "I don't know. Wherever he's going that he's thinking of selling his house for."

Mikasa accidentally jolts her teacup when she snaps her head up, the porcelain clattering against the saucer.

Sasha becomes serious and actually puts down her toast. "He asked Connie if he sells his house, if we would be interested in buying it at a tenth of the value. Just for sake of the proper paperwork. You didn't know?"

"No." Mikasa grabs a nearby napkin to clean up the splash of tea that spilled over. "We haven't exactly talked."

While Sasha thoughtfully taps her fingers down next to her forgotten toast, Mikasa wonders if the other woman knows the predicament can be fully blamed on her own cowardice. Regret that she ran from Levi's tent starts to bleed over to regret now that she's even brought it up.

Sasha stops tapping her fingers. Mikasa is uncharacteristically nervous when she looks over to her friend, but Sasha is as gracious and honest as always.

"This is a good thing, Mikasa. Don't you think it's time you both let yourselves have something good?"

Mikasa doesn't distract herself with sipping tea, skimming over porcelain, or thesecond opinions of her Ghosts; instead, she thinks about it for herself.

.

.

.

For all of his insults, the absence of the expected decorative statute is jarring. Levi stares at the guard posted beside the Queen. It's the same traditional armor and royal emblem on the breastplate, but a soldier he doesn't recognize is wearing it. Blonde, broad shoulders, male.

"Welcome back, Levi. Here to ask about the orphanages?" Historia prompts.

Levi belatedly realizes he's entered the royal office without adhering to proper etiquette. He offers a late bow, which the Queen waves off.

"Yes," he answers, focused again as he approaches the Queen at her desk. There's a tea cart that captures his attention and Historia tells him the kettle should still be hot.

Then she looks over to the lone guard in the room. "You can go, Otto."

While he won't vocally disobey her, his hesitation is more than obvious as he skeptically looks between her and the guest.

Historia laughs before offering him a pitying smile. "Oh dear, I mean no insult, but if Levi does plan to hurt me, you won't be able to stop him."

Levi says nothing as he looks through the options of tea leaves.

Historia adds, "And I'm sure that's not his intention."

"I don't know," Levi considers, collecting the spearmint. "Depends on how much of my proposal you've found coins for."

He's not watching to see, but the guard must express concern at that remark before Historia assures him it's all in good humor and Levi is a 'most trusted friend.' Levi finishes preparing the tea, takes hold of it on the rim instead of the handle, and settles into the seat at the front of her desk. Otto watches him warily while he exits the room.

When Levi looks up to the Queen, her ghost of a teasing smile warns him she doesn't plan on discussing the orphanages first.

"She's fine. Not sick, not injured or anything of the sort," Historia assures him. Then, certainly deliberate about her choice of a melodramatic pause, she clarifies. "She resigned."

Levi realizes there's no point in pretending. "When?"

"Technically, she gave me notice three weeks ago."

"Technically." He repeats, unable to pose it as a question.

Too regal to shrug, but not above a knowing smirk, the Queen looks at him while he hovers over his steaming tea.

"Could see it in her eyes the moment she got back that it was only a matter of time. Any idea why that might be?"

Levi stares at her, but Historia already knows better than to expect a response.

She sighs, her false disappointment obvious. "Only Walls more treacherous than the ones we fought to protect are the ones Mikasa fortified around her heart. Tell me, you think someone's finally knocked them down?"

It doesn't matter that the tea is too hot. He takes a long sip, unflinching when the scalding liquid coats his throat. When Historia chuckles, he ignores it.

"Alright,Your Grace," Levi says, placing his tea down and steadily meeting her gaze. "Give me the progress reports."

"Right." She's still smug, but she searches her desk for the folder her aides have prepared for him.

When Levi looks over the reports and newly approved budget, he tries to concentrate on the notes and making an analysis, not the thought of crumbled brick and mortar.

.

.

.

Albeit a strange retirement gift from the Queen, Mikasa finds herself running a grateful hand over the fine materials. An exquisite princess-style overcoat for formal occasions. Matching sets of camisole tops and lace undergarments for decidedly less formal ones. Two new mid-length skirts; one of them is a lavender chiffon she's certain she'll never wear, unless there's a Braus-Springer wedding after winter ends. Several scarves in her signature colors of ebony, navy and burgundy. Casual daytime dresses to replace soldier's garb. One silken bathrobe with a floral pattern that makes it difficult not to think of other flowers entirely.

The sun must be lowering itself toward the horizon. Late afternoon light tries to break through thick low-lying clouds and an autumnal breeze filters through Mikasa's opened balcony door. She remains seated on her suite's sofa, folding and unfolding the various materials. Every few minutes her gaze wanders to the note card from Historia lying at the opposite side.

Kind words of gratitude were written with royal care on thick parchment; but at the bottom, scribbled like a schoolchild passing a note, one erroneous addition.By the way, Levi is back in Mitras.

Mikasa continues to refold the clothes. She reaches the cobalt blue of the robe and pauses to admire the embroidery of ivory peonies.Levi is back in Mitras. Unable to help it, her fist clenches on the silk, wrinkles the fabric in her clutch.

This time she remembers her conversation with Sasha from the other week."This is a good thing, Mikasa."

She drops the fabric. Before courage from this conviction can wear off, she grabs the slate blue camisole, matching underclothes, and dark navy skirt to get dressed.

Either Historia knew her well enough to know not to bother with jewelry, or she'd noticed the jade stone set against white gold and thought it was more than enough.

.

.

With a peace offering tucked to her side and steps paced to outmatch the ominous threats of darkening clouds, Mikasa approaches the path leading up to Levi's home.

It belatedly occurs to her that he may not be home, or worse, could have another guest. She pauses at the end of the pebbled path, staring at the recently trimmed fauna surrounding his front door. The distance between her feet and that door abruptly feel impossible to cross.

One large raindrop lands on Mikasa's cheek, startling her. She looks upward; it seems the tumultuous clouds are offering a final warning before the start of their downpour.

She takes one deep breath, then promptly crosses the distance and lands two fast knocks onto his front door.

There's not a wide range of emotions Levi portrays outside the context of battle, but she sees it now when he opens the door; surprise flashing over his stoic features. Her name comes out of his mouth like he might stumble over it.

"Ackerman."

Mikasa's prepared words are stolen at the sight of him. Though there have been longer stretches of time spent apart, none of them compared to the last sixteen weeks without him. It's a dizzying relief; ink-black hair trimmed neat to frame aristocratic features, steel-shaded eyes as sharp and sturdy as the matching metal of a blade, alabaster skin a rich contrast to his black dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, an overall presence of strength that would exist even without the muscular physique to prove it. He has proven that too, though.

Luckily, Levi doesn't notice she's tongue-tied. He looks down to the token in her arm; an unopened, full bottle of red wine with a seemingly ancient label. Mikasa uses the last second of his distraction to wet her lips and force a few words out.

"I'm not sure that I'll ever see Sari again."

His eyes ping upward, evaluating her and the chosen words. "Maybe not."

She lifts her emptied hand, an open palm with five fingers outstretched. Then she curls them inward. "I still only have enough friends to count on one hand."

Levi blinks, and with it, he seems to soften. At the same time, the dark skies open, rain starting to fall in earnest.

But Mikasa doesn't pay the weather any attention. She lifts the bottle toward him. "I can't afford to lose a friend."

I can't afford to lose you.

The unspoken words hang between them, Levi looking to the bottle in her grasp. When he lifts his gaze to finally look up at her, something tells her she's had nothing to worry about.

"You haven't." Then he stands back, opening the door to let her in. "Come on, brat."

Mikasa feels a weight immediately lift from her shoulders. She crosses the threshold and hands him the bottle of wine. When he takes it, she's unable to help but admire the toned muscles revealed on his forearms or his lithe fingers she's spent far too many nights remembering in exceptional detail.

"What's this one called?" Levi almost scrunches his nose while reading the label.

"Erwin would have liked it," she tells him instead, knowing that's all that matters.

He all but jerks his head toward her. The last time they shared red wine was the first and only time he mentioned the red he served came from Erwin's personal collection. He hadn't realized she figured it out on her own that all of the others had, too.

Mikasa points to the label. "All of Erwin's wine is full-bodied and earthy, like this one."

Though it isn't from Erwin's personal collection, Levi now grips it tighter, his gaze more attentive over the label.

"I know you know I don't like this sh*t." Levi, honest to the end.

Mikasa's lips quiver, wanting to smile. "Yeah, I do know."

Levi sighs, sounding more like a grumpy old man than a seasoned warrior. She follows him into the kitchen, watching him collect their various needed items.

"Does it need to breathe?" He sounds miserable to ask such a question.

Now, she does smile fully. "No, it's recommended but it isn't necessary."

Levi scowls at her obvious amusem*nt and uncorks the wine with an expert hand for someone who doesn't prefer to drink the beverage. He is no less careful when pouring both of them half a glass than he was with removing the cork.

Resigning himself to it, he lifts the glass meant for her.

Mikasa takes the glass, but keeps it lifted. "For the moments that matter."

Her words sound too quiet to be considered brave, but she's too glad to be standing before him to care. If she didn't know him so well, she would have missed his brief pause entirely. Levi recovers fast enough.

He raises his glass and lets it rest against hers with a carefulclink.He's almost as quiet as she had been, but he hasn't taken his storming-gray eyes off of her. "With the people who do."

The slamming against her ribs tells her there's no longer a vacancy in her chest.

.

.

They sit on the outside porch under the protection of the awning and simple luck that the rain slants sideways in the opposing direction. Neither of them is bothered at the occasional mist reaching over. Lightning strikes in the distance and low rumbles of thunder reach them afterward. It's a soothing ambiance and a relief not to feel suffocated from heat.

There's plenty to catch up on. The light-hearted stories Sasha shared with her earlier, Mikasa now shares with Levi. Some of the finer points on the drunken mishaps were told differently to Levi by a self-gratuitous Hange; it's impossible not to laugh at the discrepancies. When Levi asks her about the caravan route back, she doesn't hesitate to go into great detail. He narrows his eyes about the attempted robbery, but she assures him it was nothing, leaving out Briella's faux apology afterward.

"You really didn't go through Shiganshina?" Levi asks.

Warmed by the wine and at last being in his presence, Mikasa doesn't hesitate. "No, I didn't want to deviate, and I think by that point everyone else was anxious to get home and rest."

He nods, like he expected at much. "Hold on."

When he comes back out with a small leather-bound book, she realizes some small part of her is not surprised. There are so many things she understands far too well about him because she sees them mirrored in herself, and plenty more she doesn't understand at all. Being able to rely on Levi's steadfast routines regardless of whatever upset she may have caused feels decidedly like him, though.

Mikasa puts her glass down on the nearby side table, suddenly nervous.

Levi comes to stand before her, and as if this is no different than all of the other times, he opens the book to its centerfold. Large, ruffled tops of vibrant wine-shaded sweet pea flowers stare back at her.

Mikasa is so startled she doesn't blink, doesn't move a single muscle. These are not from her house with the Jaegers, but her home with her parents.

Levi continues to hold the book open with two hands while Mikasa stares without breathing, remembering these sweet peas and a host of other pastel-shaded flora in her old front yard. Her hands tremble, and she's too afraid she'll drop the book if she takes it. Instead, she slides over on the swinging bench, a silent invitation for Levi to sit next to her. His eyes never leave her while he slowly takes the seat, the book now open in his lap.

Another moment passes before she can shakily raise a hand toward the pages. Thinking of what she shared with him at sunrise by the river, she doesn't reach for the petals. Mikasa takes hold of Levi's hand instead, both of them now holding onto the book.

Though her hand trembles, her words are steady, sincere. "Levi... Thank you."

Levi is still as stone. She risks a glance upward; though it's subtle, she knows him too well and sees that he's not just surprised, but uncertain. Her hand hasn't calmed, but still she tightens it around his calloused fingers.

"How did you find it?" Mikasa asks, returning her gaze to the flowers but thinking of her first home.

She allows her free hand to reach for the petals. Careful not to rip their drying skin, she barely touches them.

"Unfortunately, there are several reasons the Ackerman name is famous in that district."

Though his words are spoken quietly, she still frowns, her trembling fingers trying to tighten toward a fist. As if on reflex, Levi takes his hand out from beneath hers and instead covers her trembling grip. His thumb presses into the tremors, bold and reassuring.

Instead of thinking about the scenes of blood and horror in her childhood home, she focuses on the sight of his hand protecting hers. There's a myriad of other times and various ways she's experienced this moment; a moment where she spirals far out from her center of gravity, but Levi effortlessly straightens her out and guides her back to stable ground.

When she notices her hand has relaxed beneath his touch, she looks to him again. It's the first time she openly catches him staring at the necklace; the thin chain of white gold adorned on the base of her neck, the jade pendant nestled above the dip between her breasts.

Before she can stop herself, the words tumble out. "You told me this came cheap from a pushy market-seller."

Levi looks at her, unbothered he's been caught in the lie. "And you don't believe me?"

She can tell he's being facetious, but chooses not to play, doesn't roll her eyes. "I don't."

"Hm."

She wonders if he notices his thumb is still gliding over her stilled hand, but she doesn't move an inch, afraid it will prompt him to stop.

"You needed it." Levi says this with finality, as though it's a simple fact, should have been obvious, has been obvious all along. "First time I saw you without the scarf, your hand kept flying to your neck. Rarely saw you flinch from pain on a battlefield, but that's what it was, every time your hand came up empty."

Mikasa bites her lip as she weighs whether or not to be honest with herself, and with him. With the sight of him touching her and the pressure of his palm on the top of her hand, she finds the decision is easy to make.

"Told myself that it was time to let the scarf go, time to move on." As she speaks, her free hand moves on its own, finding the habitual path to hold what is now precious stone. "Which was true, but I - I wasn't really ready, I don't think."

She can feel the weight of him looking at her instead of the jade so she faces upward. He offers the next part for her. "But the Queen's royal guard doesn't wear a scarf with their armor."

Mikasa almost smiles, her hand loosening beneath his so that her fingers can curl to reach into the base of his palm. "No, they don't. I already caused enough trouble by 'destroying tradition' and 'insulting every custom' when I refused to be branded as an MP."

He grunts, allows his hand to turn further into her touch. "Still proud of you for that."

"Can you imagine? I hate that damned unicorn, and half the incompetent fools wearing it on their back." By the end of it, she's smiling. There's nothing more cliché than eternal competition between the differing military branches.

He starts to smile too; she sees it twitch on his lips, for some reason hesitant to stay. Mikasa finishes twisting her hand, the pads of her fingers sliding fully into his palm. "I did need the necklace. I suppose I needed it for years. The only reason I took it off was to try and prove I didn't."

"To who?" He asks with a touch of scorn, suggesting she needn't prove anything to anyone.

She focuses on the feel of him massaging into her hand. "To myself."

"Tch."

Mikasa is wondering when they've both lowered their voices when he quietly adds, "Fair enough."

Emboldened from the ease of conversation and reciprocity of his touch, she spreads her fingers out; they fall into the opened spaces between his own. "Took me a long time, too long, to figure things out for myself."

Levi stalls for half a second. She's not sure if it's because of their conversation or that she's mirroring his movements against his skin now. Then he resumes, finding the thicker scar at the base of her pointer finger. This is the second time she can recall him tracing over it. She hopes it isn't the last.

"Historia said you resigned."

"Retired," Mikasa clarifies, noting to herself the significance in the difference.

"Retired?" He picks up on her quiet enthusiasm.

An unspoken rhythm of taking turns, their touches alternate from the tease of a skimming touch to a more deliberate massage, and Mikasa isn't sure which she prefers. She only knows she doesn't want it to stop.

"Maybe I didn't wear the patch, but I was still a soldier," she says at last.

She doesn't have to explain the rest to know that he understands. It isn't about the patch, not even the title; it was the responsibility of sacrificing one's entire self, remaining stuck behind the Walls with or without reasons to fear, and everything the Titans stole from her, everyone they lost.

"And now?" Levi looks to her, curiosity hidden behind steel slats.

His fingers stretch forward, their probing touch reaching onto her inner wrist. It sends a delighted shiver careening through her.

"Now I'm not." As she says the words, she feels the sense of liberation again; not at the end of a government contract, but the start of whatever is next.

No longer half in, half out.

Only poised for the future.

She waits for Levi to ask what she's planning to do instead, but he doesn't. She tries to collect the words to ask him what he's decided to do next, but can't.

After a moment, he looks to her, amused. "Congrats, Ackerman. I'll warn you now, Braus and Kirstein have been planning for years to throw you a surprise party."

Mikasa all but groans. "You will allow no such thing."

He smirks, gliding his thumb over the pulse on her wrist. "No promises, brat."

"Brat," she repeats with a mumble, taking her turn to slowly slide two fingers up his forearm, even slower when returning back into his palm. "Not a cadet anymore, you know."

For the first time, Levi pauses his hand, breaks their rhythm. "Trust me, I know."

The dark timbre of his hushed tone tells her precisely how he knows. Mikasa can't help the immediate blush, but he's too focused on their hands to notice. He loosens his hold entirely in favor of handing her the book. She's disappointed at the loss of contact, but reminded not to be at the sight of her mother's sweet pea flowers staring up at her.

Levi turns to the table and she gratefully realizes he's pouring them more wine with no plans to leave their shared seat. Careful as always, she closes the book to press the flowers neatly into place.

"Sari mentioned you spent a lot of time on the coastline."

Levi hands her the refilled glass. "You knew that."

"Yes, but I never really asked you about it." She bites her lip, sounds quieter than planned. "Not what you did out there, what you like about it."

Levi is silent for a long time; so long she turns in the bench to position herself facing fully toward him, careful not to let her knees knock into his thighs.

When he eventually looks over to her, she can tell he's being haunted. It's the sort of exhausting grief she's only noticed when Hange's drunken rambling accidentally stirs up his painful memories, the few times she silently accompanied him on the anniversary of Erwin's death, the days following Eren's burial when he brought meals to her bedroom, knowing she wouldn't eat them.

"How many soldiers did we lose, how many friends died, so that we could find the sea?"

Mikasa frowns, hearing what he doesn't say louder than if he had: Erwin, Eren, and Armin all died for humanity to find whatever truths and opportunity existed after Sina, Rose and Maria.

"Too many."

"Too many," he agrees.

But he's no longer morose, shrugging a shoulder as he turns to face her, too. Levi is less careful; his knee falls against her outer thigh.

"The more people I brought out to the coast, the more settlements I helped build out there, then the more I could convince myself their deaths had purpose."

It takes her breath for several seconds. Seeing her pause, Levi answers the rest of her question. Even though he's awake, it sounds like he's dreaming. "Watching the look on their faces the first time people see the ocean. That's what I like most about it."

When she exhales, her careful position loosens, her legs resting onto him. "You remember the first time we saw it?"

Like she's speaking of something sacred (and she is, isn't she?) her words are soft and whimsical.

He nods slowly, voices a suspicion he's carried for years. "You didn't believe it would be there."

"No," Mikasa admits. "No, I didn't. That was their dream, not mine."

She doesn't need to clarify who 'they' are, he knows. Levi looks at her, waiting for the point she's planned to make by bringing it up in the first place.

Mikasa wets her lips, nervous even though she's sure. "It was your dream, too."

Levi realizes he is not the only one who has carried suspicions. She's announcing it more than asking him.

Carefully, he nods. "Yes. Ever since I overheard Arlert speaking about it, before anyone of us could have known it actually existed, I hoped that it did."

Remembering Armin's unwavering (and apparently contagious) optimism almost sends her crashing downward. Yet, she sees Levi has found a purpose from that pain and she reaches for it, tries to claim it as her own.

Dreams for the future. Visions of a life without war, free from fear and bloodshed. The ocean, proof that humanity could discover more to life than cowering behind the Walls. Perhaps because all this time she was not able to let herself look forward, she missed out entirely from seeing that Levi could.

Is she able to now?

"Alright," Mikasa says, a tepid but earnest declaration. "Tell me more about it. The coastline territories. This 'people-led' government. What work you've done out there."

Levi's features animate into what can only be described as wistful. As he starts to describe the process of settlements, formation of a constitution, and the leadership role he'd accidentally inherited to help direct behind the scene developments, Mikasa asks an unprecedented amount of questions. Levi answers with an equally uncharacteristic amount of detail, and sometimes, sincere determination with genuine enthusiasm.

She listens to every single word, but at the same time, it's not the finer points and explanations that she hears. When he speaks, he breathes alive a story that is somehow so full but entirely open. It sounds like (he sounds like) the future.

Neither of them notice how much time passes until their bottle of red wine is not only finished but long forgotten.

.

.

Mikasa notes the hour is exceptionally late and the natural lull in conversation should mark the end of her visit. It's hardly necessary, but she helps him bring in their finished wine bottle and empty glasses to the kitchen sink. She didn't want to stand up from the bench and remove the weight of his legs off of her, the same as she doesn't want to leave his presence in general, but she decides that leaving now would keep it simple. And simple would be best.

Whatever complications erupted from the morning in the meadow can be avoided now if she settles for the subtle touches and a casual exit. Even with her entire frame aching to stay, and errant thoughts running rampant in hope he'll ask her to, she makes to leave like usual. Levi doesn't stop her.

With the front door open, Levi looks out to the pouring rain with a partial brow lifted. "Sure you want to go now?"

"I should," Mikasa says instead, choosing to leave thewantpart out of it. "Mind if I keep this with you? Don't want to chance the flowers being ruined."

She holds the small book possessively between both hands. Levi nods easily, taking it with the same carefulness as earlier and setting it onto the nearby accent table.

"Thank you," she says, trying to force a grateful smile despite taking her first step across the threshold.

He simply nods. Actual words of farewell often are forfeited by the both of them so she doesn't bother to summon a worthy sentiment now.

Mikasa takes the first step out the door and focuses on the pelting of cold rain on her bare skin as she descends the few stairs from his front porch. She sees the pebble path that felt like an insurmountable distance earlier, but realizes crossing it to leave now is significantly worse. Each step feels weighted, and it has nothing to do with her clothing already being drenched.

Like the countless times before, she debates if it is her who leaves too soon or Levi who speaks too late. The familiarity of this internal confusion isn't comforting; the opposite, it feels like a knife-wound to the chest. Every step that takes her further from him is not only painful, but counter-intuitive, going against everything she feels and anything she wants— who she wants.

Did she leave too soon? Did he speak too late?

Suddenly, it doesn't actually matter which one is correct because all of it is sowrong.Heart pounding in her chest louder than the storm surrounding her, she abruptly turns back around.

Levi still stands outside the door's threshold as he watches her leave. She is close enough she doesn't need to shout very loud, but far enough that the sheets of rain blur her vision from clearly seeing his features. It gives her enough courage to tumble out the first words that come to mind.

"I'm afraid of shipwrecks."

His head tilts, from confusion or perhaps derision. "Shipwrecks?"

"Yes," she says, pointlessly brushing wet hair back from her face. "Ships, they're those wooden vessels that can transp—"

"Ackerman, I know what a ship is."

Mikasa glares, but her real frustration is self-directed. "Then you know that once it leaves the harbor, it could wreck."

She isn't sure when she took a few steps forward, but he's close enough now she can see the distinction of his features through the downpour of rain. Levi is simply staring, composed and calculative as ordinary; but then she sees it. The flash of understanding, like a nearby strike of lightning is reflected onto his eyes, the meaning of her declaration lit up in both irises.

"You're afraid of shipwrecks," he repeats, low enough to be thoughtful.

The frigid rain – or the consideration of making this confession – causes her to shiver, but she ignores it.

"Yes," she admits, cheek muscles contracting from whatever she is twisting and turning in her mouth, unable to say.

Contrary to popular belief, Levi does know the taste of fear. He tastes it now, metallic and sharp, almost convincing him there's blood lining his teeth and dappling onto his tongue. Levi sees her summoning the strength to make her choice, unable to discern if her grimace is because of the pelting rain or what she's about to say. At some point, he'd stepped forward, too focused on her to notice she's no longer the only one drenched from the rain.

"Tch." Almost inaudible. "Spit it out, brat."

Spoken as quiet and affectionately as the morning she woke with him to sunrise by the river. Mikasa draws strength from movement and takes a few more steps closer to him.

"I'm afraid of shipwrecks," she repeats warily, but that is only half of her confession.

She stands at the bottom of his front door steps, looking up at him, unbothered as the rain splashes onto her pained features. Watching her take a deep breath makes him halt his own.

"But that doesn't mean I don't want to go out to sea," Mikasa says, biting her lip hard and then releasing it with a sigh. "To see, and know, whatever it is that could happen if I was brave enough to go."

Levi doesn't realize he's had a white-knuckled grip anchoring him to the stair railing until he releases it. He knows her grief almost as well as his own, has sat with her sobbing, wrenching frame, seen her both listless and furiously vengeful; but this is an entirely different sort of desperation. Belatedly, he recognizes it's not grief over what was taken from her, but what she might not be able to take for herself.

"Didn't take you for a ro–"romantic, she hears what he means to say even as he quickly redirects himself. Mikasa doesn't know about the imaginary set of scales, but she has experienced his conservative choices over the years and senses the same caution now.

"… a poet," Levi finishes instead.

Her lips quiver, all together ignoring his self-correction.

"Yes, you did," she says easily, abruptly unashamed.

She starts to take the first stair up to him, but pauses at the enormity of her own thoughts. Boldness she ordinarily reserves for the battlefield causes her to look up at him, waiting until their storming gray eyes collide into fierce contact. Static from the electricity in the air pulses between them.

"You know more than anyone how ridiculous I can get when I love someone too much."

He's a soldier in unknown territory, only processing her words, securing evidence for her statement as he recalls the first time he yanked her back from chasing Eren into certain death, how she almost killed him to save Armin's life, and now, she's—

Then Mikasa watches him understand, the subtle slackening of his jaw and fast snap of his head when his entire attention focuses fully on her, the present, and this casual admission.

Love.

A silent moment passes between them as the storm worsens around them. The step she'd started to take up the first stair retreats until both her feet are planted onto the ground, though it does nothing to steady her.

"Foolish, too," she adds belatedly, nervous again, peering past his shoulder instead of into his face.

An apology, for giving into fear the morning of the meadow, for running away after her realization in the tent.

Levi steps forward, and though his eyes are the shaded hues of the storm around them, she sees only calm waters within them.

"I've seen those sh*t holes they call 'ships', and I have no intention of stepping foot on any of their feeble planks or shoddy boar—"

"I wasn't being literal," Mikasa stammers. "I mean, I wan—"

But he's descended the last two steps to reach her and strong, familiar hands take hold of her rain-soaked face. Mikasa immediately leans into his touch, wide-eyed at seeing him so close that even the rain can't blur the vision of his features. Her memories of how he appeared the morning in the meadow don't compare to reality; she sees the same look about him now. Sharp and transparent, desperate but certain.

"I know what you mean, brat," he breathes over her lips, scarred fingers of one hand wrapping firmly around the curve of her neck. The other hand uses the excuse of removing rain to trail over her left cheekbone.

She almost falls apart right then and there in blessed relief, but it immediately transforms into the exquisite thrill of anticipation. Instead, Mikasa stands straighter, admiring the tangles of droplets in Levi's dark lashes and how the stability of solid ground she'd been searching for is finally found once placing both hands onto his chest.

Her whisper is a demand, but it sounds like a promise. "This time, kiss me and don't stop."

Her words are all but interrupted when Levi finally claims her lips, tilting her head back at once to deepen the kiss from the start. Mikasa doesn't hesitate, pulling herself into him as she tastes the rainwater collected on his lips. He holds her so possessively, kisses her with such reverence, her knees start to wobble.

She has a half-formed thought to regret the last time she prevented this, but Levi is all-consuming, evaporating even the relevant thoughts amidst his intensity. There is suddenly no more fear and regret from the past; tethered to Levi, there is only the promises and possibilities of the future.

Unlike last time, it's not a competition against the other, but with each other. Mikasa pushes one hand up to feel the pulse in his neck, noticing it skip beneath her touch when it's her turn to tend to his lower lip. Levi presses his thumb firmly down the bone structure of her jaw, but softens his touch to part her lips, patient before his tongue traces the length of plump skin.

Mikasa's other hand cards through his drenched hair, lifting her chin to let his tongue slide further in. She's determined to target every droplet of rain and all the remnants of red wine left until it's onlyLevishe tastes again.

Even with their eyes closed, the lightning strikes so close that iridescent colors of neon violet and blinding white flash beneath their lids. An immediate clap of violent thunder affirms the storm is nearing, but they don't break apart.

Both of Levi's hands move downward; first, caressing her cheeks and neck, then dragging across her sides until he reaches the soaked fabric against her hips. He abruptly lifts her and steps back; Mikasa reads his mind or feels his movements, twisting her arms behind his neck so he can carry them backwards.

His firm grip on her waist spirals heat below her abdomen. Levi starts to let go of her and turn to open the door, but she pulls her arms back just enough to plant two hands on his shoulders. She slams him into the door instead, keeping their lips locked together.

As if she hadn't interfered and it was the plan all along, Levi pulls her hips into him and slides his hands underneath her soaked camisole, claiming warm skin and keeping them flush against each other. Mikasa's next kiss falters upon feeling his arousal pressing firmly through thin, wet clothes. Levi uses the chance to draw a gasp out of her, skimming teeth over her trembling lip.

Another strike of lightning simultaneously accompanied by a roar of impossibly loud thunder causes Mikasa to startle enough that her head rolls back. Her lids flutter open in just enough time to see a three-pronged streak of vivid lightning dart through the blackened clouds. Her neck now exposed, Levi presses a firm kiss beneath her chin and she expects another; instead, distracted at the rainwater on her skin, his tongue sweeps powerfully down the length of her neck.

Unsure if it's the electricity from the storm or the sensation from his tongue, Mikasa's hips jerk against him. Her hold on him borders on desperate as she starts to align her waistline to feel him hard between her thighs. Levi feels her adjusting; teeth nipping and then sucking over her pulse point, he lets one hand slip down her backside to the base of her thigh. He pushes her one leg up and over his hip, centering her onto the pressure of his erection.

Mikasa gasps, Levi hisses: the heat, friction, tension ofnot quite enoughrelief. At the same time, their lips collide together again.

She drops her hands from his shoulders to get both of them under his shirt; it takes a few pulls and tugs to release the fabric from his belted pants before she can drag them up his hot skin. Levi keeps his hold on her thigh as he spins them, pushing her back into the wall of the front door to gain better leverage. As soon as he has it, his free hand graces up beneath her camisole to rest tightly against her ribs. She feels his thumb explore precisely underneath the base of her breast and tries not to (fails not to) moan through her next kiss.

In response, his next kiss is so deliberatelythoroughshe's startled into a sense of urgency and newfound freedom: the fear of a shipwreck is obliterated from her consciousness.

"Levi," she says suddenly, breathless against the corner of his mouth.

His nose slides against hers as he looks up, searching her face to understand the desperate plea.

Mikasa pauses for half a second, not with uncertainty butabsolutecertainty upon seeing him so close, so heated. "Take me with you."

Levi tenses, but doesn't loosen his grip. He's spent too much time preparing for the reality that she may not want to leave her post behind the Walls; he doesn't know how to hear the words even as she expresses interest in going beyond them.

His gaze is searing, like he's preparing to lecture her. "To where?"

"Wherever you're going." As though it's simple, obvious.

When Levi only continues to stare, she digs her fingers further into dense muscles of his back.

"You want to leave Mitras, don't you?" Mikasa asks, even though she is certain. "You're thinking of selling this house to Connie, you aren't working with Luka and Briella anymore – you're leaving."

The rain is flooding down so hard now she's forced to raise her voice. "So, take me with you."

Impressed that she's pieced together a few things, but he refuses to admit it. Reluctant, Levi loosens his grip on her thigh and slowly brings her leg back to the ground. "You don't know where, or for what, or when."

"It doesn't matter." Like it's a difference between black or oolong tea, she means it.

"It doesn't matter." It's meant to be a question, but it comes out scornful, the disparaging words of an old captain.

The pause in their frenetic movements, new onslaught of heavier rain, the dangerous strikes of nearby lightning— it finally prompts Levi to fully release Mikasa and for her to actually let him. Together they stumble inside, water splashing across the threshold and coming down in rivulets from their clothing.

"No, it doesn't matter," Mikasa says again, unwilling (unable, Walls knows he's tried) to be reprimanded. "You said you wanted me to figure out what I want to do."

Now he stares at her, hard and unrelenting as steel, but waiting— the smoldering of hope unable to be completely hidden. Mikasa uses both hands to push water-logged hair back behind her ears; she's gravely serious yet somehow starting to smile. Bucking his authority and doing whatever he least expects always did come the most naturally to her.

"Well I've thought about it— it's all I can think about. But the only thing I know with certainty is that I want you to kiss me. I wantthis."

She saysthiswith lavender-dusted eyes that flicker between the two of them, as if just by looks alone she can tether them together again.

Levi remains tense, and while he's often unreadable, she sees the catalog of recent memories and their implications reeling through his mind.

"Not sure that's what I meant," he says, chiding.

She glares at him, determined to see the entire marble facade crumble to reveal who he is underneath it. "Yes, it is."

Because it isn't about the kiss; it is about whether or not she wants him,them—if she is ready for there to be a them. For a moment it's silent between them again, with only the sound of the raging storm outside and the soft patter of water as it drips onto the hardwood floor inside.

Mikasa remains serious. "I'm not entirely sure what I want to do next, maybe I'll always be too- too damaged to know how to think further than one day ahead. All I know is whatever I do, whatever days do come next, I need them to be with you."

The marble finally cracks, then crumbles. The sincere intent behind her words breaks through his diligently constructed caution, the last line of Levi's defenses. Surprise, then relief, and then a resurgence of their earlier fervor flash in a torrent of comprehension on his features.

Levi takes the three steps required to approach her with slow pursuit, and she bites her lip, her mouth contemplating if it's too soon to smile. Once he stands directly in front of her, both of his hands first placed at her elbows and then massaging warmth back into her upper arms, she collapses into him. Her forehead presses beneath his collarbone and onto his chest, trusting it is safe to smile as she wraps her arms around him.

He is still thoughtful as he returns her embrace, breathing her in— rainwater, muted fragrances of jasmine and vetiver, and the subtle tang of a light sweat he's known as hers for over a decade.

Now that they've stopped moving, he can feel the goosebumps on her skin and shivers she's suppressing. Tucking her into his chest, Levi keeps both arms wrapped firmly around her lower back and listens to her quiet sigh of contentment. His lips find her temple, but his busied thoughts distract him from kissing her.

Mikasa rests in a peace she never dreamed existed. Passionate, heated touching stuck the match to light her soul on fire; but being comforted by the steadfast warmth of Levi's hold isthe fire.

"The coast," he says finally, warm lips pressing into her wet skin and tangled hair as he kisses her temple. "Move to the coast with me."

She doesn't let herself think of old memories spent on the coastline during the war. She decides to wait to think of the sea again until she's there and able to make new ones.

"Okay," she says, unwinding herself out of his arms and taking half a step backward.

Levi studies her, but understanding comes soon after as she gradually lifts her arms. He finds the hem of her soaked camisole at once, but doesn't move any faster than she does. His eyes take their time too, admiring pale skin resembling porcelain only in color (she is anything but breakable), the faint outline of her rib cage, and the darkened slate blue eyelet lace he'd felt the edges of earlier. With his fingers grazing over the soft skin of her arms, together they finish removing the top and it falls to the floor.

A different sort of studying now, Levi brazenly admires the creamy ivory skin of her breasts swelling over the laced bra. The necklace he gifted her hosting the jade stone rests between the curve of her cleavage, surrounded by remaining droplets of rain.

Levi retakes the half step toward her again, both hands wrapping around her waist and sliding upward. She's torn between melting further into his touch and holding her breath, but somehow manages both when his hands cup her breasts. His thumbs glide along the wet lace, and she feels a strangely primitive need to be owned by him. These are yours. I am yours.

"Okay?" Levi repeats, dipping down to meet the crook of her neck.

His tongue sets out to collect each remaining droplet of rain, from the base of her clavicle, to the center of her chest, to the swell of her breasts.

"Okay," she says, trembling lips smiling as she reaches to unbuckle his belt. "Okay, I'm going to the coast with you."

It's impossible to know if the throaty noise of his grunted approval is because of her words or her deliberate palming over his arousal.

Levi's tongue swirls to the last collection of drops on the curve of her left breast. He cradles her tighter, both thumbs trekking back and forth over the damp fabric atop her now pert nipples. She bites down, but the vibrating pulse between her thighs only thrums harder. One hand busily, greedily outlining the length of him, her other hand finishes unwinding Levi's belt. It clatters to the floor.

As soon as Mikasa's deft fingers undo the button and zipper to his pants, Levi is stepping out of them while guiding her to the closest sofa in the nearby living room. Mikasa starts on the bottom buttons of Levi's dress shirt to avoid halting the revelry he works over her lips, neck and breasts, but they're interrupted upon reaching the sofa. Swift and strong, he turns them, dropping his hold onto her hips and pulling her into his lap as he sinks back into the furniture. Mikasa's knees drop into the cushions to straddle him, finding him iron-hard and hot between her thighs. An escaped moan flutters out of her lips immediately upon contact.

The rest of their top buttons and clasps are slowly undone, neither of them consciously aware they both need to rewrite the story of their first intimate encounter. Not thrashing and violent from a challenge, but deliberate and slow: enough time between one touch to the next to be grateful for the taste of every new kiss, how each flicker of tongue feels on vulnerable skin. It's a hungry, thorough exploration of the places they'd been too rushed to appreciate the first time.

Mikasa murmurs something incoherent from bliss, Levi mumbles a prompt for clarification into his next puncturing kiss on her neck, neither of them wait for a response.

When they both have bare-skinned chests pressed against one another, there's no longer an excuse to collect rain droplets but Levi's tongue takes diligent turns capturing each nipple with the same intent. Thoughtless in seeking relief, more—more friction, Mikasa rocks back and forth with her hips, sinking further into him each time. Her lace undergarments are soaked and it is not from standing in the rain.

Mikasa explores Levi's bare back with more focus and intent than even before, tracing the ridges of sculpted muscle and brushing over old scars. There's only a few of them, and she's almost certain half of them are from sparring with her. He feels too goodand it istoo much; she drops her head down hurriedly, his name sung through a gasp when he tweaks the other nipple not currently being treasured under his teasing tongue.

He feels her chin on his neck and looks up, not needing to find her lips when she immediately claims his first, teeth sinking into his bottom lip until he groans. Levi drops his hands at once to her straddling legs, gathering the ends of her skirt and sliding it up to her waist.

"Levi," she starts, nursing his swollen lip she'd just bitten.

He's massaging her thighs with such strength it should be painful, but she's too strong, toowantingof him to sink his touch into every inch of her. Past skin, through muscle, to her bones and into her soul.

"Mikasa," he answers gravelly, too heady to be coherent. His rough hands (f*ck, she loves those hands) skim down her backside and start to slide under the lace, caressing over the softer skin.

"Since when?" she asks between breaths, her lips dragging over his jaw to kiss beneath his ear. When did you start to notice me?

She teases her tongue against his earlobe; when it prompts a guttural rumble out of him, she sucks harder onto the lobe to hear him again. It works, and she grins briefly, then moves onto the stretch of skin along his jawbone.

Even heated, he knows exactly what she's asking him. With his co*ck throbbing against her— wet, and warm and pulsing— it doesn't even occur to him to think of balancing scales. Levi just answers her question.

"When you wouldn't kill me," he says, placing gentle, open-mouthed kisses into the hollows of her neck. "When we first made it to the sea, and you forced me to go in."

Mikasa pauses, tilting her neck back down. "You didn't think you deserved to enjoy it— but you did. You do."

As though it was yesterday, he can see her penetrating gaze all but drilling into him as they stood on the shoreline, wildfire colors of sunset swallowing the giant star into the sea. After the others had left and he still remained cemented onto dry land, she stayed with him until he finally took off his boots, until she saw him walk barefoot into the sinking sand, until for the first time Levi felt the waves lapping over his ankles.

Then, she stayed until he understood that he'd made the right decision. Until he understood how all of his tragedies and every difficult choice directly correlated with finding the ocean, with proving there was hope for humanity. Only then did Mikasa wordlessly leave him alone to fully embrace the sea's salvation.

Levi's grip on her ass tightens, but he pulls back enough to fully look at her. He doesn't have to ask her the same question aloud for her to understand, but he starts to. "When?"

Mikasa has had plenty of time to consider it, so the answer comes swift. "In the forest, chasing after the Female Titan. When you injured your leg."

Levi blinks. "Whenyouinjured my leg."

She starts to laugh, but he's startlingly serious, hands dropping down to her thighs. "You hated me back then."

Both her brows lift. "Sometimes."

Levi leans back onto the sofa. "I don't think you understood the question."

She purses her lips to prevent from laughing at his indignation. "I understood it perfectly fine,Captain."

But then Mikasa is serious. "You think I hated you for beating the sh*t out of Eren or almost killing Armin, how much more do you think I loved you for all the times you saved them?"

He looks at her, considering her words in each and every layer of his mind.Loved.

Levi doesn't realize he's tracing circles and runes into the sides of her thighs until she shivers from his gentle touch. It snaps him back to the moment.

"In the forest then," he repeats, taking a careful hold beneath her hip bones.

She smiles meekly, unused to sharing from the far corners of her mind let alone the depths of her heart. It wasn't about saving Eren; it was about saving her.

"I've spent most of my life scrambling for any semblance of security, or stability," she says quietly, hands nervous and restless against the top of his chest. "Being with you is the only way I've ever known what it means to feel safe."

She might as well have struck him. His eyes widen and his grip tightens, fingers digging further into her soft skin beneath her pelvic bones. It's not simply her earnest admission, but the striking similarity to what could be his own spoken sentiment.

"Mikasa." He says her name in a breath that sounds more like a prayer.

When she looks down to him, her arms draped loosely behind his neck and honest eyes appraising him, he kisses her once— slowly, so slow she's not sure it will ever end.

Levi lifts his lips from hers, but doesn't move any further off. Their eyes meet— a thousand thoughts and endless emotions tearing through them, and Levi starts to say it, to share even a sliver of what she's shared.

Loved.

Love.

The words he's planning to say sound cheap in his mind, a random collection of syllables that can't convey his boundless dedication. They don't convince him, so how can it be enough to convince her?

Mikasa shifts enough to turn her head over toward the front room, lavender speckles glittering like jewels in her gray eyes as she confidently looks toward the accent table by the front door. She focuses on the small, leather-bound book with the wine-shaded sweet pea flowers from her mother's garden. When she turns back to him, it's with an understanding smile.

"I know," she whispers, already convinced.

.

.

Chapter 5: Tectonic Shift

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter 5: Tectonic Shift

Bold touches and tight grips. The last of the rainwater evaporates off of their heated skin. Redistribution of weight— creaks on the wooden floorboard and strain of sofa springs. Perspiration forms beneath roaming hands. Bumping of limbs and necessary readjustments, bodies not used to being so close— this connected.

Outside’s raging storm quiets from dissipation. The silence echoes in the house even louder than the earlier thunder, interrupted only by rapid breaths and the fulfillment of a promise. This time, kiss me and don’t stop.

.

.

She is not sure if Levi holds her onto his lap or if she straddles him to pin them down. The difference seems to matter for a moment—is she seeking or is she sought after— and then it doesn’t. She can’t breathe, doesn’t want to breathe, under the poetic prose of his languid lips and sweeping tongue. The complex ratios of giving and taking become irrelevant.

Mikasa wants more than he can give. Then Levi gives more than she can take.

.

.

The need for more of him courses through her, rogue waves racing for the shoreline. Levi cradles one hand onto the side of her face to anchor her, holding her lips in place for the both of them.

In an ordinary context, Mikasa Ackerman is either inexplicably in control or recklessly abandoning it. There is no in-between then, and there is no in-between now.

Every split second Levi releases her lips only to reclaim them again feels like an affront. She tries to kiss him harder, both her lips pressing together to trap his bottom one with a tug, and she tries to kiss him longer, her tongue as valiant as his own. A private match to dominate the other’s mouth, but neither of them know how to lose or forfeit.

His other hand— calloused but careful, firm but undemanding— slides beneath her soaked skirt. Levi digs into the soft skin of her outer thigh.

More, more. Her entire body thrums with the demand of it.

She can’t breathe. Mikasa’s lungs inevitably betray her. With a whinnied gasp, she reluctantly wrenches her mouth free. Despite his own labored breathing, Levi manages a sufficiently satisfied smirk. The jolt it sends straight past her navel has nothing to do with touch.

Her forehead falls into the crook of his neck and a flash of impulse directs her to bite. His breath hitches, and it jerks her lips into a half-formed grin. Mikasa bites down harder.

Levi drags his anchoring hold from her cheek down to the slopes of her neck. He first thumbs the tendons at the base of her throat. She plans to look at him, but it’s too late. His hand wraps fully around; Levi uses his grip to direct her to look down.

Between this hold and that look in his eyes, she learns what it means to surrender.

“Tell me,” Levi says, even and low, taunting.

Mikasa is almost too distracted by the teasing pressure on her throat to notice that his other hand leaves the outside of her thigh in favor of massaging into the inside of it. Almost.

When he releases her throat, she misses the hold at once— almost dips forward to place herself into it again. But then his thumb slides up past her chin and onto her bottom lip. Levi is deliberate—and distracting. He parts her mouth slowly— traces over her opened lips, then dips in to swipe over the tip of her tongue.

Wide-eyed and wanting, she waits for the rest of his demand. Tell me.

Like he was waiting to secure her eye-contact first, he looks as lethal as he sounds. “This time, am I allowed to make you come first?”

She blinks once, then twice. He’s phrased it like a question, but it’s the first time in years that he gives her a command.

It’s hardly a fair prompt—he’s already slid his index finger and thumb into position. Surging seas continue to pulse (more, more).

With the very last of her cognitive abilities intact, Mikasa appraises him while Levi waits with a confidence so striking it is nearly cruel. Both of her lips, north and south, are held in the grasp of his scarred and sacred fingertips. She cards one hand through his hair, and settles the other onto the nape of his neck; she prepares to hold on.

Her answer comes out with her next breath. "Yes."

.

.

Golden hues erupt like sunbursts from the pupils of Levi’s gray eyes. She’s never noticed that before.

It isn’t from lack of proximity. They’ve been only inches apart on plenty of other occasions; training drills, mishaps in combat, spontaneous altercations, and even their last few illicit encounters. But Mikasa realizes now she has never actually let herself look— not this close, not like this.

Curled onto Levi’s lap with her arms resting in a loop around his neck, coming back to shore after the tidal waves of an org*sm, she looks down and actually sees him.

Levi’s steel-gray eyes are not purely the color of metal.

The gold encircling his pupils stretches out to the rings of his irises, a deep and rich blue. She can almost remember the sea enough to be certain it’s the same hue. Blended in-between are dimensions of stone quarry gray and subtle muted greens, reminiscent of the pale jade gemstone settled between her breasts.

Then there’s the way he’s looking up at her— intent, unblinking. She knows this about Levi, how he’s often cold or aloof but can promptly snap into full focus and a fatal determination. But he ordinarily reserves that level of focus for the battlefield.She’s never been the object of his rapt attention before.

Mikasa becomes keenly aware that she is an exception. The exception.

No, his gray eyes aren’t like steel or storms, but precious stones.

.

.

Though deserving of the popular title Humanity’s Strongest, they make love slowly the first time, as if each of them doesn’t want the other one to break.

.

.

After that, they f*ck so hard it’s as if breaking is precisely their intention.

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.

.

He doesn’t know it, but her dreamscape is full of light and rounded by soft edges. If coherent, she might have described the thrumming in her mind as gentle winds or floating notes from a bamboo flute. But her subconscious doesn’t need a metaphor: peace permeates throughout her soundless sleep.

Levi sits with relaxed shoulders and his back settled against the headboard. Though he is awake and fully alert, he rests in a peace no less tangible. After sliding up into a seated position, Mikasa’s sleeping frame simply readjusted herself. Previously lying on his chest, now onto the top of his thigh with one arm tucked between her chest and his leg, and the other resting across his lap.

There’s no fluttering beneath her lids to indicate nightmarish views. Only wrinkles of subtle expression on the lines of her features; not hard as stone, but honest and human. He watches her breathe for a moment, the steady exchange of unhurried air coming in and out as it lifts the curve of her bare breasts in a consistent rhythm.

It is impossible to consider that he might actually wake up to this sight more than once.

With his one hand wrapped securely around her forearm resting over his legs, he uses the other to settle into the tangles of her midnight black hair. Soft and loose strands, but knotted from the storm’s downpour and his own fingers that carelessly pushed through it.

The stamina and skill carried through an Ackerman’s bloodline proved beneficial in ways he hasn’t dwelt on since his adolescent years. Lust and adrenaline could give anyone the desire to keep pursuing, but their so-called shared potential enabled almost endless pursuits. His best guess is they both fell asleep for first time near dawn, but then one of them would wake up the other, thoughtless touches becoming the spark of tinder on still smoldering flames.

Remembering the series of events is a whirlwind of sequences shifting so fast his mind can’t track a single memory from beginning to end. Outside in the storm. Discarded clothes from the sofa. Slower the first time, too focused on looking at each other. Carrying her from his lap to the bedroom: f*cking again, breathless again. Above her, slamming in hard. Below her, stroking then sucking.

Then, the rewards of indulging her last remnants of shyness: unfiltered demands and unhindered moans. Every noise she made was like a sacred offering: ragged breaths, sharp cries, and the use of his first name more times than he could count. In an unprompted but more than welcome soundtrack, the audio of her pleasure runs on loop in the back of his mind.

It’s not just the incoherent pleas.

“All I know is whatever I do, whatever days do come next, I need them to be with you."

Levi glances to the nearby clock— quarter after four in the afternoon— then resumes looking down at Mikasa. He releases a strand of dark hair he put behind her ear a moment before.

“The coast. Move to the coast with me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. Okay, I'm going to the coast with you.”

This won’t be the last time he wakes up with a sight like this one.

.

.

Mikasa shifts. The arm tucked between them tries to turn, but it has no room. Her lips part as if she plans to mumble a protest, but just as soon close again. Her chin lifts some, knocking the crown of her head into his hip, but she remains settled, her cheek pressed firmly against the middle of his boxer-clad thighs. All signs to suggest she’s starting to wake.

Levi acknowledges every movement, waiting for the inevitable pull of terror that will infiltrate her half-conscious state and wake her fully. He should stop the idle runes he’s been drawing into her scalp to avoid waking her, but Levi selfishly shelves that thought when he can’t get himself to stop.

Only another moment passes before she starts to turn, a near silent murmuring as she surfaces into consciousness. Did he miss the signs of a nightmare?

Mikasa’s arm rested over his lap begins to lift, but pauses immediately upon recognition of the weight from his touch. Her body remembers where she is; rather, who is with her.

She drops her arm back down. Her lids flutter open as she tightens her arm around him. Blinking ahead at the sight of his lap, she doesn’t notice Levi looking at her but focuses only on the feel of his soothing touch. Mikasa’s lids helplessly close again.

“You still don’t sleep well.” Her words are soft, subtle from muted sadness.

“I slept well,” he contradicts, deepening the pressure of his touch now that she’s awake, massaging symbols of an unknown language into the nape of her neck. “Just never sleep for long.”

It’s not a lie. He probably slept better than he had in years, actually; no nightmares, and no panicked thoughts to interrupt him in two hour increments. His best guess is he enjoyed an unprecedented five hours of uninterrupted sleep. The pragmatic part of himself tells him physical exhaustion was responsible, given the content of their activities throughout long hours of the night and half the morning. The other part of him considers it might be from different reasons entirely.

Mikasa maneuvers her other arm out from its trapped place and stretches it down, but her heavy-lidded eyes remain closed. She sighs aloud, content in a manner he’s not even sure he’s actually heard from her.

“If you keep doing this, I’m going to fall asleep again,” Mikasa murmurs, trying pointlessly to reciprocate the touch, her tired fingers lazily running up and down his outer thigh.

Levi doesn’t answer, but becomes more deliberate, tracing loose wisps of fine hair carefully at her temple. In another moment, her own hand stills until it falls against him, and she’s sleeping again.

He has a dull ache behind his brows, a reminder that it’s far past his usual time for caffeine. The need to get up and use the bathroom. A parched throat desperate for overdue glasses of chilled water.

Levi stays right where he is.

.

.

It was Armin who first explained it to her. The process of a fat, crawling caterpillar that emerges from chrysalis into the free-spirited butterfly with bright colored wings.

You sure that’s the same creature? Eren challenged, though he knew Armin was always right.

Yes, I’m sure, and Armin grinned. It’s called metamorphosis.

Mikasa had been too busy admiring the vibrant cyan hues and fluttering of capable wings to hear the rest of Armin’s detailed explanation.

Metamorphosis. Mikasa tilts her head up to let the scalding hot water rinse the last of sex and soap from her skin. That’s what it feels like, she thinks. Leaving the comfortable but stunted space of a cocoon after one thought that’s all there was to it, that’s all life would ever be. Emerging from it instead— lighter and buoyant, now hosting wings and nothing but an open sky before it.

An open sky before her.

She’s reluctant to leave the shower, if only to remain still in the rare moment of serenity, or perhaps to solidify the signifance of the moment. It’s unfamiliar; looking forward to an upcoming event, wanting what’s next. Wondering, too.

There’s an ethereal sort of joy in the sensation that comes with wonder. Her mind pulses between so many different thoughts and possibilities. She’s reminded again of the butterfly from that day, how it flitted between flora and fauna without settling on a place to land. Too excited to remain at a standstill, it continued to fly onward.

Eventually, it flew too far and away from her view.

Mikasa eventually turns off the water and exits the shower. Steam fills the room and fogs the mirror, but she’s not worried about her reflection. It’s the neat pile of clean clothes, perfectly folded towels, and precise arrangement of miscellaneous toiletries situated into two orderly lines that captures her attention.

As a Scout, she found great satisfaction in following after him to mess up his piles and undo whatever tidying he’d just done. Now she traces her fingertips over the pristine edges and careful symmetry, humbled by a deeper understanding for his obsession with order and compulsive need to control.

After running a towel through her hair, Mikasa picks up the clothes: a simple set of sleepwear in mint and gray, a soft cotton shirt and thick-striped shorts. There is something about them that is unmistakably familiar.

She steps into them and is somehow unsurprised to find that they are a perfect fit. Mikasa suddenly remembers them with clarity; they’re hers. At least, they once belonged to her.

The pajamas were part of a birthday gift from Sasha. Not a gift from recent years; in the resurfaced memory, Mikasa can clearly visualize his distant green eyes and newly donned bun. Eren was seated on the opposite side of the room when she ripped off the wrapping paper.

Memories of wearing the pajamas in Levi’s home elude her, though. There isn’t much about the first year after Eren passed that she can remember besides pitiful attempts to comfort Armin, an abundance of alcohol, and almost all of her days spent under the covers of a bed. The location and owner of the bed were irrelevant. She knows Levi was there for most of it, that Hange tripled their drinking limits, Sasha was at a loss for how to help, and the others were shadows of their former selves. He was the only one of them who carried on.

Try as she does though, she can’t remember details. It’s a space in time she’s done her best to avoid and bury over the years. The grief after wartime was infinitely harder than the grief during it. After Armin passed, she moved to Mitras and wandered aimlessly before Historia approached her. She knows a few cold nights were spent asleep outside, but not all of them.

Had it been days, weeks or months? During how many of those was she another one of Levi’s ghosts? Corporeal, but haunting him and his home.

Mikasa starts to wrench the pajama shorts back off of her, wants nothing to do with that time and the version of herself who lived during it. But the effort to unearth buried memories leads to an attempt to fabricate realistic ones. For the first time, she almost wishes she had paid more attention then— paid attention to him. She was never the only one who had suffered loss.

She pauses for a full moment before accepting the pajamas— accepting her past— accepting herself. Acceptance has never been easy for her to find.

If she plans to replace wartime memories on the coast with new ones by the sea, she will have to learn how to rewrite ones that are simpler. Like wearing old, half-forgotten pajamas.

Mikasa lets go of the waistband. She needlessly brushes invisible wrinkles from her shirt, Levi apparently had it ironed, and promptly finishes her routine. Then she goes to search for him.

There’s already a quiet commotion coming from the kitchen: the whistling of a tea kettle, simmering of oil on a pan, and the sharp chop of a knife. Mikasa reaches the end of the hall, but pauses before stepping fully into the kitchen.

There are two empty teacups waiting on the granite counter by the boiling kettle. And next to them: two plates, two cloth napkins, and two sets of silverware. Perhaps a bit domestic, but an otherwise normal sight. It shouldn’t have been enough to halt her mid-step.

Except normal and domestic have always been off the table for her.

Mikasa turns her gaze to watch Levi as he prepares the meal. It’s not the first time she’s seen him cook or complete a mundane task. He has the same steadied focus, methodical movements, and compulsions to clean as he goes, one towel neatly folded and draped over his shoulder; that’s all Levi. But the rest is new, different.

Half of his hair hasn’t yet dried, wet strands tucked behind an ear on one side. He’s barefoot and shirtless, wearing only comfortable linen pants. She bites her tongue to withhold a grin; the evidence of time well spent together is carved roughly into his sculpted back. Her nails have left lines of vivid red marks. Impossible to be certain, but she swears his ordinarily rigid posture is more relaxed. Shoulders loosened, the arm positioned over the stove almost slack. Like he’s comfortable, and content.

Mikasa stops biting her tongue, the soft smile inevitably making its way onto her lips. She takes the remaining steps left to enter the kitchen, knowing this time he’ll hear her.

Levi turns with a spatula lifted lazily and lips parted, undoubtedly some smart remark prepared. The words don’t make it out, though. For a moment he stares. At first she isn’t sure what’s caught him off-guard, but she just as soon recognizes it’s the same thing that had her transfixed. She’s fresh out of the shower with soaked hair and pajamas, swollen lips and soft bruises: she’s also a new version of herself.

She lifts a brow, unable to help herself from hiding the smug acknowledgement of his surprise.

Levi blinks, removing himself from the trance, and she sees the ghost of his smile before he turns back toward the stove. There appears to be one pot of simmering rice, but the rest is still in the earlier stages. Untouched onion, garlic and tomato lay in wait, and a separate cutting board hosts raw poultry breasts stacked onto the left corner.

His smart remark must have only been delayed, not entirely forfeited. “Not sure that this will compare to the grime of the Underground you’re so fond of eating every night.”

It’s meant with levity, but it abruptly takes her breath. Every night?

Leaving her suite in the castle for the Underground’s subpar dining establishments and bland food has been a daily habit. With the exception of time spent accompanying the caravan, working at royal banquets, or the occasional dinners with old comrades, it has been her evening routine since… since she had people to cook for and eat with; since Eren and Armin were alive.

The epiphany lances through her. She can’t even remember the last time she made dinner for herself.

“I can’t stand cooking for just one. To eat alone.”

Mikasa chews her bottom lip. She’s certain that she is more surprised than him at the accidental honesty in her admission.

Levi straightens. Watching his shoulders turn upright, how the muscles in back pull taut, confirms her earlier theory that he was uncharacteristically relaxed. Not anymore; Levi turns toward her, an unreadable expression on his stern features. He studies her for a moment, perhaps waiting for the shoe to drop; but then he snaps back to attention, turning toward the items and ingredients on the counter. Levi picks up the butcher knife and turns again.

He points it toward her, watches her lashes flutter in recognition, then deftly twists the knife and tosses it over to her.

She reaches out, easily snatching it by the handle.

“Well, come on then,” Levi says, sliding the cutting board with poultry over to his side and gesturing for her to take over. “Get to work.”

Mikasa bites down harder, an attempt not to smile wider, and she walks over to stand beside him. She slices the poultry into thin strips while Levi starts to chop and sauté the vegetables.

Together they prepare the meal.

Together they eat dinner.

Mikasa is fast becoming fond of what can be done together.

.

.

She already needs another shower. Coated in sweat and tangled into Levi’s sheets, she tries to catch her breath, thinks it might be necessary to stop and reach for the nearby glass of water. Mikasa can’t— doesn’t want to (what’s the difference at this point?)— move, though. He hovers over her abdomen, one hand stretched upward and wrapped tight around her throat, the other kneading into the crook beneath her bent knee and onward to the apex of her thigh.

It’s his lips that have cemented her into place, though.

Determined to taste every inch of her. He’d said something in that vein earlier, a hoarse whisper into the shell of her ear. But that was before he’d come, when both of them were reeling in the thralls of lust and precipice of climax.

Apparently, it wasn’t just flippant words from a wild moment. It was a promise he intends to keep.

Levi continues to mark a trail of welt-worthy kisses along the length of her left hipbone. As he nears the center, Mikasa bites back a whine.

“We—we should shower,” she murmurs. It doesn’t sound believable, not even to her own ears.

“Hn.” Levi pushes her bent knee to the side, spreading her legs and admiring the widened view before resuming his marks along the top of her thigh. Mikasa takes in a sharp breath of air.

“We should shower soon,” she amends, breathy and weak-willed.

She can feel the curve of his smirk as he nears the inside of her thigh. For a moment he doesn’t answer, pushes her knee up higher for a better vantage point.

He pauses briefly, only enough to answer in-between a bruising kiss and sweeping tongue. “We will.”

Breathless, fisting the sheets next to his head. Mikasa strives for sanity despite the madness he insists on with his tongue.

“When?” One syllable, but swallowed up with her next moan.

“I already told you.” His hand leveraged around her throat tightens as he nips, then he suctions onto the last juncture of sensitive skin between thigh and outer lips.

Her breath hitches. “After— after you…”

Levi hikes her leg up higher and trails his mouth lower. “Every f*cking inch.”

Mikasa wilts.

.

.

“I don’t—... I remember these were mine, but I don’t remember wearing them here. I don’t remember much of being here.”

A lengthy pause. “... Do you want to?”

“... I want to remember you.”

.

.

.

.

It takes a week. Seven days of sleep deprivation and tracking the time only when the sun rose and set. Mikasa thinks that Levi could keep going like this (she knows she could), but what began as an inconsequential seed breaks through soil and starts to sprout. She’s curious about the future; wonders what a life on the coastline will look like for her.

For them.

Mikasa soon learns that wonder cannot be contained. It spurs an endless cycle of inconclusive thoughts, takes up much more space in her mind than she originally planned to rent out to it. The sprouts grow wildly; like vines, they latch onto whatever surface is available to them and climb onward. Soon she can’t concentrate on anything else without thinking of it in relation to the coast. To their future.

Despite the lack of sleep and their exhausting activities, Mikasa wakes at some point in mid-morning with an immediate awareness. Even though Levi lies behind her, she can feel that he’s awake; the natural weight of his arm lays heavier across her side once he’s asleep. She thinks about realigning herself to fit snugly between his hipbones, or taking control of his hand to direct it between her thighs.

But the coast.

Their future.

“Levi?” Her voice rings out sharp and clear, too loud considering the time— or at least, their equivalent time of what feels like an early morning.

Mikasa is certain he thought she was half-sleep, but Levi doesn’t startle. He raises his arm higher to wrap around her chest and she brings both hands up to hold onto him.

Levi drops his chin into her shoulder. “Hm?”

For once, he sounds more tired than her. She is nearly distracted when Levi drags his bottom lip, slow and steady, over her bare shoulder and into the crook of her neck. It’s when she feels the start of a familiar kiss, one that will entirely distract her, that she interrupts him.

“When do we leave?” Mikasa asks him.

Levi comes to an immediate halt. He doesn’t withdraw, but remains paused. She wonders if it’s from surprise or thoughtfulness.

When he responds, he’s relaxed and quiet. “Whenever you’re ready.”

She isn’t expecting it to be a relief, but the tension leaves her shoulders. The vines unfurl with blooming flowers. Mikasa leans into him, tilting her neck to look over her shoulder and see him.

“I’m ready.”

.

.

.

It’s a strange season for beginnings, an odd combination of settling into a new routine while preparing to leave it, but Mikasa harbors no complaints.

She hardly has any affairs to put in order; she owns no home, has collected little by way of personal possessions, and already resigned from her royal post. It’s as if there was a part of her that knew she never planned to stay in Mitras. That it wasn’t the place, or the time, to make it her home.

Levi never settled into Mitras but still has more arrangements to finalize. Financial investments, leadership over the orphanages and poverty relief projects, selling his home, and a half-complete renovation project Hange had roped him into during their last birthday.

Mikasa helps with packing up his house. Unlike her, his wardrobe is far more extensive, and just like her, he kept all the possessions that belonged to fallen comrades and lost friends. It takes her an entire weekend and several yards of linen to properly wrap and crate Erwin’s collection of wine.

She packs the items from Levi’s study next: awards, commendations, and a collection of important papers and books. Then, she boxes up military memorabilia and tools from the basem*nt. There are more of Hange’s belongings than his in the guest bedroom, until she finds a loose photograph with well-worn edges at the top of the closet.

In what looks like a decrepit part of town—the Underground, she’s certain— there’s an adolescent Levi squished between a grinning girl with two auburn-haired ponytails and a tall, blonde boy with a serious face. Mikasa doesn’t ask him about them, but she leaves the photograph on the nightstand next to his side of the bed.

The next morning she wakes up alone. Levi had said something about another early hour financial meeting. While she pushes the blankets away, she notices an old leather journal on the nightstand next to what has become her side of the bed. It has water-damaged pages and faded ink, but the succinct entries tell her enough to situate the boy and girl in the photograph as an important part of Levi’s life.

That’s how he tells her about his time with Isabel and Farlan. There is no entry that dictates why it came to an end.

When Levi comes home by mid-morning, shedding his coat and carefully removing his boots at the front door, she has finished reading the old journal. There are a thousand and one questions she wants to ask, but there’s only one that defines all of them. It’s the one she cannot get herself to speak aloud.

Before he rounds the corner, she silently greets him, intent only on what might be a morbid mission. Mikasa doesn’t care.

There’s no kissing for preamble. There’s no foreplay. She just pushes him against the wall in the front room and dutifully pulls his pants down.

It doesn’t take long to get him hard. But Mikasa makes sure not to rush after that.

When she finishes— when Levi is finished— she remains on her knees. The one hand she used for leverage against his lower abdomen is still covered by the pressure from his palm overtop of it. His other hand remains tangled into the now disheveled braid at the base of her neck.

It wasn’t touch that she wanted, it was the sound that she needed: Levi’s rapid breathing, and Levi’s vigorous swearing (f*ck, Mikasa), and Levi’s guttural groan from the base of his throat. The sound of Levi living.

Tears start to prickle at the corner of her eyelids and she sucks in a deep breath to stop them. The unspoken question weighs on her, and her forehead falls against the top of his thigh.

In slow, careful movements, Levi adjusts his pants and slides down the wall. He retakes her hand, using it to pull her into a more comfortable position. They sit on the floor for another painful moment of silence. Mikasa hates to break it.

“What happened to them?” Her voice is quiet. She already knows.

“Killed.” Levi doesn’t flinch, but she does.

Mikasa swallows hard. “Titans?”

Without looking at her, he nods. His thumb runs over the top of her scarred pointer finger, not with intent but from instinct. Mikasa cannot prevent the one tear that slips down.

“You’ve lost everything, everyone.” Her words are too brittle; they break.

Another tear, then another. Insubordinate traitors.

She expects he’ll brush her off with a reminder that she has lost the same. Instead he leans forward. Levi brushes his lips over the right corner of her mouth. He must taste the salt, from her tears and his come.

“Not everything.”

He presses his lips firmly to the side of her trembling lips, but if it’s meant to be a kiss, he doesn’t finish that either.

Not everyone.

.

.

.

They don’t need an excuse to spend most of their time indoors together, but the first cold snap of winter provides one. The simultaneous establishing and dismantling of routine continues.

Levi always wakes first. If she’s conscious enough to catch him before he leaves the bed, she’s rewarded with thoughtless and languid sex; the sort that makes her feel drunk from sleepiness and stimulation. She makes a habit of forcing her tired eyes open and propping up on at least one elbow to ensure she doesn’t miss out on the opportunity. When they finish and he leaves to make tea or breakfast, she slips back into an even sounder sleep.

One day at a time, the predictability of nightmares cease to exist. Their routine of waking her with terror is interrupted by this new schedule with Levi.

Breakfast rotates from fruit and toast to eggs and bacon. Dinner is whichever recipe Mikasa randomly recalls and whatever fresh produce she finds at the market, but they cook it together. Their appointments— and their distractions from them— differ every day. There are plenty of distractions.

Everything else has consistency, a sense of structure that adds needed stability for both of them. They take their tea on their own time in their accustomed schedules. Levi tries to do laundry every other day, but Mikasa prefers to do it. She doesn’t see the necessity in straightening and ironing all clothing articles, but Levi sets out to do so after lunch. Most of their tasks and previously independently conducted routines are rearranged into a shared collaboration.

There is only one aspect of his schedule that even she cannot change or distract him from; though admittedly, she knows better than to try.

Levi cleans the entire house immediately after dinner. No matter that he tidies up after every task and never leaves a mess in its place; he goes on with wiping surfaces and scrubbing floors like it hasn’t been done in weeks. She remembers like it was yesterday the first time she realized even after he commanded their squad to do deep cleaning, he would go through it all over again himself. At least, the first time she realized his compulsion for it was not only as a means to distance himself from his life in the Underground.

Mikasa only offers once to clean the house for him.

“I have to.” Sharp and convinced. Then, she sees him falter, a hint of sadness in the crease of his brows. Quieter this time, but no less certain, he repeats himself. “I have to do it."

She offers him a small smile. “Do you want me to help?”

Levi shakes his head briefly.

Mikasa brushes a hand atop his shoulder then and brings him a glass of whiskey later.

.

.

He takes naps in the afternoons. That is something new she learns about him, when she didn’t even realize there was more she would still get to know. His inability to stay asleep for long at night lends to a natural habit of resting for an hour by three or four o’clock in the afternoon. For Mikasa, it is the time she feels most energized. She honors his need for a quiet house and her own pent-up energy by working out in the backyard or running through the outskirts of the city. The crisp air and faded daylight make it all the more ideal.

Levi makes a habit of waking from his nap at the precise time she returns home to shower, oftentimes assisting in the removal of sweat-stained clothes to then join her. She doesn’t mind— with the glazed look in his hooded gray eyes, thrum of adrenaline still coursing through her, and natural lubricant of water, it’s her favorite time to drop to her knees and suck him off. Mikasa isn’t sure if Levi thinks of complex ratios, but she cannot give without Levi taking back twofold.

Regardless, she searches for any opportunity to taunt or tease him. Yet the first time she plans to remark on his strange inability to snooze through one of her post-workout showers, she is interrupted. Levi apparently loses patience with the ceramic-lined limitations of a shower stall. He turns the knob to stop the stream of water and then pulls her up from her knees. He’s fast— too fast— and suddenly she is being carried.

Mikasa tries to remember the last time she was tossed over someone’s shoulder. As a recruit in training? As a child? The shock of it, naked and vulnerable and confused, is the only reason she doesn’t pull herself off from him.

Without toweling off and certainly without reservations, Levi tosses her onto the piles of unmade bed sheets.

“Levi—..." But she’s not sure what to ask him. Between the unrestrained use of his strength and deadly pool of hot mercury that has overtaken his irises, she certainly doesn’t want him to stop.

He promptly maneuvers both of her legs over his shoulders. “Mikasa.”

Levi doesn’t wait for her to answer. He doesn’t wait for anything. Whatever mood he is in, it’s not one that plans to waste time at all. His mouth finds her cl*t faster than she can disengage a thunderspear.

“Not fair,” she stammers. Her stubborn streak presents itself and she tries to reach up toward him. “I didn’t finish getting you off— ah.”

Levi has learned her, all of her, certainly enough to know what it takes to render her speechless. He holds her with bruising strength, an intense focus on suction like she’s never felt before. And he’s worked wonders before.

“Go ahead.” He’s stoic but nearly muffled, still buried between her thighs. “But I’m not stopping.”

The flood of hormones, hot steam from the shower, and finesse of his tongue; for an entire moment she is too heady to be anything but overwhelmed. It takes her a full moment to understand the implication of his words. Then it crashes down onto her at once.

Walls. Thinking about it could make her come.

Mikasa is nearly as strong as him. And he is already trapped between her thighs, not that Levi protests. She wrenches the both of them onto their side and, taking a page from his book, Mikasa doesn’t waste any time. She immediately draws back enough to turn toward his waistline.

It forces Levi to temporarily withdrawal and the molten silver of their eyes clash between the layover of limbs. It’s brief and subtle, but she knows it when she sees it: his flash of surprise.

She runs her nose along the remaining water droplets of his inner thigh, near but not yet touching his hardness and her unfinished business. Mikasa’s desire to taunt, among others, has not diminished.

She steers her vision downward to acknowledge him. “Change your mind?”

There it is. The curl of his lips into a devious smirk, one that is reserved only for her and only for these moments. It’s enough to set her nerves on livid fire.

Both of his hands wrap firmly around her ass. The offended growl, "f*ck no",is buried into the center between her thighs.

Mikasa is capable of one last coherent thought before her undivided attention is given to learning his co*ck in her throat at this new angle. It’s not on her knees in the shower that is favored place to suck him off. It’s this one.

.

.

She never had the chance to finish her shower. When Mikasa returns to the bedroom after a proper bathing and wrapped in a proper towel, she is surprised to find Levi still tangled in the sheets. His bent elbow serves as an additional pillow for his head while he stares blankly up to the ceiling, seemingly unbothered. By now, she knows better.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mikasa asks.

Levi blinks, but continues to stare at the ceiling. “No.”

Mikasa thinks for a moment. “Do you want to f*ck again?”

That works. Levi drops his head over to look at her; there’s a quiver at the left corner of his mouth vying for the chance to smile. “Why, did I leave you unsatisfied?”

She blushes, then narrows her eyes at him. “No. But that’s not why I asked.”

Levi lets out a breath, amused. Even though he shifts back to look up at the ceiling without any additional commentary, she feels a selfish hint of relief. Whatever is bothering him doesn’t seem to be something that she’s said or done.

For another moment Mikasa stares at him, uncertain how to offer a solution when the problem isn’t even apparent. But sometimes people don’t want solutions, only support and space held for them. This has never been her forte and she struggles with it now. Her mind continues to scramble for what support she should offer and how does holding space even work, with a man like Levi— from a woman like her?

Not with him, but she’s failed a million and one times to do it right before. She doesn’t want to fail anymore.

Mikasa takes her time to dress if only because he’s made it known that he enjoys watching her do it. Though there’s a chill in the bedroom, the common areas are flooded with heat from the fireplace, so she settles on a tartan shift dress.

She starts to exit the room. Once once foot is out the door, the non-solution finally comes to her with the inexplicable abruptness of a realization. It’s a simple one.

Mikasa puts her hands on the doorframe and half turns back to him. She doesn’t plan on waiting to see if he’ll acknowledge her, but he shifts to look toward her at once.

“I love you.”

She hasn’t told him so directly, that simply. And while she’s spoken the same formation of words to others before, it feels like it’s the first time she’s ever said them at all. There’s a different intent, a steadfast level of certainty; a confidence in reciprocity.

The gray of Levi’s irises always seem to shrink when he is surprised. She levels him with a prim smile and doesn’t wait for a response before leaving the room.

.

.

Levi cleans the entire house twice in a row that evening. It takes every ounce of her self-control not to stop him, or at least help him, but she tries desperately to be supportive and hold space. She paces the rooms he isn’t cleaning in, unable to concentrate on any of her own chores or hobbies. It’s far earlier than her usual bedtime, but the sun has set so she turns in early with no actual plans to sleep.

It’s late when Levi comes up to the bedroom. It’s the first time she feels like an intruder; she’s in his house and in his bed. What if the space Levi needs requires her to not be in it?

Not with him, but that’s how it was before. Mikasa keeps her eyes closed and reminds herself for the tenth time that he isn’t Eren.

Levi is too astute to think she’s sleeping, but she remains lying on her side under the warmth of the blankets and doesn’t turn when he enters. She listens to him; the shuffling off of clothes and creaks in the floorboard when he crosses the room.

Her eyes open when he takes a seat on her edge of the bed. She’s greeted with the broad expanse of his bare back directly in front of her. His closeness is an instant relief. She hears herself exhale.

Mikasa pulls her arm out from the blanket and brushes the back of her fingers across his lower back, a silent greeting. Even without the touch she can see his rigid posture. Two rounds of cleaning, but still tense.

When Levi finally speaks, he’s still facing toward the wall. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Something in his tone makes her frown. “Shouldn’t what?

He just looks over his shoulder with flat eyes, as if she should know. Another second goes by with her confused, but then she does know. Oftentimes they’ve stopped speaking mid-conversation only for one of them to pick it up at a later time as if it had never been interrupted, and this time is no different.

Except the last thing she said to him was I love you.

She trails the tips of her calloused fingers onto the nodules at the base of his spine.

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do,” she teases, but it is a careful whisper. “It never tends to work out for you.”

He grunts. “Stubborn woman.”

Mikasa bites her tongue, but the retort comes out regardless. “Stubborn man.”

Proving her point, he offers no other comments. Mikasa doesn’t think about holding space—he’s chosen to join hers— and she forgets about solutions, too. There’s likely none she can offer him. She just acts on her instincts.

Without any more hesitation, Mikasa pushes herself up to a seated position. She reaches over to place a hand more firmly on his back, settles it neatly between his shoulder blades.

The playfulness drops from her voice. “Please tell me.”

For a long time, Levi doesn’t move an itch and doesn’t speak. Beneath her palm she can feel his hard musculature actually tense further.

“It was a dream,” he answers eventually, devoid of all emotion. “You were pregnant.”

Her lips part, 'Oh', but then no sound comes out. Blind panic sears through her, not at the possibility of it being real in current circ*mstances, but at the general content of the conversation and any of its implications. She’s confident with her choice of birth control, the government didn’t allow for a co-ed military without having that particular issue taken under diligent care, and Levi knows it.

If he isn’t bothered with worry about that, then why be bothered at all?

She takes her time to think, to let the panic fizzle out and fade. She could ask him about the past, about the family he does not have, whom he lost even before he could write about them in journals. But what she has learned about hope is what she has learned from him. Looking forward to the possibilities in the future tends to provide far more than one can expect from the certainties of the past.

Mikasa lets her hand slide down the length of his back. With her heart racing, she licks her lips and swallows the last of her nerves. She doesn’t feel shy, or nervous, but aware; aware of the significance of her words.

“I would like that. Later— one day—... I would like that.”

Levi tenses, barely finishes a sharp exhale before scolding her. “You’re supposed to slay monsters, Ackerman. Not bed them.”

She understands immediately, even when she doesn’t want to.

They have seen true friends— beautiful, fragile humans— pulled out of the napes of monsters. And they have looked at who they thought were friends with trustworthy faces (masks)only to find the monsters that hid beneath them. While the nuances Levi refers to are more complicated than that, she knows with certainty which end of the human-to-monster spectrum he falls on.

No, Levi isn’t bothered at the thought of her being a mother, but him being a father.

Mikasa wraps both arms around his rigid frame and props her chin onto his shoulder. She breathes out her quiet words into the warm, vulnerable skin of his irrefutably human neck.

“Monsters don’t scrub imaginary blood off of the floors every night.”

It takes a full moment, but beneath her hold, she feels it when Levi finally relaxes.

.

.

“One day?”

She takes a breath first. “Y-yes. One day... Do you—would you... one day?”

“... One day.”

.

.

.

It is an ordinary day in their increasingly ordinary life together. Mikasa is almost home from her late afternoon run when she remembers that Levi asked her to bring in more firewood once she got back. She nearly forgets until she reaches the start of the pebble path leading up to his front door.

Mikasa redirects herself to the side of the house. She doesn’t bother to unlock the fence to the backyard but simply propels over it, then does her cool down exercises in front of the tidied stack of logs.

Once finished, she gathers several logs, tucks them squarely it into her hip, and starts up the stairs to the back porch. Then she notices it.

Noise— too much noise. The low treble and high pitches that accompany a horde of laughter. A flurry of movement behind the glass door that leads to the living room. Several bodies and bright colors. Familiar faces. Balloons.

Balloons? Mikasa almost drops the firewood.

She doesn’t have time to be grateful for the extra moment of self-preparation that entering through the back door has provided her. It’s only sixty seconds, and sixty seconds is not long enough.

“She’s here,” Connie hollers. “Turn around!”

Sasha shrieks. The small horde comes bursting out onto the porch. There are far too many unexpected faces staring back at her, but it’s them who appear more surprised: slacked jaws and saucers for eyes.

With a quick scramble of fast whispers and clamoring gestures, her friends all shout in an attempt at unison.

"Surprise!”

Mikasa blinks. Hange stands to full attention at the front and center, a bottle of champagne prepared in hand with sparkling excitement shimmering from their glasses. Sasha almost bounces from glee, both hands clasped and tucked to her chest. Connie is beside her, the most ridiculous grin on his face bearing more resemblance to his younger years. Jean laughs, one hand sloppily lifting a full goblet of ale before he rushes it over to her.

Connie darts forward next. He slings an arm over her and she is effectively squished between him and Jean. Excited, Connie offers her a mischievous wink. “Well, safe to say we succeeded in surprising you, eh?”

Sasha squeals, launching herself forward to disentangle Mikasa from the other men’s grip. She guides Mikasa’s elbow to bend and ropes her arm through. “Oh, we sure did. Congratulations on your retirement, Mikasa.”

She is whisked inside. Overwhelmed first at their excited chattering, and then at the sight of the transformed living room, Mikasa marvels at what has been done in less than a hour. Tri-colored streamers, abundance of balloons, and mess of confetti. Levi must not be here if he allowed this, allowed that to litter the floor.

But then she spots him in the far side of the room, leaning against the wall’s alcove with his ankles crossed and arms lazily folded.

“You had to come through the wrong door,” Levi disparages.

She gives him no credit for that, only stares at him with her panicked thoughts. You weren’t supposed to allow this. You were obligated to stop this.

He smirks, unafraid of the silent but no less lethal threats being hurled at him. Levi lifts his chin to direct her attention back to their friends.

Mikasa is led by Sasha toward an equally eager Hange, who wiggles their one visible brow with a conspiratorial smile. “Shall we pop the champagne now?”

“Yes, yes,” Sasha answers, holding onto Mikasa tighter.

Mikasa hasn’t said a single word or expressed an ounce of their shared excitement, but none of them seem to expect differently. It gives her time to take in the rest of her surroundings: a table filled to the brim with varied appetizers and desserts, more than one glass bottle of her preferred wine, and an unreasonably elegant three-tier cake with buttercream frosting. “Retirement -- hip hip, hooray!” is spelled out in handwriting that looks suspiciously like Levi’s neat print.

Imagining Sasha forcefully guiding Levi’s hand to spell out “hooray!” while he scowls in pointless reluctance finally forces a tepid smile out of her. She accepts the flute glass that Jean swaps out for her untouched ale, but she remains overwhelmed by the rush of touch, noise, and kaleidoscope of colors. Everything exists in a blur around her.

Yet Sasha’s touch doesn’t waver, Connie’s grin won’t falter, Jean remains steadfast in his own self-induced joy, and Hange appraises her with a knowing if not maternal smile.

“Would you like to do the honors, Mikasa?” Hange offers, but already they’re handing over the bottle.

“Oh,” Mikasa mutters, the champagne bottle now in her hands and all sets of eyes squared directly on her. “Oh, I’m not sure…”

Overwhelmed is an understatement. There is both a vibrant sense of too much and the unavoidable strike of not enough— she feels the absence of Eren and Armin the most in moments like this, events like this one.

They should be here. Why aren’t you here?

Grief is a fickle bitch. She comes and goes as she pleases.

Mikasa starts to feel light-headed.

Suddenly there’s a strong, familiar hand resting over hers. Mikasa quickly looks up, uncertain how and when Levi came to be standing on her other side. She meets his stone-gray eyes, surprisingly warm and slightly amused. There’s a busied room around them, but he looks at her like she’s the only one he sees. She focuses on him, on his touch, and starts to stabilize.

“Here. I'll do it.”

Her tense shoulders relax immediately, and Mikasa easily hands him the bottle of her celebratory champagne, grateful when the crowd’s attention steers toward his direction.

The room stops spinning. She feels both of her feet on solid ground.

Levi directs the bottle toward a wall devoid of potential targets, opening the champagne with an expert flick and resounding pop! The cork goes flying and both Connie and Jean scramble for it, declaring it is some important memento.

Hange chuckles whole-heartedly and Sasha goes to collect the rest of the flute glasses.

Everyone is focused on Levi about to pour the champagne when an interruption comes from the front door.

“Don’t tell me I’m late.”

Mikasa would know the voice anywhere— she’s spent almost all her recent years within arm’s reach from it— but she’s too startled to believe it until she sees it. Turning from the commotion, she turns to look behind her.

Historia.

She’s almost unfamiliar, dressed in civilian clothing, hair tossed into a casual ponytail, with no crown and no guardsmen. Mikasa knows they must have been ordered to wait outside. Historia closes the door behind her and steps forward.

“Your Grace,” Mikasa starts, and she and the rest of them begin the formality to bow.

“No. Just Historia tonight,” she says sternly, and then smiles like a decade hasn't even passed.

Approaching Mikasa, she tilts her head and looks up to the taller woman. “And if you’re moving to the coastline territories, then you’re no longer one of my subjects. You’re my friend.”

Mikasa smiles faintly in return, at a loss for a worthwhile response. She nods deeply. “Friends.”

Historia passes a warm touch onto her forearm and then turns to the champagne. She takes the bottle from Levi’s grasp, indulging in her temporary shelving of authority to take on the role of serving the others.

With the rest of the group distracted at the rare appearance of their old friend and Queen, Mikasa has an opportunity to take a seat at the dining table and gather her bearings.

Levi notices and starts to approach her, but she glares at him. You could have at least warned me.

He’s unrepentant. Approaching her without hesitation, Levi stands beside her chair. One of his hands floats to the top of her shoulder before he leans down to speak into her ear.

Too stubborn to acknowledge him, she looks on ahead.

“Don’t worry, brat,” he murmurs, and her eyes unwillingly flicker over to him at the sound of his low timbre and dark tone. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Gooseflesh rises on the nape of her neck. She turns up to him, their cheeks brushing against one another.

“That a promise?”

He smirks again, but the sight of it disappears from her line of sight when he starts to lean upward. Levi pauses at her temple, either a brief kiss or a soft exhale: "Yes." And then he stands again, turning to the approaching Queen.

Champagne is poured for and brought over to Levi, then Mikasa.

“Best for last,” Historia explains warmly.

Mikasa stands, watching the fizz of bubbles almost topple over her glass before she looks back up to her friends.

They look to her with no expectations for a speech let alone a declaration of gratitude, but the generosity of their love and friendship is fully on display regardless. Willing her hands not to tremble, Mikasa lifts her glass.

If possible, the grins in the room grow wider, more laughter immerses the crowded space, and a jostling of excitement leads to moving balloons and spilled liquor.

“To Mikasa,” Sasha announces first.

There’s a chorus of To Mikasa! repeated by the surrounding company and she tries not to flush. Searching for stability, she turns to Levi again. His smirk softens into something close to a smile and he brings their glasses to touch with a soft clink.

“To Mikasa,” he repeats last, quiet enough it might only be her who hears him.

She finally caves to the pressure of a burgeoning real smile. Mikasa lifts her glass a little higher, watching it slip from Levi’s glass, and then she brings the champagne to her lips.

“To all of us,” she says in response.

Her Ghosts make rare appearances these days, but she silently toasts them, too.

Mikasa sips on her champagne, finding it unnecessary to put down the glass in order to count how she has more friends than can be counted on a single hand.

.

.

It turned out not to be an ordinary day, but she is grateful for it. Mikasa sits cross-legged on the sofa with the buzzing warmth of liquor coursing through her system. Everyone else has left and she watches Levi assiduously clean up the party’s mess. There’s something strangely erotic about watching him move around on his knees, mumbling obscenities to the confetti. Or maybe it's the memory of his whispered promise from earlier.

Once he’s closer, Mikasa raises a brow.

“So then,” she challenges. “How are you planning to make this up to me?”

Levi shoots her a half-hearted glare.

“I think it’s actually you who owes me. I’ll never be able to get all of this sh*t up,” he mutters, distraught at his latest failed attempt to scoop up the stubborn confetti.

She laughs, relaxing further into the sofa. “Oh no, you deserve that.”

He sighs, frustrated with defeat, and drops the rag he’d been holding.

Levi crosses the few remaining feet to come toward her, never getting off of his knees. His visual disdain for the confetti is almost immediately replaced once he stops in his kneeled position before her. Even though he is no more sober than her, his eyes sharpen onto her, lethal as ultrahard steel.

Mikasa feels her spine straighten even before he lays both hands onto her knees.

“I do plan on making it up to you.” The same dark timbre as earlier, laced with intimate implications.

To make his point, Levi pushes his hands from her knees and slides them down her inner thighs. He stops midway, though, in order to ask a question.

Except now Levi is serious, not playful. His penetrative gaze nearly sears her. “What do you want?”

Her breath hitches.

The way he says it, and how he's looking at her when he asks. She knows without a shadow of doubt that whatever she says to him, he’ll give it to her. Give anything— everything— to her.

It’s a tectonic shift. Words that could be spoken cannot compare in the slightest to seeing the truth of them on display. Levi’s devotion— he’s devoted. It's spelled out so plainly on his face.

She doesn’t realize until now that she subconsciously retired her grandiose appreciation for devotion, even before the day she buried Eren. To be devoted, to love whole-heartedly— it was a weakness, it was a folly.

Not when she sees it from Levi. He’s the strongest and most capable person she’s ever known. And he’s chosen her. He’s choosing her.

There has already been an overload on her sensory input. Her heart is already too full. She is inebriated enough to think it honestly, but not enough to communicate it properly. I have been so afraid to give you everything, but I have wanted to— Gods, I want to, Levi.

Mikasa leans forward. There must be something that Levi sees or senses in her, because he doesn’t continue pursuit with his hands but lets her lead instead. She catches the length of his jaw in her one hand and captures his lips next— Mikasa kisses him slowly, deliberately. With exaggerated pauses in between one shift of their lips to the next, their breathing occurs together in the same time and space.

Everything. I will give you everything.

When she withdraws, she knows that Levi understands. For a long moment there is no need for words or touch— only the opportunity to sit together on this new alignment of tectonic plates.

Mikasa leans back into the sofa, effectively breaking their trance and the significance of their silence.

“What I want,” she begins, teasing with a false demand. “Is both a verbal and written confession that your precise handwriting skills were utilized for icing the cake."

Levi grimaces. His grip above her knees tighten. “It was done under duress.”

She laughs, reaching for him again. Her knuckles brush over his cheek. “And what do you want?”

Levi seems to think about it for a moment. “An official royal decree immediately banning the use of microscopic colored papers at any and all festivities without explicit permission granted from the owner of the premises.”

Mikasa doesn’t bat an eye. “Okay. I think I can cash in a few favors. Anything else?”

Levi warily appraises her. She grins—an acknowledgement of their playful game— but then she becomes serious. The remnants of her smile remain as she stares at him, thinking again of what went unsaid.

“Tch.” Levi pushes himself upward and kisses the corner of her mouth.

.

.

“Time.”

“Time?”

She has always wanted forever, but never been given it.

"You asked what I want. Just— time. Enough time with you.”

"Hn.” Spoken into a kiss. “That’s the plan, brat.”

.

.

Surrounded by a denuded living room that is filled to the brim with high stacks of neatly organized boxes, Mikasa lounges sideways on the chaise sofa with another one of Levi’s books. Today is the last of several meetings with the bank. Everything he has earned and saved, he’s taking with them to the coast.

She quickly ascertains that what she has picked up is less of a novel and more of a manifesto. The front page is thick ivory paper with bold cursive letters: Consent of the Governed by Harlo Alistair MacIntyre. The name is familiar, but she isn’t able to place it until a quarter of the way through it.

Around the same time, the tell-tale signs of Levi’s arrival sound off behind her. The careful open and close of the front door. Shuffling of the coat and stacking of his boots. She is too absorbed into the passionate rhetoric of the author’s statements to see whether Levi plans to go for her or the tea kettle first.

The power of kings, queens, and magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferred and committed to them in trust from the people, to the common good of them all—

A shadow looms over her and answers her unarticulated question: her, not the kettle. When her eyes don’t lift, Levi takes a patient hold of her bare ankles swung off to the side of the chaise.

...in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them, without a violation of their natural birthright.

Mikasa finishes the paragraph and looks up. “Do you know this author?”

Levi thoughtlessly rubs circles on the inside of her ankles. “Harlo? Yes.”

She lifts a brow. First name basis?

“He’s a terrorist. The Queen had him exiled. I tossed him out of the throne room myself.”

Levi seems amused. “I knew Historia was obligated to sentence him with treason. I didn’t realize you were the one to physically remove him.”

Mikasa looks back down at the manifesto. She’s developed a peculiar admiration for the author’s rhetoric and feels a pang of regret. “Yes. I think I broke his wrist on accident.”

For some reason, Levi starts to laugh. It almost alarms her; she drops the book into her lap and warily appraises him. “What?”

The circles and runes he draws on her inner ankle are replaced with firmer massaging at the base of her calves. She wonders if he can feel the tension; she skipped her usual run in favor of reading.

“He’s a friend,” Levi tells her, and she can hear the rarity of his smile even in his words. “A good friend.”

Her eyes widen. “What do you mean, he’s a good friend?”

Levi seems to deliberate but she isn’t stupid; he knows the answer and is considering how to placate her.

“Go on,” she prompts.

“We’ll be working together on the coast. Needless to say he’s looking forward to meeting you— at least he thought he would be.”

Her shoulders deflate. She falls backwards into the cushioned arm with a frown. “Great.”

The nearer the reality of their move becomes, the more intimidated she feels. Everything she’s done— who she has been— doesn’t seem to fit into the quaint lifestyle and radical beliefs of what exists on the coast.

Sensing her concern, Levi shakes his head.

“You don’t have to worry. Harlo’s not the type to hold a grudge.”

She slides her tongue across her teeth inside of her mouth and attempts to clarify her thoughts.

“It’s not just that— just him. It’s all of it. I’m a retired soldier. I’m – I’m quiet and strange. People tend to feel uncomfortable around me.”

And her, uncomfortable around them.

Levi doesn't agree. “The people on the coast are far more understanding than those within the Walls.”

He should know, after all. They took him in, accepted him, and now, even cheer for him.

“They’re going to love you,” he continues, solemn even as he continues to casually massage into her calves.

Her words are meek— barely a question. “How can you know that?”

He answers, as blithe as ordinary. “Because I do. And they trust me.”

Mikasa stares at him, at his blasé words and thoughtless focus on the muscles in her leg.

“Say it.” Then, she swallows. “Actually say it.”

He blinks. When his lids open, he’s looking back at her frozen features.

Levi quirks a brow.

“What— that I love you?” Like he’s clarifying his preference for white over brown rice.

“Yes. That.” Her words are quiet, woven into the spaces between her breaths.

He continues to massage, battle-hardened hands climbing higher to the thickest muscles in her calves.

“Alright.” He presses the pads of his fingers in deeper, uninterrupted. “I love you.”

There’s a sort of deadliness to his serious gaze that is contradicted by his continued nonchalance.

“Oh.”

The way he looks, how he sounds, when he tells her: it is the same as yesterday, the same as last month, the same as last year.

“Oh?” He repeats, mocking her.

But he’s jovial, kneading into the crook beneath her knees with his brow still partially lifted.

She blushes. “You know I love you, too.”

The way she looks, how she sounds, when she tells him: it will be the same tomorrow, and next month, and next year.

.

.

.

.

There are only a few days left for them in Mitras. Though she thought she was prepared for awhile now, she becomes overwhelmed at how much left there is to do. Mikasa makes an effort to track down the Queen and each of her friends. She knows it is not a permanent goodbye, but it feels like the last time she will see them for too long and at too far of a distance. It feels like lasts with each of them.

She purchases greasy food from the market and sneaks it into the Queen’s personal quarters: grilled teriyaki chicken and lo mein noodles, a guilty pleasure for Historia. They eat from the cheap take-out containers on the expensive fur rugs of the Queen’s bedroom floor, talking and laughing like cadets in barracks who never yet met a titan.

The Queen sent Mikasa gifts as a formal thank you, but she has yet to thank Historia.

“You gave me purpose when I… when I had none. When I had nothing. I could never repay you.”

Historia pauses with her chopsticks. “Your purpose should never have been tied to others, certainly not me. Any debt you feel you owe to me— well, seeing you find your own purpose— consider it paid.”

Mikasa cannot hide the grimace. She’s found love, but not her purpose.

“You’ll find it.” Historia leans over to place an affectionate hand on the top of Mikasa’s knee. “I’m sure of it.”

Mikasa is not sure, but she places her own hand over Historia’s in lieu of spoken gratitude.

Though she arrives to Hange’s shop without announcement, her old commander seems to have been waiting for her; Hange even accuses her of being late.

“About time, Mikasa.” Hange attempts to scold, but their faux animosity is diluted with a stunning grin.

“Good morning, Commander Hange.” Mikasa doesn’t bring her fist to the center of her chest, but it is no less formal.

“You really have to let the formalities go,” Hange tells her, waving a hand into the air for emphasis. “Especially given your newly established partnership. You don’t address him as Captain, do you?”

Before Mikasa can respond, Hange wrinkles their nose. “You know what, don’t answer that. I’d prefer not to hear if either of you has such a kink.”

She should have known this wouldn’t go without incident. Mikasa comes to stand before the sales counter and offers half a smile.

“Zoë,” she tries, the syllables strange on her tongue. “Or just Hange?”

Her old commander almost startles. “Well. One can always benefit from an additional friend. Hange. You can call me Hange.”

The other half of Mikasa’s smile tilts upward. “Alright then. Good morning, Hange.”

Hange grins. “Good morning, Mikasa.”

Mikasa leaves with a medicinal chest that weighs half as much as she does. She is grateful their old commander and Levi’s closest friend insisted on gifting it for free— and subtly included what appears to be enough birth control to last through the upcoming spring.

She regrets that she held any anxiety over how Jean would react to the news. They walk through the snow-covered city with hot tea and amicable conversation. He is as warm and friendly as always, but mischievous, too.

“You know, I had a feeling this day would come.”

She shifts a sidelong glance toward him. “Really.”

He nods. “Oh yeah. You know, there was a reason I asked you out every so often.”

Mikasa almost stumbles onto the cobblestone in her next step. Perhaps she let her guard down too soon.

Jean just laughs with good-natured ease. “Neither of you seemed to notice, but every time I did, the ol’ Captain would grind his teeth and you would look for him right after. Kind of hilarious, to be honest.”

It takes her a full moment to recuperate. She holds the tea close to her chest. “So you were never the willful fool.”

“No,” he answers, a knowing grin. “You were.”

After another moment, Mikasa starts to laugh.

It makes sense to combine her farewells with Sasha and Connie at their shared residence, but as always, the other woman has good instincts and a gift in understanding Mikasa’s unspoken sentiments. Sasha shoves her and Connie out the door, postulating that the two of them should go have a beer together for old times’ sake.

Mikasa enjoys the familiar ease of conversation with Connie and even lets him win one of their three games of darts.

“She was always so mindful to take care of me,” Mikasa admits about Sasha. “Promise me you’ll return the favor for me.”

“Promise, ‘Kasa,” Connie says, but then he winks. “Think I can offer her a bit more than you though, if you know what I mean.”

If he thinks she’ll be indignant and slap his shoulder, he’s wrong.

Mikasa eyes him sternly. “You certainly better be. Walls know a retired soldier like her doesn’t deserve to have to fake it.”

Connie flushes red, stumbles over all the rest of his words, and then abruptly changes the subject.

The next morning, Mikasa shares an overly large breakfast alone with Sasha.

If someone had told Mikasa at fourteen that the ridiculous potato girl would be her closest friend and confidante over a decade later, she would have laughed outright. There are so many ways that life assaulted her with unforeseen circ*mstances. Her friendship with Sasha reminds her that some of those surprises are not cause for grief, but celebration.

“You can’t imagine how happy I am for you,” Sasha confides in a rare moment of seriousness.

Mikasa is startled at the sensation of stinging behind her eyelids. She wills there to be no formation of tears. “I’ll miss you, Sasha.”

Sasha grins. Her own tears form and fall without inhibition. “Oh I will miss you, too. You’ll come when we marry, won’t you? Both of you?”

There’s no engagement let alone a scheduled date, but Mikasa knows that it is a when not an if. She offers a rare smile and then an even rarer embrace. “Yes. We will.”

By the end of it, Mikasa returns home with red-tipped ears and wind tossed hair. She stands in the front room and carefully removes her boots, mindful of any dirt or debris. Their ordinary positions are reversed; Levi is seated in the chaise sofa with leaflets of papers and a cup of tea. When he looks up, her smile forms reflexively.

Levi quirks a brow, amused as much as curious. “You’re happy,” he acknowledges.

“Yes.” Mikasa answers confidently, unwinding and removing her scarf.

“Why’s that?” Levi asks.

It’s no secret to either of them that they both thought the farewells would be difficult for her.

She unbuttons and removes her jacket next. “The last time I said goodbye to friends, it was at their gravesites.”

Mikasa looks up to find him watching her carefully, stone-still and serious. But her soft smile hasn’t dissolved. “This time I did it with friends who are alive— and I know I’ll see them again.”

They don’t consider themselves heroes. They don’t look into the mirror and see the faces of humanity’s saviors. But there are moments like this one, acknowledgement that the world is free of titans and safe to live in, that remind her that all of their sacrifices were not in vein.

Levi hides his smile in the next sip of tea and she goes to the kitchen to make a cup of her own.

.

.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow they leave for the coast.

Absolutely everything is packed, including the few books Mikasa had kept out for quieter moments. Even if she had them, she knows she would be too anxious to concentrate long enough to read them. When Levi left for breakfast with Hange, he asked her twice if she wanted to join them. Mikasa had brushed him off, but now she understood why he hesitated to leave her alone.

She tends to have delayed reactions to stunted emotions; heating gradually before reaching an abrupt boil. Levi always seems to have a better perspective in gauging the rise of temperature.

Her mind races, twisting and turning that concept of wonder until it nearly feels like dread. She tries relaxing with leftover tea, but can’t remain still. She goes for a morning run instead of an afternoon one, but even the endorphins can’t cut through her panic. The escalation in her heart rate only seems to make it worse.

She feels physically ill.

A long shower and clean clothes doesn’t seem able to settle her nerves, either.

There is nothing to distract herself with in the barren household. Just a few stationary items left out on the kitchen counter— Levi promised to write out notes on the house's varying quirks and needs for Connie and Sasha.

Mikasa stares at the items for several moments, mostly because there is absolutely nothing else to look at, but then she remembers Levi’s old journals.

He stopped recording in them once he joined the military. She hasn’t asked if he started to write again in recent years, but she has a feeling that he did not. Time previously spent journaling is now dedicated to compulsive cleanliness.

Mikasa picks up the pen.

.

.

When Levi gets back to the house— the place he’s sold and no longer calls home— he can’t find her. She’s in none of her usual places, but then again, none of the usual places have their usual items. There is no chaise sofa to lounge on, no kitchen table to sip tea from, and no bed either; just a pile of blankets and one shared pillow.

He only calls her name once. A hollow echo bounces throughout the emptied house.

Levi wonders if she’s left; with or without intentions to come back.

It might be the latter. He told himself once before that her tendency to flee shouldn’t surprise him; that she was built for fight or flight. He starts to consider that it could be the reality now.

Thinking of her leaving should result in a fiery storm of chaotic emotions. Instead, it is as though everything he thinks, feels, and knows is wiped clean from his brain. There’s an immediate and all-consuming numbness left in its absence.

Levi walks back into the kitchen without really seeing, not that there’s much to see. Empty of furniture and devoid of foods, there’s just—

There’s no paper or pen. He has spent his whole life living either entirely alone or constantly on alert for intruders. Any and all changes in his environment are instinctively noticeable, even in a rare moment of inattention.

If she left, she may or may not have written a note. But he doubts that she would have taken stationary with her.

Levi tries one more time. “Mikasa?”

The next second hosts expected silence, but in the following one, ...

“Out here.” Words too muffled to portray a mood, but definitively hers.

The relief does not come all at once. It starts in the pit of his stomach and gradually releases itself from there. Levi exhales.

He finds himself stalking toward the glass doors to the backyard with an unreasonable amount of caution. Once he reaches the door, he pauses with his hand over the knob and first looks out to see her.

Without furniture, Mikasa sits on the porch floor with her legs criss-crossed and back against the house’s outer wall. It explains why he hadn’t been able to see her from inside. The missing paper items are held assiduously in her hands. She’s oblivious, to him and to the world.

Her long dark hair is braided backwards, her new preferred style to keep it in control. Loose tendrils escape with the gusts of wind and she continuously pushes them back, but it doesn’t appear to bother her. She’s too focused on the papers, mostly thoughtful and reading, but occasionally propping them against her knee to write an additional note.

Levi studies the novel look on her face. Tries to ascertain the nature of her authorial affliction. The tense features he observed in her earlier, furrowed brows and tightened shoulders, now appear to be absent. She’s pensive, the pen often finding its way between her pursed lips, but there’s no other identifiable emotion. He knows the sight of her fear like the back of his hand— and this isn’t it.

He pushes the door open.

Mikasa looks up to acknowledge him; dazed even though she must have known he’d be approaching. Then she offers him a tentative smile, and for some reason it looks like she is worried about him.

Levi belatedly realizes that while he was focused on studying her features, he made no effort to school his own. He fails for indifference again when he forgets his ordinary routine to greet her, if not with a brief kiss, some thoughtless touch.

Her words are tentative, but warm. “You alright?”

Mikasa is a warm person—a warm woman. She always has been, he thinks. It was dormant, but not dissolved; buried under childhood trauma, soldier’s garb, and a lifetime of sacrifices.

Sacrifices. There’s no hypothetical theory that Mikasa Ackerman is the sort to sacrifice everything for the ones she loves. It’s a well-proven and established fact.

Not for the first time since she came over with red wine and her fear of shipwrecks has Levi felt this, the unshakeable weight of guilt. Is moving to the coast for him and his aspirations just another sacrifice she’s willing to make for someone she loves, instead of for herself?

It’s their conversation from that same night that comes to mind, perhaps because it is the one he found himself replaying over and over again in the days that followed.

“I'm not entirely sure what I want to do next, maybe I'll always be too— too damaged to know how to think further than one day ahead. All I know is whatever I do, whatever days do come next, I need them to be with you."

At the time, he had been too distracted to consider the entirety of her statement. The storm shook the house, they were both soaked from the rain, his co*ck was hard and throbbing, and she was wickedly amused with her own stubborn refusal to listen to him. In that moment, all that mattered was the latter portion of her words, the actions thereafter that solidified their commitment.

But he’s often thought about the former half in the quieter and calmer moments since then.

Levi doesn’t answer her question, but he looks at the papers she holds against her lap.

Mikasa turns to look at them, too. “Oh. I’m making a list.”

He pauses. “Groceries?”

It’s not the real question; there’s no chance the list is for the marketplace when their plan is to leave at dawn tomorrow.

She blushes. That surprises him, and in the void that was his numbness, the surprise feels sharp and important. He takes a few steps forward, which seems to encourage her.

Mikasa tucks another loose strand behind her ear.

“When I came back with the caravan, I asked Briella what she thought someone like me could do beyond the Walls,” Mikasa starts, a pitch lower than her previous tone, another sign that she’s nervous. “But... I think I should have asked her what someone who is not like me could do.”

Levi stares at her. It feels like he should protest—he wants to protest— if she’s suggesting that there is something wrong or otherwise unwanted about whom she is and what it means for her opportunities on the coast.

But then she abruptly turns toward him again. The rose-tinted blush on her cheekbones and wistful speckles of lavender in her widened gray eyes give him pause. She doesn’t need encouragement; she’s already given it to herself.

“At least, not the version of me I had to be in wartime, and— and couldn’t stop being, even afterwards,” she clarifies. “I think— I think if I’m getting the chance to start over, I would like to figure out what I actually want to do, who I want to be...

“Without fear. Without the need to protect others. Without anyone else’s expectations.”

Levi is wholly and completely entranced in her unfiltered considerations, but Mikasa seems to notice she’s rambling or spoken more than she intended. She reaches for her necklace— rested above her ebony turtleneck and settled squarely between her breasts— and thumbs the jade stone where it meets the white gold bail.

Her next words are several pitches lower. “Does that sound ridiculous?”

It’s easier to move—easier to be— without the guilt weighing on his each and every step. Levi crosses the remaining distance between them and takes the seat beside her.

“No.” It’s one mere syllable, but it rings out with an adamant authority.

Mikasa shifts to face him fully, papers pressed hard against her lap. “What do you think?”

He doesn’t reach for her papers or ask what she's written. The words she’s spoken aloud are telling enough.

Another tendril of her dark hair escapes. Mikasa lifts her hand to catch it, but Levi beats her to it. He holds the strand between his fingers, considers her words from that night of fearing shipwrecks one more time, and then places it carefully behind her ear.

“I think you’re perfect.” Blunt and even; for Levi, sincerity and honesty are interchangeable.

Both of Mikasa’s brows lift upward, startled to the point of shock. The rosy hue from her blush deepens at once.

“That—well, that isn’t what I meant, but—...”

Levi considers that he’ll have to compliment her outside of the bedroom more often if this is how out of sorts she’ll get. He almost lets out a breath of amusem*nt, but he’s too focused on her initial request.

Though it’s just the two of them and there’s no need to whisper, he leans forward to find the shell of her ear. He speaks quietly, seriously, and wraps one hand over the one she uses to hold pen and paper.

“You’re thinking further than one day ahead. You’re not damaged.”

Mikasa inhales. "Oh."

Levi leans back to watch her. He doesn’t know, can only guess, at the content of her thoughts, but he sees them course through her mind in a whirlwind of chaos.

When she finally speaks, it’s a simple declaration. “We’re moving to the coast. To live by the ocean. Tomorrow.”

He nods. “Tomorrow.”

Mikasa reaches for him; she traces the pads of her fingertips onto the length of his jaw, and stops only to cradle the side of his face. She’s nervous still, but something else; the something else he saw on her visage before she knew that he was watching.

Perhaps for the same reason as he did earlier, she speaks in a near whisper. “I’m excited.”

He realizes it, too. Levi can see clearly it in the shimmering of lavender in her expressive gray eyes.

Excitement. That’s what it was. Levi places his other hand on top of hers.

Now he knows the sight of her excitement.

.

.

“Oi, Mikasa.”

“Mmm?”

“It’s time to wake up.”

.

.

Chapter 6: Only Source

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter 6: Only Source

Past - Year 851

The full moon arrived early. It hangs low in the darkening blues of the east, but to the west, the sky is on fire. She’s never seen the sun set like this before. It’s ordinarily reliable shape has blurred then melted, as if the sun set the sea and then itself ablaze. Wicked orange flames spread out wildly across the horizon. For the first time, Mikasa looks at shades of red and doesn’t see blood in them.

Gentle bands of water come to a crest and lapse above her knees, the physical translation of a soothing lullaby. Now that she's here, she isn’t sure how she is supposed to step back and leave.

Captain Levi stands behind her but remains on the shore, several deliberate steps away from the sea. He warily watched when the rest of them made fools of themselves, warning of toxins and incidentally willing them into existence. Connie stepped on some sort of translucent blob of a creature and then yelped as if bitten. Commander Hange found no teeth on the creature and deduced he’d been stung. It didn’t appear to be serious, but how could any of them be certain? Sasha ran ahead to unpack medical supplies, Jean helped carry Connie back to their equipment, and Hange gathered as many rocks, creatures, and weeds as they could manage before rushing off to evaluate the wound.

Eren and Armin left soon after. Once Armin managed to lighten the former’s mood, the two of them accidentally drank too much salt water and started to feel sick. Mikasa thought about going with them, but for the first time in so long, she felt sure that they were safe. She told them to go ahead without her.

The others will have to wait until tomorrow to see how the sun sets on the sea. The first night, it is only her and Captain Levi who have the opportunity.

While the sun descends slowly, it sinks fast. Mikasa’s eyes widen when it slips beneath the edge of the water. For an entire moment, the fiery shades remain vibrant even in its absence.

In a compulsion to confirm the rarity of the sight more than one of camaraderie, she turns back to her captain.

“Did you see that?” The wonder steals her attempt to shout and makes her breathless. “It’s so beautiful.”

Levi stares past her. Though the scowl had at some point been retired from his features, he remains unreadable. The dying embers of the sunset fire reflect from the glass of his gray eyes; their flames make it seem as though his vision flickers between her and the sea.

“It is,” he finally admits.

Mikasa wants to smile at the confirmation, and even more so wants to turn back to watch how the sea will swallow the last of the light. She finds that she can’t, though.

Everyone else had taken off their socks and shoes and ran into the water, eager to splash and swim. Though she had been hesitant at first, even she inevitably went in. So, why won’t Captain Levi? He is still dressed fully, the dark green military cloak billowing in the breeze behind him, the weight of his gear attached to his hips.

Then it occurs to her. There’s a different sort of weight that keeps him held down to the dry land.

Mikasa forgets about the sunset and takes a few steps closer to the shoreline. Waves move listlessly past the back of her knees. The lullaby fades.

“You know how to swim,” she says more than asks.

A guess, but an educated one. There are enough rivers and canals behind the walls, and even more in the territories the Scouts have surveyed beyond them.

Levi blinks, unimpressed with the observation, but says nothing one way or the other.

“And you’re not actually afraid of sea creatures,” Mikasa continues knowingly. She doubts their Captain fears anyone, let alone anything.

“There could be stinging blobs much larger than that little sh*t that got Connie,” Levi answers soundly.

“Yeah, there could be,” Mikasa says, but it is dismissive all the same.

She keeps moving to the shoreline, staring at him even once she reaches the soaked sands of land.

“What’s your point, brat?” Levi asks, one indolent brow lifted, no attempt made to restrain his annoyance.

He is used to her disregard for him— has seen her livid and vengeful on several occasions. There is something both the same and different about her mannerism now. She looks to him with a similar sort of unhindered focus, but it isn’t anger that motivates it. It’s something else.

“You know what my point is, Captain,” she says, even though he is not sure that he does. The ultrahard steel of her tone only sharpens. “Go in.”

Mikasa lifts a shoulder to gesture behind her, as if she left the ocean to make enough room for him.

“Tch.” He levels her with his signature flat stare. “Last I checked, it still isn’t you who gives the orders.”

Levi watches as his chosen words backfire. The crease between her brows deepens, and while the fire is in the sky and on the sea behind her, it is also ablaze in the conviction of her eyes. She steps forward, even more determined.

No, his reproach doesn’t dissuade her, but the opposite. It fortifies her resolve.

"You’re right.” Just because her voice is quiet does not mean her words are soft. “But Commander Erwin isn’t here to give you the order.”

The honest shock of it is the only reason a ruthless reprimand doesn’t fly off his tongue. No one speaks to him so brashly, so openly. No one. What lengths of impropriety will this brat not go to?

Levi has known her to be willful and insubordinate since the start, incapable of impulse control whenever it comes to Eren. A victim to her own emotional fallout; no rules and no regulations can deter her if Jaeger is involved. That’s what he originally thought, at least; that her contempt for authority was rooted in a misguided infatuation at best, a traumatic bond at worst. That isn’t quite true though. Because her willfulness isn’t only present when it concerns Eren.

More recently, when it was her other childhood friend’s life on the line, she nearly killed him to save Armin. There is no Scout, dead or alive, that knows of Levi’s strength and reputation and would still consider taking a shot at him; but the second she had an opening, she took it without further hesitation. Levi can count on one hand the times he sincerely thought he might be facing death, and looking into Mikasa’s frantic but calculated eyes as she acknowledged his weakened state and her advantageous position is one of them. She would have done that to save Armin, not Eren.

And now, she is bucking authority all over again, for what? To watch him step into the sea— just for him to wade in the salt water? This isn’t for Eren or Armin, it’s for him. Why?

Levi can’t make sense of it. Of her. It isn’t his life on the line, not that he thinks she’d find that worth breaking protocol or losing control over. It is his—...

With the force of a thunderspear, the realization strikes his chest. No, it isn’t his life that’s on the line, but his decision to end Erwin’s.

If it was the necessary decision. If it was the right one.

For the first time since Levi has heard about, and then witnessed for himself, Mikasa Ackerman’s remarkable strength matched only by her stubborn recklessness, Levi feels the start of an understanding.

He’ll have to reflect on it later. She remains hard and stern, staring at him as though the sheer force of her gaze will compel him to take off his boots. Walls, for all intents and purposes, it does.

Unable to sacrifice his pride, Levi glares at her. But he leans over to remove his boots. Warily takes off his socks. Slowly rolls up the hem from each leg of his pants. The entire time he waits for Mikasa to move along and leave him alone, but she doesn’t. She just stands there and watches him.

Levi can tell she already knows. For the likes of them, it doesn’t matter that grace is supposed to be a freely given gift. Since he can’t claim it for himself, she plans on forcing him to take it.

Unwilling to look at her, Levi turns instead to watch the sea. Perhaps for the first time since they discovered the coast today, he lets himself give into the temptation to think of Erwin— to earnestly look while he does it. All the breath in his lungs leaves him, a quiet, broken exhale.

It feels important, like the most important thing he will ever do, to take in the sight of what Erwin never will.

Russet shades of sunset continue to burn beneath the horizon while the full moon’s silvery light shines from above. The enormity of the ocean and the reality of its existence are incomprehensible. Yet the proof is here; in the echo of crashing waves and the lull of its endless movements. It is infinite and unreachable; it is real and right here. Both are hard to accept.

Levi doesn’t think to take the next steps, but as the tides slip back into the sea, they pull him in with them.

The salted water laps over his ankles and sinks his feet further into loosened sand. It should feel gross, make him cringe about getting dirty; but Levi looks down and watches through the crystalline waters as the tides ebb and flow around him, and it is the opposite of unclean. Priests he never listened to, sermons he didn’t attend, would call this sanctification.

Levi looks up again, unblinking as he turns toward the fullness of the sea before him. He wonders what lies beyond it. Because it isn’t just the crisp, cool waters with more salt than any merchant can dream of selling. Beyond the walls, there is so much more to the world, to their lives. The sea is the proof of it. The sea is the start to it.

He is too engrossed in the depths of his thoughts, too enamored with the sea’s hypnosis, to notice that Mikasa has come to stand beside him. Only when she leans forward does he see her in his peripheral vision. Something catches her attention on the seafloor and she pulls it out from the sand above her feet.

It is an ugly, odd-shaped rock, grayish with rough bumps. There is nothing noteworthy about it and he’s not sure why she bothered to pick it up. Levi starts to take his eyes off of it, but then Mikasa turns it in her palm and slides her fingers over what appears to be a seam.

She pauses for several seconds, and Levi thinks about warning her— it might have toxins or teeth— but, for some reason, he’s still in a trance and can’t speak.

Mikasa covers it with her other hand, wedges several fingers into the seam, and cracks it open. No toxins, and no teeth; instead, it has a silken, fleshy inside with a collection of miniscule orbs nestled inside both halves. She lets out an excited breath, a reflection of his own unexpressed surprise. Without eyes or a mouth, it doesn’t appear to be alive, but it certainly isn’t just a rock either.

He watches as Mikasa runs her thumb over one patch of orbs. It tears the thin layer of protective skin off of them.

“Oh.” Mikasa’s thumb pauses immediately, her eyes wide.

Levi finds himself taking a step closer for a better look. Without the fleshy cover, the orbs are in inexplicably pristine condition— opaque white spheres, shimmering when the moon’s light reflects from them. He has seen a handful of rare gems and expensive stones throughout his lifetime, but Levi knows at once that none of them compare to these ones.

Mikasa reluctantly withdraws her thumb, the only indication alerting Levi to the rest of her movements. Her shoulders seem to slump and her hands lower because of it. Before he can blink, she lifts the odd creature toward him.

Levi grimaces at the extension of her hands. He doesn’t take it from her, but searches her features for the reasoning instead. Like an one-eighty on ODM gear, the softness from her surprise is gone, and in its place, an unforgivable hardness. Her lips pull into a taut frown, a muscle in her cheek jumping from the tension.

Her words are quiet. “I didn’t choose Armin. I didn’t choose this.”

In an instant, Levi feels himself snap out of the trance, forced fully into focusing on the present. Mikasa briefly glances to the remnants of the sunset and then back down to the shimmering orbs. He only looks at her.

“But you did,” she finishes, pushing the creature and its opal-like orbs closer toward him.

When it is clear she won’t be taking no for an answer, Levi warily accepts it from her. He keeps it in the center of his open palm, as if it might leap off or slip out— as if he would let it.

Mikasa studies it one last time, but then her solemn gray eyes ping up to focus only on him. What he sees in her tortured features must be what she knows exists behind his veiled ones.

Within the flash of a second, Levi sees the rest of their lives; their inner turmoil will always be on display like a mirror for the other. Whether they want the connection or not. Though Armin is alive, she will never be able to forgive herself for relenting to choose Erwin. And while Levi does not regret it, he will never be able to forget choosing Armin and releasing Erwin.

How has this happened? With the petulance of a child, he wonders why it had to happen. No longer under the sea’s hypnosis, the vicious pain of Erwin’s loss is an inescapable pressure on his chest. Grief is a final reckoning, yet it deals out punishment far more than once.

Like she can read his thoughts, Mikasa attempts a warm smile. Though forlorn, it’s honest.

“You shouldn’t have had to,” she says quietly, unwilling to look at the creature in his palm even as she lifts both her hands to wrap his fingers around it, forcing Levi to hold it with more care. “But he trusted you to choose.”

The pain is visceral, searing every inch of him with the heat of Hell, branding him with its promises of eternal torture. Levi has to force himself to focus again. He listens to the sound of the sea, feels the gentle waves of salt water passing over his ankles. Lastly, he looks to the treasure she’s made him carry in his hands.

To the decision he had made.

The necessary one.

The right one.

Eventually, Levi intently wraps the rest of his fingers around the gift with more diligent care. Without further need of her assistance, Mikasa slowly lets her hands fall away from it.

Given over to the first moment of acceptance that he’s had since the fateful encounter on the rooftop in Shiganshina, he becomes entirely absorbed by the salvation offered by the sea. He doesn’t hear or notice when Mikasa leaves him.

Levi sits on the edge of the ocean for the remainder of the night, uncaring when his clothing becomes soaked. Listening to the crash of waves, under the moon’s illumination, he thinks again of his old Commander. Ever since Erwin’s death, he’s found himself tempted to hold conversations with a Ghost but disallowing it under any circ*mstance. That would be too strange, too pathetic.

But after the events of the current day, Levi no longer has it in him to avoid its persuasive power. Talking to Erwin, even if he isn't actually here, promises to provide at least an inkling of comfort.

Erwin would evaluate him without blinking an eye. I told you to pay attention to her, didn’t I?

It had been a brief recommendation before they left for the Ehrmich District to investigate the appearance of titans in Wall Rose. When Hange remarked that their squad selection was strange, Levi countered that Erwin had his reasons, but— being told to pay attention to Mikasa Ackerman was the only reason that left him uncertain.

Until now.

Levi might have been reluctant on the rare occasion, but he trusted Erwin implicitly, and was never incapable of admitting when the Commander had it right and he had it wrong. Especially in regards to analyzing those he barley knew, assessing their motives and potential in order to develop plans that unwittingly involved them. Still, …

“You couldn’t have known any of this would happen,” Levi speaks aloud. “Not even you could account for all of this sh*t, Erwin.”

Erwin would only continue to watch him; calculative, impossible to see the undercurrent of warmth unless you knew him and knew him well.

No, I couldn’t. A pregnant pause, but not from hesitation. You could say I took a gamble.

Levi almost flinches. Erwin’s most recent gamble is the reason he sits alone on the shoreline holding a conversation with a f*cking Ghost. Bitterness chokes out even the possibility of speaking aloud.

Too late now, but Levi reminds Erwin all the same. Sometimes the stakes are too high to take risks.

No, Levi. Words hardened by resolve. When the stakes are too high, all you can do is take the risk.

There’d been no arguing with Erwin when he used that tone then, and there is no room for argument now.

Levi side-eyes the halved creature he's kept on the sand beside him. The approaching tides seem to be climbing further up the shoreline. Salt water laps at the lumped edges, threatening to drag it back to sea with them. Planning to let it, Levi studies the pure white orbs one last time.

They are not all perfect. One of the miniature spheres has a scratch in it, a line of imperfection that can not reflect the silvery moonlight like the rest of it does. The recollection of her features comes unbidden: porcelain-perfect skin marred only by a thin scar beneath the left eye. Now in the safety of solitude, Levi lets his thoughts wander back to Mikasa and her motives.

Like it was earlier this morning, Levi recalls the first time he’d seen her; the manner in which she glared at him across the courtroom with such murderous intent he felt it drilled into the side of his skull. In surprising clarity, he remembers her tear-streaked face on the rooftop, her bitter desperation as her blade trembled beneath his chin. And then, flames of fire in her eyes, he thinks of Mikasa directing him after the sunset tonight. Her soul-searing gaze in every unapologetic demand. The stubborn maneuvering of her gentle touch.

She’s not impulsive at all, he realizes. Mikasa knows exactly what she’s doing and why she’s doing it. For outsiders looking in, the way he has been, it’s easier to blame her behaviors on infatuation alone. But not all of these events involve her adopted brother. If Eren is not the common denominator, then he is not the source. Then what is it?

Ultimately, it’s the moment on the rooftop that Levi replays over and over again, too reluctant to spend more time than necessary considering the one tonight. The terror on her distraught face even as she took the first step toward him. How hard she trembled even while successfully restraining him. She had every chance to kill him, but couldn’t.

An unorthodox pairing, a problematic duo: it is endless compassion and an indomitable will that drives her. How she falls apart from caring too damn much is inexplicably tied with her conviction that she can put all her broken pieces back together again. Her willingness to be vulnerable, to rip herself wide open, relies on trusting that no matter how much it hurts, how close it comes to killing her, she is strong enough to stitch herself up and be whole again.

Levi wants to find that ridiculous. Foolish and weak.

He can’t.

With a quiet grumble of expletives, Levi reluctantly reaches for the odd creature and its host of treasures. He shoves it to safety further up the shoreline.

.

.

.

.

Present

Winter tries to hold on. It’s bearable on days with cloudless skies, though the sun seems reluctant to offer real warmth. Riding through the open territory of the outerlands when it’s overcast and windy is simply miserable, the cold biting at Mikasa’s skin and chapping her lips. She relies on the tips and tricks taught in her time as a Scout, layering her clothes and consistently snacking on high-fat foods, a variety of hard cheese, chocolate, and nuts.

Even so, she prefers nights. Despite how the temperature inevitably drops, there are more opportunities to find relief. Out in the open, there’s the flush of flames from a campfire. Protected from the winds inside their tent, there’s the steadier heat of being pulled against Levi's side. On the nights when it’s too cold and they’re too miserable, conversation flows easier than sacrificing the clothing needed to properly f*ck.

What Mikasa vaguely considers ‘the coastline territories’ like it’s a singular and abstract entity, Levi knows each by individual name and through personal experience. Before they arrive, she asks him which one he considers home.

“None of them.” Then, after further reflection, he clarifies. “All of them.”

It’s a particularly cold night, the wind howling viciously outside their tent. Based on past expeditions, Levi thinks it’s winter’s last assault before retreating for spring. Mikasa accepts the inevitable fate of pins-and-needles in her arm beneath Levi and hopes he’ll do the same. It’s warmer when they face each other, when she can bury her face into his chest and focus on his scent underlying smoke and sweat.

His chin rests onto the crown of her head and she can feel the vibrations from his throat as he speaks. Levi tells her that she’s right, or at least, that she will be. There are sixteen territories, but Harlo and the other territory leaders are planning together for there to be only one. The current state of affairs Levi has been asked to help organize is the configuration of a Coastline Confederation. There are magistrates and senators, those in judicial roles and others crafting legislation, and while they are elected representatives voted on by the people, there has been rampant concern on its fairness. Most of the representatives are those with the most resources and wealth, not necessarily those representing the interests of the impoverished, orphaned and widowed. The position Levi has been asked to take will oversee the rectification of these disparities.

Mikasa lifts her forehead a few millimeters from his chest, only enough to be heard clearly. “Tribune of the plebes.”

Still, Levi isn’t sure he’s heard her right. “What?”

Mikasa leans back slightly more. “It’s in one of Armin’s books from his parents. They weren’t all about the different geographies of the world after the Walls, but history and peoples, too.”

“And the tribune?” Levi asks.

“A champion of the people, I think.”

He scoffs quietly, but then seems to think of something. “You said plebes.”

“Plebeians. Commoners,” Mikasa recalls.

She hadn’t exactly read it for each and every detail, but conversations with Sari and then manifestos like Harlo’s have resurfaced some of the memories.

“There were mostly wealthy and influential people in power. The tribune of the plebes was a position established to represent those that didn’t have all that. Plebes were— well, plebes were like the...”

Like the people from the Underground.

Her words come to a resigned halt. She doesn’t say it. Unable to see his expression, she can’t tell if it’s already offensive that she considered the similarity. Strange, the severity of childhood trauma; how it cuts deeper and bleeds faster than any other wound. Even for someone like him, like them, who have plenty of other injuries in comparison.

Levi is close enough for her to know if he’ll tense up, but he doesn’t. If anything, his chin settles more squarely atop her head. Mikasa leans into his chest again, waiting for him to say something, her lips pressed into his sternum.

“Spent a lot of time trying to put the Underground behind me,” Levi admits.

It is behind you, she wants to say. Which would be the truth. But it’s also part of him.

Mikasa thinks about the orphanages he helped Historia build out when she was first crowned, and all of their poverty relief projects since then; initiatives that ranged from fair wages advocacy to food distribution. Whenever Levi visited the Queen to discuss them, she stood nearby at half-attention, needing to worry less about Historia’s safety with Humanity’s Strongest in the room. Good thing for it too, because hearing Levi make directives on better care for neglected children had always been a terrible distraction.

Levi doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t share the rest of his thought process, but he doesn’t need to for her to understand. Accept it,was the advice he’d once given to her.If that doesn't work, find distractions.

Levi has run out of distractions. Moving to the coast and taking on this appointment is the start of acceptance. For awhile, Mikasa keeps her pursed lips on the steadied rhythm of his heartbeat.

“I have all of Armin’s things,” she tells him. “You could go through them. He wrote a lot about the things he read, especially after the war ended. What he thought of it all— how he thought things should be, a better way for society to… to function.”

Levi does tense at this, pausing for half a moment. “Are you sure?”

Mikasa flashes a brief and barely-there smile, and maybe he can feel it even if he can’t see it.

“I’m the one who’s been drinking half of Erwin’s wine,” she says softly. “I think it’s a fair exchange.”

“I hate that wine,” he intones, a more direct confession for the first time. “Not sure what was so wrong with tea, the man thought he needed that much f*cking wine.”

Mikasa thinks about the dusted books and journals she read out of a compulsion of guilt, not sincere interest. “Most of the books bore me. And Armin’s writing is too— too idealistic. I hate reading that, too.”

Not because she doesn’t believe in him and his dreams for the future, but because of how much it hurts that he wrote it all knowing he would never live long enough to see it. Still, it’s a terrible thing to admit to herself, let alone to speak aloud. All that’s left of Armin are the words he’s written and the dreams he’s documented, and she can’t even do those justice.

Mikasa bites her lip, waiting for an appearance of Armin’s Ghost; if he’ll blink away his sadness or try to hide it, turning from her in disappointment.Levi seems to wait too, evaluating her offer. No Ghosts show. Perhaps there’s not enough room in the tent, in the limited space between her and Levi while they talk about him.

“I’ll look through them,” Levi tells her, and his stark sincerity tells her that he wants to.

She can finish Erwin’s wine. He can finish Armin’s notes. There’s an uncanny sense of relief in releasing grief— not forfeiting it, but entrusting it to another. Mikasa sighs into Levi’s chest, murmuring a silent thank you that reverberates between them and the violent winds.

They are set on different paths that lead to the same direction. Levi, moving toward a calling he has found every excuse to postpone embracing, and Mikasa, abandoning an established life in favor of exploring a new one. According to Levi, hers is the primary motivation inlanders have for moving to the coast. He tells her she’ll be surrounded by like-minded company.

Riding several meters apart, their horses holding a steady canter, Mikasa considers him and the strange concept of being grouped in with others.

“Is that how they’ll see me, as an inlander?” Her deliberately mild tone reveals an unspoken concern, though the more Mikasa thinks about it, the less confident she is about identifying the root of her worry.

Levi hears it regardless. Is she just another inlander, or a retired soldier? Mikasa waits for him to answer, thinking about one or the other, if it’s possible to be both.

“Most of the people on the coast have made a concentrated effort to forget the past,” he tells her, watching to see how she’ll react.

He means they won’t care about the identity of The Girl worth a Hundred Soldiers who personally guarded the Queen behind the Walls. Mikasa mostly feels relief over that. From Harlo’s revolutionary writings and Sari’s wistful ramblings, she knows the people brave enough to leave their old lives behind are those bold enough to demand the coast offer them a brand new one. If not, they plan to carve a better one out for themselves. Either way, there’s no room for the blood stains of the past.

But the part of her that flares with indignation, she struggles to understand.

“And the people who want to remember?” Mikasa asks.

He seems to have to think about it, even though she knows he’s one of them. Facing forward with both hands on the reins, he answers. “I don’t know. I guess they have to remember on their own.”

The rest of their riding is silent; Mikasa, pensive, and him, patient. They stop next in the later afternoon, setting up camp in coordinated efforts of a well-established ritual. There’s enough logs for Mikasa to get a small fire going, but they’ll need more to cook dinner and get through sundown. It’s her turn to chop wood, but Levi shakes his head when she picks up the axe and offers to do it instead. She’s not sure if he needs the time alone or knows that she does, but either way, she’s grateful when he disappears into the nearby woods.

Mikasa sits cross-legged in front of the campfire, curious at her own reflective mood. Maybe it’s the start of springtime, the sun starting to shine with warmth, flowers beginning to bloom in earnest, that amplifies her thoughts on the upcoming season. Or maybe it’s the map Levi rolls out each morning, the way he places his pointer finger on their current location and she sees that the distance left between now and their arrival to the coast has shrunk to mere millimeters. She still has no idea what she’ll do once she gets there.

Leaning over to grab her pack, Mikasa reaches for the side-pocket and tugs open the zipper. Another well-established ritual, but this one’s personal: she takes out her papers of notes from their last day in Mitras. By now, she’s folded and unfolded the papers too many times and the creases are so worn she has to be careful they don’t rip.

She reads the worn ink words of her list. Jobs that are typical of retired soldiers, ranging from private security to law enforcement. Roles that rely on what she learned in her time ranked as Lieutenant, managerial and full of logistics, perhaps with the merchants or tradesmen. Random jobs, like a ship-builder, which was originally meant with irony, but starts to garner more appeal once compared to the professions listed on the bottom. Educator..., teacher..., each with an ellipsis made from uncertainty. It’s easier to imagine herself doing manual labor than facilitating lectures.

None of it feels right. She aches for the certainty of a purpose, the simplicity of something being obvious and undeniable to push her forward. Mikasa toys with the thin, withering paper in her hands, and when her eyes slip close to rest, the sensation of the touch reminds her of something else entirely: her collection of browning, dried flowers.

Those dried flowers are what enticed her to join the caravan and go to the outerlands with Levi the first time; the moment she realized she was choosing to hold onto their brittle petals once they were dead instead of being the one to pluck them while they were still living. Mikasa opens her eyes, pausing her touch on the brittle papers.

Maybe she doesn’t know what she’ll do, if she’ll find her own purpose. But she can decide to trust the process, to trust herself whether or not she discovers it.

Mikasa begins to tear the papers with a delicate precision. She gathers the shredded pieces into her right palm and continues the task with unnecessary care. Once she’s done, she lifts them toward the fire and discards them into the jumping flames. There’s no bitterness in her as the papers ignite, their edges caught by a brilliant blaze before blackening to ash, and no fear either.

Armin would be right beside her, encouraging. You’ll figure it out when you get there, Mikasa.

He’s right. Standing several feet ahead, Eren would turn back to look over his shoulder; a rare, wry grin. You know Armin is always right.

Mikasa watches the list as it disappears to ash. She doesn’t respond to either of them. Their sentiments are kind, kinder than how her guilt twists their words in her nightmares, but ultimately unnecessary. It isn’t just the list that has turned to ash. Her self-doubt has been dismantled with the same precise manner she shredded the papers.

It’s nearly dark by the time Levi returns with additional firewood. He makes a neat pile with most of it, then sits down across from her with the remaining logs. She doesn’t miss his sharp cursory glance, but she isn’t sure whether to throw a stone at him and his lack of subtlety or smile because of it.

“I’m fine,” she tells him, and a small smile slips out.

Levi lifts a brow, his sarcasm palpable. “Who asked?”

If she had reached for the stone sooner, she would have pegged it at him. But the corner of his mouth twitches and she sees the eased slant of his shoulders, that he’s relieved. Levi tends to the fire, expertly adding logs in an arrangement conducive for cooking, and Mikasa studies him through the dancing flames and trail of smoke. Is this what being in love is? Always wondering what you could have done to possibly deserve the other person? It’s Levi’s turn to prepare dinner, but before he finishes with the fire and starts moving toward their packaged food, Mikasa gets up and tells him she’ll take care of it.

Later on that evening, at the tail-end of her pensive mood, she considers the dark mass of starlit sky. She grieves for humanity in the way she supposes Eren used to. How could they have let fear guide them to worship the Walls that surrounded them, instead of looking further up and to the skies beyond them? Mikasa counts the countless stars. Against the darkness of night, their clarity of light is pure ivory, a white more sacred than any stone in Sina, Rose or Maria. Existing beneath their endless expanse, she thinks that the stars are like the Overseers of second chances.

“You remember the last time we were out here,” Mikasa mentions, and it might seem out of the blue to him, but it feels decidedly on time to her.

Levi tosses her a curious glance. “Yes.”

She knows what she has to say, she wants to say it, but she still looks at the toes of her boots while she does it.

“After that morning in the meadow. I shouldn’t have hid,” she tells him, blaming her flushed cheeks on the campfire.

Levi is unconcerned, stoking the fire with a sturdy stick. “I knew that you would.”

That makes it worse, not better. Mikasa swallows a spark of frustration, and focuses on her original intent to apologize. “And after we talked in your tent. I shouldn’t have run.”

Levi prods one of the logs into a better position. “Saw that coming, too.”

She flinches. “Levi.”

His attention snaps toward her. It has been a long time since Mikasa has been sincerely angry with him. What previously would have been a display of apathy is now replaced with a rare admission of concern. Seeing it flash over his features, brief but earnest, cools her temper at once. The resentment is self-directed, after all.

“I—...” she starts and stops, trying to remember when it began.

Maybe he would think of something different, but she remembers their conversation the night of Hange’s birthday dinner that brought her to the outerlands the first time. Perhaps it’s the reason she’s here this time, too.

“I don’t want you to make bets that I’ll be late, and then win them,” she says, quietly at first but then with growing resolution. “I don’t want you to wait for me to run.”

Levi stares at her for a silent moment, considering the secondary meaning of her sentiment. She doesn’t want his empathy, but his expectations.

He remains serious. “Alright. Then next time, don’t run.”

It doesn’t spark shame when she feels so certain of her intentions. When next time is spoken with intentions of his own.

Mikasa lifts her chin. “I won’t.”

Like she needs to prove it, she continues to stare without so much as blinking— drilling her spoken vow into him.

The left corner of his mouth lifts, the start of a smirk. Though it belays amusem*nt, his words are still hard. “Come here.”

She is not one to listen the first time. Instinct has her asking, “Why?”

He tosses the makeshift stoker to the side of the campfire and brushes both hands off on his thighs. “Because I’m going to finger-f*ck you so hard that you scream.”

And when she’s seated but writhing between Levi’s outstretched legs, both his arms wrapped around her front, diligent fingers pumping inside of her, Mikasa stares up at him, at the stars above him, and comes to the sight of second chances.

.

.

.

They arrive to the coast.

Her sorrel-shaded horse senses her hesitation first. The stallion slows his pace from a fast, three-beat canter to the steadied two-beats of a gentle trot. Mikasa only notices once the distance between her and Levi stretches out so far she finds the scenery ahead of her joined by the back of his head and the swish of his dark-haired mare’s tail.

She doesn’t urge her horse to move any faster. Even though the ocean isn’t yet in sight, the salt hangs in the air, and the faint chorus of crashing waves reaches her ears like an old, but unforgotten melody. The coastal breeze is all together unmistakable; a pungent scent of washed-up seaweed, a wet spray that coats her cheeks.

Made from limestone and seashells, the gray, gravelly path they travel on is meant to be travelled. Unlike her first time to the coast, when nothing was marked and no one had ever been out here before, this path is already old. She watches the hooves of Levi’s mare step up and onto the gravel, thinking of all the other travelers who have made the same trip; some of them to visit, many of them to stay.

Though she never returned to live in Shiganshina, enlisting in the military had been to protect her loved ones and their home. And while she went back to the cities behind the Walls, winning the war was for humanity’s freedom to live beyond them. Despite her avoidance of the coast and wariness to become one of its citizens, she’s suddenly reminded of her connection to it- and to them. To all the people who walked this path. Everyone who lives here is only able to because of soldiers like her.

When Mikasa finally looks back up, there’s an approaching wooden arch at least six meters tall. Waxed and polished, the dark walnut shines with significance. Though not close enough to see the words carved into it yet, she can tell it marks the end of the path. The roaring of waves sound so close it’s hard to believe she can’t yet see the ocean. Her horse moves them forward.

Mikasa reads the words chosen to be inscribed into the arch. As she does, Levi pulls back the reins on his mare to slow himself down. She waits until he half-turns toward her.

“New Horizons Pass?” Mikasa reads off the arch, gaze flickering over to him in mild amusem*nt. “That’s catchy.”

His eyes fall to half-mast. There’s no venom in his retort. “Eat sh*t.” Then, to clarify, “I didn’t come up with it.”

Mikasa starts to smile, but she realizes Levi hasn’t just slowed, he’s come to a complete stop. He’s at the end of the path. Or, depending on how she chooses to look at it, the start of the sea.

Her hands tighten instinctively on the reins, but the stallion continues his steady, cautious pace. Levi dismounts, watching her, but she’s only focused on what’s beneath the cliffside.

Though it’s an unremarkable if not dreary day, an overcast sky made of dull, muted grays, it’s still the most magnificent sight she’s seen: the sea surges to the shoreline, darkened blues and deep greens holding dimension despite the dim daylight. Powerful waves roll forward, white foam forming in structured arches and then crashing with wild abandon. Mikasa tracks the nearest waves back to their source, a massive body of water so endless it promises to go past the horizon line.

Her horse comes to a halt and she remains seated in the saddle. Mikasa forgets to breathe.

Years have passed since the first time the Scouts met the edge of their world and discovered the ocean, and she recalls it in vivid clarity now. But it isn’t the events of what happened around her on that day that come to mind; not the shell in Armin’s hands or the splashing and squeals of her other comrades. Instead, with the unrelenting force of a freefall, she remembers herself.

Her surprise at the reality of the salted water, but latent excitement at last unleashed, holding onto her socks and stepping into the sea. Her initial worry at the war-fatigued thoughts plaguing Eren’s features, but the comfort that came soon after; an eternal warmth derived from their togetherness, an uncompromising confidence in her ability to protect him and Armin. Her inner strength bound so securely; there was no titan, no thing, that could ever make her yield to it.

An uncomfortable lump lodges itself in Mikasa’s throat. In the years that have passed since that day, she’s yielded more times than she can count.

She’s not sure how many moments pass before Levi approaches her. Still astride her stallion, Mikasa can’t will herself to look down at him. There’s more than just the sight of the sea that has stolen her attention.

Who she was the first time she met the sea and who she is now returning to it are not the same person. Mikasa feels the difference between them with a searing intensity that slices her wide open. The intoxicating buzz from youth and naivete, being convinced of everything; what mattered most, who she was. I am strong. Real strong. The young woman who lauded the sentiment before frightened peers in Trost, certain of the truth of it—of herself.

When was the last time she’d been so certain?

Mikasa feels a stinging pressure behind her eyelids, familiar when it’s for the loss of others, foreign now that it’s prompted by the loss of herself.

She used to be brave.

The realization makes her swallow hard, but regret continues to choke her. The years of wandering aimlessly, staring at sunsets she couldn’t see, touching dead flowers instead of planting ones of her own, waiting for nothing and wanting for no one, not even herself.

How could she have forgotten how to be brave?

A single tear slips down, the only relief of pressure Mikasa will allow herself. She studies the relentless rush of waves and listens to its continuous rhythm, remembering days spent staring at walls, alone in her suite but lonelier in crowds, holding onto war trophies and talking to Ghosts, swallowing the wine or the whiskey not for its taste, but for its ability to make her forget.

How much time has she lost?

And time, like every loss she’s suffered, cannot be brought back no matter how hard you grieve for it.

Levi interrupts her morbid reveries. Either misreading the reason for her extended pause, or reading her entirely too clearly, he anchors one hand onto her lower back and glides the other across her stomach. On such a sensitive space, his little finger grazing beneath her navel, it’s a testament to her distractedness that she doesn’t startle.

Mikasa has just enough time to loosen her feet out of the stirrups before he grabs her waist and lifts her off the horse. An instinctual need to protest almost slips from her lips, she’s far too tall and heavy, but then she remembers who’s carrying her. She lets Levi guide her down until she has two feet on the ground.

Her eyes are still trained onto the ocean. The weight of the moment is too heavy to simply shake off, but Mikasa attempts to collect her bearings, reluctantly aware she should force it off her shoulders.

Except Levi hasn’t let go. Though his hands are cold, the pressure he applies is firm and faithful, holding her in the same position in a manner that feels like permission to remain in the same moment.

She doesn’t mean to speak aloud, but the realization is a ballooning pressure inside of her, and once it bursts, she does.

“I forgot,” Mikasa admits, her hollow words barely louder than a whisper.

Levi follows her line of sight to the ocean. “What it looks like?”

“Yes,” she says, even though it sounds false and she shakes her head. Then, under her breath. “No.”

Not what the ocean looks like. What she looks like.

Even through her layered clothing, his thumb seeks out a known ridge of her upper abdominals and rests onto it. Levi turns himself to face her, and something in his measured movement has her finally turning toward him too. The gray of his eyes are so unlike the dull, dreary sky. They are vibrant, shining— alive.

Gratitude floods through her. It’s not soft and soothing, but jarring and violent, dislodging half-buried hurts and washing away the clutter of grief. Instantly, she knows. Knows with the same vehemence she brings to a battlefield, the same conviction she simpers and shouts as he fills her in the bedroom, that she cannot let another moment pass with her eyes only half open and her heart kept safe on the sidelines.

Mikasa takes hold of Levi’s hand above her waist.

“I think it’s my turn,” she says quietly, a trace of playfulness to mask the severity of her seriousness.

Levi only lifts a curious brow as she clutches his hand first, then removes it. Mikasa makes quick work of her cloak’s clasp, her shirt buttons, and the buckle of her belt. She haphazardly folds the garments, unceremoniously handing them off to Levi in order to unlace her boots.

He studies her like she’s gone mad. “The water will be freezing.”

Mikasa finishes kicking off her boots, hearing her own rendition of his spoken words: the water will be freeing.

“I know,” she says, unconcerned.

Levi grunts, amused, and she flashes him a gentle smile while he watches her step out of her pants. Ready for it this time, he tucks the pile of clothes between one arm and his chest, then extends a hand to collect the rest. Once Mikasa gives him her pants, she’s left in nothing but her flimsy undergarments, jade necklace, and bare feet.

“Thank you,” she says, looking at him intently.

He shakes his head once, eying the pile of clothes and about to dismiss her.

“No,” Mikasa interprets, and he abruptly glances back up. “Not for carrying my clothes. For being alive.”

It’s an odd thing to thank someone for, the sentiment strange as it slides out from her mouth. But it’s the truth, and of all the virtues she’s held or hoped to hold, it’s truthfulness that always tastes right on her tongue.

What Levi has shared with her, from their sobering moments as Scouts to the more recent secrets spoken beneath the stars, have been stories of starvation and solitude, death and disaster. Too many traumas for one man, not even Humanity’s Strongest, to have been expected to bear. Yet he did, and he’s here, and he’s hers.

Understanding flits over his features. His narrowed lids and furrowed brows transition to an uncharacteristic openness; it shows like concern but speaks of his grieved memories. He breathes in, and she barely hears him breathe out, as he settles into a softer version of his ordinary stoicism.

Mikasa doesn’t anticipate an answer, aware she unearthed terror and tragedies. She traces the tips of her fingers over the center of his chest and turns to leave.

She doesn’t get the chance to make a full rotation. Levi reaches for her, claiming bare skin covered in gooseflesh above her elbow, and turns her back toward him. Mikasa spins, blinking once while he drops her clothes at their feet.

Levi wraps his free hand around the column of her throat, and then his lips are on her, hungry and hurried.

His urgency strikes a match that instantly sets her own desire on fire. He’s the only source of warmth, his breath hot as he parts her lips immediately, a guileless and graceless demand to taste her. Mikasa dips her own head back, opening herself up to him and his near-wild attention. The first chance she gets, she chases his tongue as if it was her who started the pursuit.

His thumb pushes roughly into the soft tendons of her neck; she doesn’t protest, her jaw loosening further, too heady to consider how he can possibly claim more of her. Like a man starved, he prompts her lips to widen further in every kiss. Mikasa isn’t sure who devours whom.

Fast as he initiated, Levi retreats. His grip on her throat loosens first, his firm hold subtly shifting into a careful one. He traces the back of his knuckles down the length of her neck. Like it pains him, Levi slowly stops their next kiss, both their lips still parted in the stuttering out of a heated conclusion.

Mikasa clutches onto the fabric of his shirt, still spinning. Neither of them move, sharing breaths.

“Levi,” she says, his name part of her shaky breath.

“Hmm?” His response vibrates against her bottom lip.

“When I get done, be waiting for me at the shoreline,” she continues, an undercurrent of desperation in her demand.

She isn’t ready to open her eyes. Mikasa feels the subtle curve of his mouth against hers and knows the shape of it is bending toward her favored smirk. He finds her bottom lip, his teeth dragging it out the furthest it can go. Then he bites, a final punctuation that elicits her breathy moan.

Levi reluctantly releases her lip. “Why’s that?”

Even though he angles off her, his nose sliding against the side of hers, his hot breath is a reminder of the moment before.

“As soon as I’m done swimming, I’m shoving you straight into the sand.”

He lifts his chin up further, catching the inside of his bottom lip onto the tip of her nose. Levi forfeits his next breath to ask, “Then what?”

Her lids flutter open. His eyes remain closed for a split second longer, a fleeting opportunity for her to catch him in his private wanton thoughts, and it sends a jolt of need pulsing between her thighs.

“Think I’ll sit on your face,” she decides, lifting a hand off his chest in favor of dragging two fingers over the flesh of his bottom lip. “Then you can carry on as you just were.”

The steel in Levi’s eyes flash, a throaty and primal hum emerging deep from his throat. But when he speaks, he’s steadied and serious. “I’ll be waiting.”

Mikasa withdraws, unwilling to blink as she continues to appraise him. She hesitates only for a moment, reluctant to let the fire burning through her die down to smolders. Her earlier determination is born of something deep inside of her though, and it hasn’t diminished in the slightest. The chorus of crashing waves seem to sing for her ears, calling her closer to it. She turns to its direction, mesmerized all over again.

Ready, Mikasa reaches behind her neck, brushing loose strands from her braid out of the way and searching for the white gold clasp.

“Here,” she says, unclasping her necklace with care.

She delivers it to Levi’s nearest hand, the thin chain curling into his palm first, the pale green jade stone nestling into it second. He wraps his fingers around into a secure hold.

“Go on,” Levi says, lifting his chin toward the man-made steps sculpted into the blunt edge of the short cliff. “Your turn.”

Mikasa studies him briefly, long enough to see the honest sense of understanding in his patient gaze, and then she nods before setting off. Not to the end of the path, but to the start of the sea.

It’s an easy climb down the cliffside, and she wonders during the descent if Levi didn’t name the overpass, if he helped carve out the steps. She starts onto the dunes, loose sand cold beneath her toes, and approaches the incoming tides.

A lifetime has passed since the last time she swam in the sea. Vivid memories try to assault her mind, nightmarish sights of gore and an all-encompassing grief. At first, it takes effort to ground herself in the safety of the present. But the closer she steps toward the choppy waters and crashing tides, the sea starts to make it easy for her. The ancient rhythm is practically made for soothing, begging for her to enter, to receive its stability and security.

She looks over her shoulder just once. Levi stands like a sentry in the same place, waiting by their horses under the wooden arch of New Horizons Pass. Then Mikasa steps into the sea. Your turn.

The water is freezing, painfully so, and she knows if she thinks about it for a second longer, it’ll convince her not to go any further. So, before the end of that second finishes, Mikasa takes several steps forward. Frigid water sloshes against her shins, then her thighs, and she dives in as soon as there’s enough depth to push herself entirely under.

The water is freeing, profoundly so. She swims hard, with all the strength she has, matching the force of each incoming wave with power all of her own. As she moves beneath the salted water, acclimating to the cold, accepting all that she’s lost, Mikasa is deeply aware and fully certain of only one thing.

She’s already lost too many others.

She refuses to lose herself.

.

.

.

The house itself is perfect. Even from the distance, Mikasa admires the coastal cottage as they approach. Set uphill from the sand dunes, it stands alone on a rare patch of grassy land in the secluded southern coves. No neighbors, no noise. A quaint and quiet house, a kingdom all to themselves.

She greedily takes in the sight. Standing two-stories high, an impressive wrap-around porch and upstairs balcony, all clean, white panels and pillars. A stark ivory rooftop with mother and tongue grooves, an eloquent contrast to the cozy, dove gray exterior walls. There’s a haphazard arrangement of overgrown greenery in potted plants and hanging planters. A home.

Mikasa drops the reins on her horse, too distracted to guide the beast to a halt before she swings her legs over and hops off. Levi probably gathers her stallion and dismounts too, but she’s too focused on the house to confirm it.

There is a sense of finality; this is an ending, the end to everything and everyone that defined her life before.

Mikasa approaches the raised, white wood deck of the front porch. She pauses there, studying the large, mahogany door set against jet black shutters. The rectangular panels of glass windows are tinted so that an outsider can’t see in, so she finds herself avidly searching the large, white-trimmed windows instead. Through them she looks inside: an open floor plan, vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors made with polished pine, each wall trimmed by thick, white molding. Natural light filters through the many front and side-facing windows. Without rugs, furniture, or décor, it is both large and full, open and emptied. Their home.

There is a sense of new beginnings; once she takes these steps and goes through the door, it’s officially the start to everything and everyone that comes next.

What she owns, what she brings to it, has already been delivered. A mess of boxes are stacked in the far corner, most filled with wartime mementos, belongings that passed to her only due to death. This is meant to be theirs, not hers. From this angle, Levi’s boxes can’t be seen, but Mikasa looks on regardless, thinking about what he’s owned, what he’s brought.

Levi must have taken care of their horses. He approaches from behind and brushes a hand over her lower back while passing by. She doesn’t realize she’s aching until the loss of contact causes her to startle, starved for more. Mikasa’s attention snaps toward Levi; she watches him climb the three steps she hasn’t taken yet. He reaches for keys kept safe in his pocket, takes them out with steadied hands. Levi’s hands are always steady.

The past encroaches on her. The future does, too. Mikasa stares at the beautiful mahogany door, her own reflection appearing distorted in the tinted glass windows. Even so, for the first time in a long time, she sees herself clearly: she knows who she’s been, and she knows who she wants to be. She’s just sworn to herself in the sea to never again forget it.

“Well,” Levi starts, unlocking the front door, turning back toward her. “Ready?”

In the liminal space of taking her first steps toward their house, in the manner Levi pushes the front door open, she is uncertain if this is an end, if this is a beginning, or what it means when it is both.

She peers inside, notes that her overstuffed boxes are piled high, the baggage she’s brought so messily on display. But Levi, who always tidies as he goes, who is far more organized, has brought more than she did. She looks inside, seeing nothing that belongs to him, knowing it’s all there. It’s just better hidden.

Mikasa stands on the threshold. The house itself is perfect.

.

.

That morning in the meadow, he had been watching for it. The fear that flickered over her features, a moment of understanding that what they’d shared irreversibly shifted something between them. If he hadn’t been subconsciously searching for it, anticipating it, he would have missed it. It’s the reason he misses it now.

Levi pushes the heavy, mahogany door open and takes several steps into the front room. It’s as surreal and stepping into a dream. He’s not sure for how long he’s wanted this— this life, this life with her— when war and its aftermath discolored every day and damaged all of his decisions. But the reality of the moment sinks so deeply into him, Levi suspects it’s been for longer than he’d care to admit.

When he turns, Mikasa isn’t looking at him or the house. He’s not sure what she’s seeing, her pupils stark against the softer shades of her irises, stilled eyes and hardened features devoid of all emotion. Somehow, it’s the Mikasa of older days that he witnesses; not the shell she became in the first year after Eren passed, but the soldier and survivor beneath it. Except she’s not on the frontlines, she’s barely one step into the front room. She stands there like she’s bracing for an attack.

For almost a full moment, Levi doesn’t breathe. He’s never been one for delusions, has never had the luxury of lying to himself. But he waits too patiently, too purposefully, telling himself that the next time he blinks, she won’t be staring with unseeing eyes. He’s only just become acquainted with her excited ones.

Mikasa reaches for her throat, an old, unconscious habit, and his half-formed delusion shatters. Her lithe fingers slip under the white gold chain, her thumb curves against the teardrop of pale jade. Then she clamps down around the necklace, holding tight.

Levi feels the world as it turns, the floor beneath his feet shifting into quicksand. It takes effort to refill his lungs, requires trust he doesn’t have to hope they’ll remember to breathe for him.

“Mikasa.”

She blinks. When her lids open, she looks toward him but not to him. In the steep climb up from his denial, he glances at her row of knuckles on the nervous cradle of her necklace. He is all too familiar with signs of her reluctance, her rituals for mourning.

Levi lifts his chin, ignoring the hammering of his pulse, the desperate need to take a deeper breath. “You don’t like it.”

Her lids flutter, surprised, but then Levi watches the defensive arching of her taut shoulders, the half-curl of her free hand forming into a fist. The hand holding the necklace grips tighter, her knuckles turning white.

“That’s not it,” Mikasa says carefully, chewing her bottom lip. Her tepidness is dissolved by the time she releases it. “I love it, Levi. It’s perfect. Growing up, I… I imagined a house— a home— like this one. And by the end of the war, after everything we went through; a place like this, this freedom, this peace… it’s all I wanted.”

He can tell she means every word that she says, the same as he can tell there’s still more she is reluctant to say. Mikasa takes in the vaulted pine ceilings, the grand open floor plan, the oil-painting worthy view of the coast from the front windows. It’s not that she’s been unseeing, Levi realizes. It’s that she’s seeing something he cannot. Like she’s seeing ghosts.

Mikasa turns back to him, openly distraught. “It’s everything I’ve wanted, but it’s… it’s not—...”

Her words are wrecked with grief. Her watery, washed-out gray irises are drenched with it. A grief viscously different but no less despondent than others he’s witnessed from her.

It’s not…

Waiting for the rest of her words is like standing next in line at the gallows. Levi waits, the quicksand no longer just beneath his feet, but filling into all four chambers of his heart.

Mikasa tries and fails to finish the sentiment. She looks everywhere around the room, at her boxes, at the enormous front windows, at the fireplace in the adjacent living room, at the staircase leading to the upstairs rooms, but not to him. She looks everywhere except to him.

Every traveling vein, each pumping artery, turns to lead. A cold, heavy reality settles over Levi. When the understanding comes to him, it's the noose tightened around his neck. It isn’t ghosts that Mikasa is seeing; it’s a Ghost.

It’s not who she wanted, Levi suddenly understands. That’s what she meant to say: It’s everything I wanted, but it’s not who I wanted it to be with.

Levi wonders why he doesn’t see Eren too. She isn’t the only one being haunted.

He stands there, stone-still, not at a desperate loss, but with a dismal certainty. There is something about the utter cruelty of it that only makes sense. It’s a piece to a puzzle that was missing but not entirely absent, now returned and sliding perfectly into place.

Never once has he held something in his grasp that didn’t slip through. Never once has he loved someone that didn’t disappear before his very eyes. Had he been foolish enough to think this would be any different? Levi orders his lungs to breathe.

As fast as his head starts to spin, it slams to an abrupt stop. If he has learned anything from expeditions spent slaying titans on ODM-gear, it’s how to find his footing after a free-fall.

“Alright,” he says, carefully if not coldly. “I see.”

Mikasa’s owlish blink is more than just weary, but he doesn’t have the ability to focus on it.

Levi looks at her like she’s a collapsing house of cards. A deck he shuffled and a hand he dealt to himself. The precarious arrangement made possible by his stubborn refusal to acknowledge its inevitable outcome: they were built to fold inward and fall apart.

“See what?” Her confusion is laced with an edge of warning, a question as much as a threat.

Levi doesn’t heed the warning. The harsh words come easy; his subconscious has been primed for disillusionment, prepared for the cards to collapse. He just hadn’t known it until now.

“You were uncertain from the start. I should have known you’d be uncertain now. This is always how it was going to end, wasn’t it?”

She flinches when he says end, the slash of pain fast and fleeting over her features. It echoes back to him, through him. He willfully ignores it.

Mikasa takes half a step toward him, then retreats. “No,” she says, floundering at first, then fortifying her response. “No. Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t say that.”

Like it is him who has harmed her, and not the other way around. Levi lifts a brow, patient and seemingly unperturbed. He’s had plenty of practice in disappointment. If he looks closely enough, his entire life might be a comprehensive study in it.

“Don’t say what?” Levi challenges listlessly, one hand sliding into his front pocket. “What you’re too afraid to say aloud, or what you’re too afraid to admit to yourself?”

Her brows furrow. Levi sees it for what it is, an admission of confusion, an accidental confession. That she hasn’t deliberately ignored a longing for Eren, just hasn’t realized how it continues to lay dormant underneath. Which one is worse than the other? His stomach churns, an unfamiliar bout of nausea rolling through him.

Mikasa starts forward again. He’s unsurprised to see her confusion shift into anger; an old and faithful friend, her ultimate defense.

“Afraid? I’m not the one who’s been cowardly,” she says hotly.

Levi doesn’t bat an eye, but the hand hidden inside his pocket forms into a fist. “You couldn’t even make it through the door without finding a reason to run, Ackerman.”

Hot, honest pain flares out from her. Levi becomes acutely aware that he’s never before been the source of it. If he hadn’t spent a lifetime wearing apathy like a second skin, he wouldn’t have been able to hide his grimace now.

But Mikasa was a soldier trained for combat, a child conditioned to survive. She knows how to use the flames from pain to weld her own weapon.

She closes the short distance between them in three even strides, reaching for his collar with one hand faster than he can counter. Too late, Levi removes his fist from his pocket. Mikasa’s already shoved him into the wall behind him, her glare as unyielding as her grip on his shirt.

“I’m not running,” she says, something earnest shredding through her fury. “I’m right here.”

Levi leans into her grip, pushes toward her pain. “You’ve just made it clear you don’t want to be.”

Her lips curl into a silent snarl he barely has the chance to evaluate before she snaps forward, her second hand fisting into his shirt and shoving into him without any restraint. He’s not able to brace with the back of his shoulders, isn’t able to mind the placement of his teeth. The back of his head ricochets against the wall, a starburst of pain rocking through him. Blood instantly pools where he’s bit down on his own tongue.

If he’s honest, he doesn’t mind the pain. In fact, he starts to wonder how he can get her to do it again, ways to hurt him worse.

“I don’t want to be here?” Mikasa repeats, the desperation more prominent, but the fury escalating, too. “I left everything behind to be here. I left everything behind to be here with you.”

Levi exhales, bitter thoughts belatedly presenting themselves on his bleeding tongue. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? It isn’t supposed to me. It’s supposed to be Eren.”

Her eyes widen fully. She startles enough to falter a step backwards. “What?”

Before Levi can say anything else, she reclaims her lost ground and tightens her hold on his collar. The fabric rips, the top button pops loose, but neither notice. “Where is this coming from? He has nothing to do with this.”

Levi is consumed by collapsed cards. By his emptied hands. He doesn’t think of consequences when all the cards have fallen, when there’s nothing left for him to lose.

“He always has something to do with you, Mikasa.”

Her breath leaves her in a violent whoosh. She drops her hands from him at once, as if a whip of that earlier fire roared to life, searing them off from where they’d been tethered together. Mikasa takes one solid step back, then stumbles through the second.

Levi watches the torrent of grief and rage rival for first place on her features. Still nauseous, the bodily instinct to vomit edges at the base of his throat. But he has had years of practice— a lifetime of practice— in loss and disappointment. It’s made him into this, into Humanity’s Strongest. No weapon has ever been forged against him.

At this moment, he’s too blind to consider ones forged from within.

Tense, terrible silence erupts, a near tangible pulse between them. Despite the rattling in his skull, Levi is aware enough to regret the caustic words he’s said. That it was only spoken to rile her temper, cruel as it was, to distract her with her own vulnerability. To deter her from seeing how she is his own.

It worked, at least. She won’t look at him. He swallows bile.

“That’s really what you think?” Mikasa asks, almost but not entirely resigned.

Levi pushes himself off the wall. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. “That’s what you were thinking when you got here, isn’t it? That this is everything you wanted in life. It’s just not who you wanted it to be with.”

Lavender shards freeze into place in her cold gray irises. There’s nothing save for sincere shock left on her visage. Her whole frame seems to ice over next, rigid in a manner he’s never seen from her, shoulders straightening and features hardening to the likeness of tundra.

Adrenaline crashes through his system, its siren shouts disrupting all coherent thought, and Levi doesn’t have the capacity to consider her lack of guilt or shame in this response; in her initial one, either.

Mikasa again turns from him, her weary and worn exhale as broken as the ones from their past. Levi can barely look at her the same as he cannot stand to stop staring at her. He focuses only on settling the nausea, waiting for her to deliver the final blow. It might be the first battle he’s ever surrendered.

But she only lets out a little laugh, scraping her boot heel against the hardwood floor for another outlet of release. “You’re wrong, Levi.”

He blinks, caught off balance by her confidence, the sureness in her tone. When she turns to him, her glassy-eyes narrowed with refusal to form tears, Levi realizes it’s the same grief that has been present from the start. Not just from before he carelessly brought up Eren, but even before he called out her uncertainty. The realization does nothing to settle the writhing in his gut.

“I thought it didn’t matter, but it does,” Mikasa says quietly, reluctant but composed.

Now that there’s a contrast, Levi realizes. He is not composed.

Before he can ask what, if he can find out if he can even summon the words to ask her what, she shakes her head to herself and continues on.

“For years, I wondered if I left too soon, or if you spoke too late.” Mikasa frowns, staring at him with a plea for air, already drowned by resignation. “It’s you. You speak too late.”

Every cord of muscle, each tendon and sinew wrapped around his spine, tenses from the attack.

Mikasa lifts her chin even though it starts to tremble. “The night of Hange’s birthday. I invited myself to go with you and the caravan. The morning in the meadow; you- you looked away. I made the first move. And that afternoon in your tent, I'm the reason we had a conversation about us. Then, you were back in Mitras for a week, but you didn't find me first. Icame over, the red wine an excuse, some sort of peace offering. You- you brought back flowers from my mother’s garden, but you wouldn’t touch me. You weren’t certain what to think when I touched you first. Then— in the rain…”

Her hands tremble. Her voice trembles.

“How many times have we not said goodbye? I always waited. In case you’d say something, anything. But when I left that night, I could care less about the storm, I just kept thinking about how wrong it felt to keep waiting. I couldn’t stand it any longer, but you— you could.”

Her shoulders tremble. All of her trembles.

“I turned back. I turned back, and I told you how I felt. I told you to take me with you. Walls, I’m only standing here right now because I told you to bring me here—… I said everything. I did everything.”

It is not the blow Levi anticipated, but it is just as final.

Her bravery and breaking heart are boldly on display, but for the first time, Levi looks inward. Emptied hands. Empty hands. Levi has always and only had empty hands. Has he ever bothered to build what might last, ever learned how to hold on tight enough to ensure that it does?

His mom. Kenny. Isabel and Farlan. Petra. His entire squad. Erwin.

No. He hasn’t. Not when life dealt him a sh*t hand from the start, ensuring every game he played, he lost. Not when with the best of his intentions, nor with all his strength and skill, could he build a house of cards that wouldn’t inevitably collapse.

Mikasa watches his understanding of her torment barrel through him, the knowledge that it has nothing to do with Ghosts and everything to do with him, and she stumbles further back.

The woman who holds onto her loved ones through a keepsake on her neck, the woman who can’t come unless she’s holding on, has fallen in love with him and his empty hands.

Chapter 7: Last Question

Chapter Text

Beyond the Walls

Chapter 7: Last Question

Tepid tea held by bored hands. Flecks of dust suspended in a streak of midday sun. Not a marble statue, but a man: hot-blooded and shifting, an occasional brush against her side to prove it. How he looks to her first, then answers.

Mikasa can feel the warmth from that day as she remembers it.

Neither of them were in the mood, both protested bitterly, but Commander Hange insisted; a rare snap of severity in their ordinarily jovial tone and that was that. They reluctantly halted their complaints.

It was the Berg Newspaper’s first time out to see the coast and their reporter was promised an insider's look into the life of the Scouts during wartime. Hange hoped that the exposé would bolster morale behind the Walls and bring in more funding and support for their regiment. Unfortunately for Levi and Mikasa, the reporter wasn’t only interested in stalking the Titan Shifters throughout the week, but them. As if that wasn’t intrusive enough, toward the end of the visit the Ackermans were served up to the greedy-eyed journalist like decadent desserts on a silver platter.

Mikasa wasn’t impressed with the lines of questioning, finding them too morose or too fanatic. Her responses were automatic. If she had more details to share, she gave them. If not, she didn’t bother to scrap something up in a sentimental offering.

Levi was no more animated, but his statements were at least more prolific. She was a recently promoted Lieutenant who refused to discuss her friendship with the Titan Shifters. Levi, famous enough in his own right, had been the near-constant companion of the Scout’s previous Commander and was just as close with the current one. He was more acclimated to the spotlight and its sensationalism. He also held little reservations in sharing his blunt and unfiltered opinions, clearly less concerned at the thought of invoking Hange’s wrath.

As the interview went on, the reporter mostly consulted Levi. Mikasa found that more than agreeable, remaining quiet at his side and nursing her tea, only half-listening to the questions. Warm sunshine filtered through the open bay window, a streak of gold stretching across Levi’s legs. Flecks of dust danced in the slant of sunlight, drifting over his ankle crossed casually atop his knee. He was warm too, near enough she could feel the heat radiating off from him. Too near, apparently; anytime one of them shifted on the sofa, they’d accidentally bump against the other.

“What’s it like,” the reporter asked him, wide-eyed and solemn. “Being Humanity’s Strongest, knowing the fate of mankind is resting solely in your hands?”

Levi simply blinked. “Couldn’t tell you,” he said, and his eyes shifted toward Mikasa for a second, bored and bland as they’d been the entire interview. “It isn’t.”

“Right,” the reporter marveled, looking between the two of them with an uncomfortable amount of admiration, then turned back to their pad to jot down some notes.

Mikasa stared at the words as the ink met the paper. At that point in the war, she had reluctantly accepted her ever-growing reliance on Captain Levi. But only then, seeing a stranger scribble more notes beneath his weeklong study of their ‘steadfast partnership’ and ‘tenacious camaraderie’, did she consider for the first time, Levi might be relying on her too.

Nothing changed after the interview. They continued their usual routine to train and spar at dawn, to argue over tea steeping times and battle plans at dusk. He still pissed her off, barking out orders to clean alcoves no one could reach, and she still retaliated, the only one brave enough to deliberately leave piles of mess where he’d find them. And yet, everything changed after the interview. A shift toward mutual understanding, some kind of unspoken agreement in solidarity. The sturdy foundation for their odd friendship; one built on implicit trust, of turning first to each other instead of to the others.

Tepid tea. Midday sun. A golden beam arched across him. Accidental touches. Mikasa isn’t sure why she remembers it with such clarity now. Perhaps because after all these years, despite enduring war and death and trauma, it’s the first time she notices a crack in the foundation.

.

.

Standing in the front room of their house, tearing down the veil that’s covered both their vision, Mikasa considers that she might faint. It’s all been her. Levi may have set pieces on the board, but he never lifted a hand to move them. Whatever he measured out on his set of scales, the risk never weighed enough for him to take it.

In a tumbling of half-coherent thoughts, she continues to make a list. It’s as much to herself as it is to him.

She invited herself to go with him and the caravan.

She propositioned him in the meadow.

She initiated the conversation in his tent.

She brought the red wine and came over to make peace.

She made him tell her the truth of why he gifted her the necklace.

She touched him first while he only clung to the book with dried flowers.

She turned back around and shouted for him in the rain.

She told him how she felt even though he couldn’t.

Speaking these realizations aloud does something foul to her heart; the blood coursing through her veins replaced by self-served poison. Even though she wants to stop, needs to stop, her tongue continues the torture. Like she is announcing the charges of a crime, only it isn’t him who will be punished.

She demanded that he take her with him to the coast.

Mikasa wants to sink to the floor, weary from weeks of hard travel, the weight of his accusation nearly as heavy as her own realizations. Instead, she relies on all she’s ever had: herself and her strength.

Seeing her own distress reflected on his grave features gives her no satisfaction. He isn’t the one serving the sentence.

Mikasa tries, even as the fear ripples through her. “If I hadn’t come over that night— if I hadn’t turned around during the storm. Would you have—...”

She can’t finish the question, not when she can tell that Levi already knows his answer. There, in the unnatural tensing of his clenched jawline, in the muscle that jumps in his left cheek, he’s reckoning with the reality she’s revealed to them.

Levi doesn’t make her wait. Even spoken quietly, it’s too honest to sound anything but harsh. “No.”

Mikasa doesn’t flinch. “You never would have made the first move in the meadow. You never would have made any of the moves without me.”

Least of all the final one to join him on the coast. It’s not a question, but he straightens his shoulders and tells her just as squarely.

“No.” The nodule in his throat bobs once, then disappears when he swallows. “No, probably not.”

Mikasa refuses to flinch. She stares him down, holding onto all of herself and all of her strength.

“Then we wouldn’t be together,” she says, willfully ignoring the watery film over her vision as she looks around the room. “We would have never—...”

We would have never ended up here. A single tear falls, and she swipes it away immediately. It is the goodness of the last few months that begin to break her. Remembering the wild, violent sex and the slower, steady love-making. Conversations while cooking dinner and cleaning dishes, sometimes teasing, sometimes tiring, but always together. Misaligned tea times and different preferences; more often than not, he made hers and she made his. Arguing on the feasibility of liberal plans and oppressive flaws in conservative ones. Confiding to him what she remembers about her mother, the surprise when he started to share about his own. Every dusk and every dawn with each other.

If it had been left up to him, none of it would have happened. They wouldn’t have happened. Mikasa tries to force the what ifs and hopeless hypotheticals away, attempts to rely on the logic and rationale to prove that he loves her, but it isn’t a lack of love making her mourn. It's loneliness.

The loneliness of loving too much. The jarring, soul-straining pain of loving more than being loved. A loneliness she thought she buried for the last time in Shiganshina.

Mikasa has always loved too much. She has always loved more. She has always loved most. And it burns harder and hotter than Hell to think she might never receive what she has so wholeheartedly given.

She closes her eyes, refusing to accept it. This is Levi. Levi, the only one who was strong enough to hold her back long enough for Armin and Jean to shovel dirt over Eren’s grave. Levi, who kept her flush against his tear-soaked chest, murmuring the same, single promise against her shrill cries and violent sobs. One day, you’ll be alright. Levi, who had no obligation to consider it a promise, but still did everything in his power to fulfill it.

Everything, except for make any real attempt to be with her. Her eyes fly open.

“You would have ended up without me, and— you would have been alright with that?” Mikasa holds onto her necklace like it’s her last lifeline.

He hesitates.

Levi hesitates, and it shatters everything left in her and all the strength she has left.

Her knees wobble, threatening to topple her. Only through a soldier’s training does she keep her footing, stepping further back instead of stumbling. It lands her next to the front door, and she glances at the mahogany wood with a grimace. She doesn’t want to leave. More than anything, she wants to stay.

Seeing her at the door snaps Levi to full attention. “No,” he says, an undercurrent of desperation in his blunt demand. “You said it. No more running.”

Mikasa straightens too, both of them fueled at a challenge, unblinking while staring down the other. Despite the tension pulling between them so hard she is sure it will snap and that she will break, she remembers their conversation in front of the campfire. Then next time, don’t run. Looking at each other, several feet apart and an impossible distance between them, she thinks it might be the only thread they both agree on to hold them together. She hopes it is enough. I won’t.

“I’m not running,” Mikasa says through her teeth. Like the breath has been knocked out of her. “I’m not- I’m not leaving. But you need to start speaking.”

Levi stares at her, at the space behind her left shoulder, to the wall beside her. Waiting for him to figure out overdue words is the longest moment of her life, somehow longer than the years she went without them. The longer it takes, the more she’s certain she will be forced to regret what she’s said. But there would have been a steeper price to pay in remaining silent, one she knows she can’t afford anymore.

Mikasa waits, the silence staggering.

Eventually, he sighs. Thinking again of how if endings look like beginnings, then beginnings can look like endings, she holds her breath.

“That night at the tavern in the Underground. You were at the bar, but I took a table in the back. Do you remember?” Levi pauses, waiting for confirmation.

Mikasa nods hesitantly, remembering. She noticed him enter through the reflection on tri-colored bottles, but even as she took her time with a glass of wine, he didn’t approach. Once he did, he avoided her questions on what he was doing there, why he wanted to find her. It resulted in her usual frustration, and ended with a slight altercation. Later, Mikasa assumed he’d only been there to tell her about Hange’s birthday dinner.

Levi nods too, unnecessarily. She isn’t used to seeing him like this, signs of discomfort every time he studies a different part of the room or works his jaw to loosen enough to speak.

“It was the first time I considered saying something,” he admits. “I sat there, planning to.”

She blinks. Startled, she asks. “Why didn’t you?”

He doesn’t struggle for this response, his reasoning as simple as second nature. “Because it wasn’t the first time I wanted to.”

Mikasa crosses her arms loosely, a minute shake of her head. He’s said it so plainly, but she doesn’t understand.

“I couldn’t before,” Levi continues, and the way he says couldn’t is absolute. With finality, leaving no room for debate: he doesn’t mean he wouldn’t, he means he couldn’t. “I thought I’d be able to tell, that it would somehow be obvious, if the day ever came—... when enough time had passed. If, or when you would be ready.”

Mikasa tenses, the implication of his words hanging in the air between them. The day he was waiting for didn’t come. In some ways, maybe it never would.

There is no predetermined timetable for grief. There are no tidy boxes of who you are and who you become while surviving, no simplified categories of before and after in the healing. Loss is a parasite that remains with its host. Even when, especially when, no one else can see how much it’s stealing from you.

Levi starts again, an impossible contradiction; his gaze turns gentle to the same degree his words harden.

“You were skin and bones, Mikasa. You might as well have been a ghost. You don’t remember the first year after Eren’s death because you were substituting vodka for tea first thing every morning.”

She flinches, but his words are on a roll, rumbling out. “After Armin passed, no one could find you for a month. And when I did, you were— you were sleeping against a wall in a god-damned Underground alley. You can’t tell me that was a coincidence. The one place you knew I wouldn’t be, the best chance you had for none of us to find you.”

Mikasa’s cheeks flush; he’d been far more tactful the last time she asked him to fill the gaps in her memory. Levi runs a ragged hand through his hair, his disposition shifting in reverse. He glances sharply at her, but his tone lightens.

“Like an idiot, I tried to let Sasha convince you first. She begged you to stay with her, to at least come in for a bath, sleep one night in a bed. When that didn’t work, I had to drag you there myself.”

Mikasa blinks back tears, but refuses to turn away from him. “Alright,” she whispers. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Levi asks. Not with sarcasm, but serious intent. “It didn’t matter what I wanted. It never did. It only mattered that you were alright, and there were times—” He cuts himself off. After a hard pause and measured breath, he continues. “There were times when that seemed too much to ask. But you did it. Slowly. Eventually. You seemed to get better. You started eating more, you weren’t drinking in the mornings. You took the job with Historia. You were spending time with Sasha again.”

He pivots, only glancing at her briefly. “f*ck, do you know how hard she cried telling me you visited her two times in one month? I’d never seen her cry before that. Like it wasn’t safe yet.”

There’s no point in willing them back, the tears leak from her eyes despite her best efforts. Armin warned her of this, she remembers then. Right before he passed. With his gentle wisdom and kind eyes, telling her if she buried her grief, it would come back one day and explode when she least expected it.

Levi doesn’t let up. He’s doing exactly what she asked of him. “When I started helping on the coast, you promised to write, and you actually did it. And- and you even started going out, spending nights with other men.”

Mikasa opens her mouth, the compulsion to apologize even though they hadn’t been together, but Levi continues on undeterred, not needing or expecting an explanation.

“So yes, that would have been enough for me, because it wasn’t about me. It was only about you. Whatever you needed to be alright, I would have been fine with. If you wanted to spend the rest of your life without me in it, decided to do it with someone else; well, as long as you weren’t a f*cking shell of your former self, I would have accepted that. Not happily, but— I would have accepted it.”

He’s not angry, but something close to its severity, and he looks at her sharply. “I can’t apologize for that. I’m not apologizing for that.”

Mikasa, who has long since been spent, slumps her shoulders against the back of the door. Her grief was not an abstract entity, nothing as singular as a state of a mind. It was a spiral of self-destruction. A start with no end to near-permanent depression.

Looking at herself through Levi’s lens, she sees it. A debt that should have only been hers, he willingly helped pay. She hasn’t considered everything it cost him.

“Alright,” she says, nearly soundless, like there are too many things to say, so she is left to resort to none.

As gracefully as she can, she slides down the door into a seated position. Too worked up to settle or sit, Levi remains standing, still several feet from her.

“After that?” Mikasa swallows the lump in her throat and looks up at him, tear-streaked but determined. “Even after that, you always hesitated. Even when you knew how I felt, you weren’t sure about me coming with you. Why? Did you— do you think I’m that fragile?”

His eyes widen, evidence enough against it, but she waits for confirmation.

“No, Mikasa.” A gravelly, unamused exhale. He starts to push another hand through his hair, but slides his palm down from forehead to chin instead. After another moment in private deliberation, he turns to look at the sea outside the front windows. Like a strike of flint, something comes to mind and flashes in his gray eyes.

“You worry about shipwrecks?” Levi asks dryly. “I worry about the feeble planks and shoddy boards.”

Her exhausted brows lift, recognizing their rueful metaphor, but then they crease, uncertain on his own interpretation.

He paces for a few, deliberate steps, but he stops as soon as he starts. Instead, he’s suddenly still. Something about his resolve leaves him preternaturally calm, composed to the point of coldness. Mikasa wraps both arms around her knees and pulls them to her chest, certain he’s about to tell her something he never planned to. She’s not sure how to feel; grateful or guilty.

“My father was absent from the start. Maybe it would have been better if my mother was, too. Instead she starved herself, sacrificing her own portions to make sure I had enough. She died in her sleep, and I should have died too. But Kenny came, took me for reasons I didn’t understand then, don’t entirely understand now. Maybe I should be grateful he taught me how to fight, how to survive, but I’m not.

“I watched his back when he walked away from me, and even then, I knew he was leaving me behind for good. That he never planned to see me again. With Isabel and Farlan, I should have had it: friends, a second family, really. Then they were gone, too. The first friends killed. But that was only the beginning of it.”

Mikasa watches him worriedly, her eyes wide and burning. Levi looks at the wall beside her head, sometimes glancing between her and the door.

“Joining the military, those first expeditions, it was more of the same. One morning I’m having breakfast with a group of soldiers around a campfire; a few hours later, I’m collecting their limbs, cutting off their patches to bring at least something of them back to their families. That’s the problem with being Humanity’s Strongest,” he says, lacing it with the same venom as she had done in regards to her own potential. “I knew I would survive anything, the same as I knew the others wouldn’t.”

He shakes his head, tries to clear out the cobwebs of memories that cannot be cleaned away. Mikasa swallows. He’ll clean every hour, every evening, and every day for the rest of his life, but it will never be enough.

“Then I get my own squad, and I’m responsible for them, knowing the same sh*t. Every soldier I brought on, the best of the best: no matter how hard I drilled them, how well I trained them, I knew it’d only be a matter of time before I watched them get killed too.”

There’s too much weight on her heart; it starts to creak and groan, collapsing beneath the pressure. She knows what’s coming next. She knows who is dying next.

Levi inhales sharply, exhales swiftly; fueling himself to find the words. “Even Erwin— I knew, even before he lost his arm, that the day would eventually come and he’d be gone too.”

And there had been no one Levi valued, no one Levi loved, more than Erwin. Mikasa hates the distance between them, the literal steps in the front room, and the steeper ones she put between them by starting this conversation.

Every inch of her vibrates with the urge to jump up and touch him, but Levi notices. He lifts a hand partially up, levelling her with a look that tells her not to. Since he’s started this, he needs to finish it.

“Everyone,” he says, and it is so much worse that he does not sound sad in the slightest, that he’s only sharing the irrefutable facts. “Everyone I had in my life, I knew it wouldn’t last. That it was only a matter of time before I’d end up burying them. Or worse, only bringing back their patches.”

Even through the fog of horror clouding her mind, she grapples with an understanding. Levi, Levi and his death-drenched life, are the feeble planks and shoddy boards. A ship built to wreck.

She struggles to find something to say, intimately aware that words are just a cheap salve that cannot soothe third-degree burns. Mikasa clings to herself until she can cling to him.

Something shifts though, a sense of finality that follows the conclusion of what he’s shared. Levi stops threading a hand through his hair, no longer darts his eyes across the room. He’s calm, but this time, he doesn’t seem cold.

Levi sighs, both his shoulders dropping as he turns to her. “Then you came along.”

She isn't sure she’s ever heard him sound like this before, blithe tone softened by something similar to relief. “My entire squad and almost half the Scout formation wiped out by the Female Titan, but not you. You survived when no one else did. If it weren’t for the skin-hardening, you probably would have taken her out on your own.”

No, not relief; admiration. He sounds in awe. At some point, she had stopped thinking about herself, her insecurities immediately buried beneath the magnitude of what he’s shared. Though he clearly intended to steer the conversation in this direction, Mikasa startles when it leads to her.

“I remembered then what they said about you in the courtroom, how you killed as a child, and I knew you would be different, strong— but it wasn’t until you almost killed me on that rooftop that I realized how strong. How different. From that moment on, I knew it wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one who was strong enough to survive.”

He doesn’t have to clarify for her to know he’s talking about more than physical strength. Their battle on the rooftop had been as much about inner resolve and a dedication to humanity’s survival as it did with muscle and vigor.

Mikasa doesn’t blink, afraid to take her eyes off of him for even a sliver of a second.

“No, I’ve never thought for a second you were fragile,” Levi says. “You were the first soldier, the first person I knew wouldn’t die on me. sh*t, you were insufferable at first. I thought if anything did kill you, it would be your own recklessness. But things changed during the war."

Levi gestures to the view outside the large open windows. "Training on this coast, fighting side-by-side. Spending time together for no tactical reason, nothing to do with the Titans. You weren’t the insubordinate brat, but the only comrade I could count on completely. The only person I knew would stay alive, who— who would be able to stay with me until the end.”

Mikasa meets his brazen gaze but struggles through her shock, recalling the final years of the war with new layers of understanding. The two of them might have been inseparable, but she assumed it was due to his pity and boredom, or maybe Commander Hange’s orders, and that she’d been an inconvenient convenience. Not someone significant outside of the battlefield. Not someone he considered the only one.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” Levi says, resigned but resolute. “But you’re the only person I ever let myself become attached to. When the war ended, I didn’t know how to let go. I sure as Hell wasn’t going to tempt fate and ask for anything more.”

He stares down at her, hard and unapologetic. “You think I hesitate, that I won’t make the first move, because I don’t think being with you would be worth it? That’s not it, Mikasa. I can’t afford to be wrong, to push you too soon or too fast. I can’t lose any part of you just because I’m selfish enough to want all of you.”

Five, ten— fifty thoughts fly through her mind, all of them competing against the other. Despite their chaos, she’s keenly aware of one certainty stringing them all together. He’s quite wrong to think she doesn’t want to hear it.

A whirlwind of memories whip around in every direction of her mind, rewriting themselves with what he’s spoken. Out of all of them, more than a decade’s worth of them, their memories together and their moments apart, she settles on that of a simpler one.

Deciding to walk over to Sasha’s house. Feigning an appetite for toast. Clutching hard onto her teacup. Catching up with her closest friend while privately working through her maladaptive denial. And then her confession, admitting then what she’d been unwilling to in the years prior. I think that I - well, no. I know that I've become attached to Levi. And Sasha, with her sweet, wicked smile and eerily reliable instincts. That means you love him, doesn't it?

“Attached,” Mikasa says carefully, the softest of smiles gracing her lips. “You’re too attached to me.”

Levi frowns, brows knitting with concern. He’s probably worried she’s delusional from disappointment, Mikasa realizes belatedly. She clears her throat, uses both hands to expediently push old tears from her face, and tries to explain.

“When I first admitted to Sasha how I’d become attached to you, she knew what I really meant. That I was in love with you.”

Her smile is close-lipped, but it widens, too genuine for Levi to misread.

Sensing her lack of disappointment, Levi’s grimace eases until it eventually disappears. She can tell he’s grateful for the release of at least some of the pressure in the room, they both are, even if it’s not enough for them to leave the valve there.

Levi approaches her, slowly but surely, and she cranes her neck upward to keep her eyes locked onto him. He kneels in front of her, and once he’s close, Mikasa lets go of a breath she had no idea she’d been holding. Grateful for his nearing presence but starved for more, she doesn’t hesitate to reach out for him, both arms looping securely around his neck.

He’s more cautious, lifting one hand to cup the side of her face, a centimeter of space left between his palm and her skin. For several seconds Levi studies it, the gap he’s used to keeping between them, and then he closes it himself, cradling her cheek. She lets out a shaky breath, one he’s only heard in the bedroom.

“Yes,” Levi says, directly meeting her gaze. “You already know that.”

“I do,” Mikasa assures him. The promise is in her eyes, in the nod of her chin against the base of his palm, in the sincerity of her declaration.

Levi holds on tighter, a grip that would hurt if it was meant for anyone else. “But we’re not having this conversation because you think I’m not in love with you.”

“No,” she agrees quietly, her heart hammering louder than her words. “We’re not.”

He thinks about it. Mikasa’s mind still spins, reweaving thoughts and memories with all the new threads of what he’s said.

“There’s one question you didn’t ask me,” Levi tells her. Her brows start to lift in question, and he promptly clarifies. “About this house.”

Mikasa freezes. It all comes back to this, to the moment she stepped into their house and tried to reconcile how Levi could have moved here alone and lived in this home without her. Everything he has just shared is far more than she meant to ask of him, enough to unpack for a lifetime, but still, it doesn’t alleviate the specific, aching loneliness she felt standing on the threshold. It doesn’t answer this last question.

She fights with herself to form the words, too afraid to consider that he’s prompted her to ask. How he’s unconcerned, running his thumb down her jawline patiently.

“Alright,” Mikasa tries. “Would you be here… moving to the coast, living in this house, without me?”

Like the other times, Levi doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

Mikasa stares at him, and the pressure ballooning in her chest is far greater than anytime before. It is infinitely worse, full of sweet-laced anticipation, the sort she will not entertain, the kind she cannot afford. If this bursts, she isn’t sure how she will survive it.

“What?” she asks, a breath quieter than a whisper.

Levi doesn’t blink. His thumb continues to trace across her cheek, pausing at the corner of her parted lips. “I don’t own this house. We have a six month contract as renters before we have to decide on ownership. I told Harlo I need the same amount of time before I decide to accept the job permanently or not. For now, it’s an interim position.”

Mikasa shakes her head, still in disbelief. “I thought- I thought you were coming here regardless of whether I did or not.”

But she had put those pieces together herself. Brielle told her he turned down the caravan’s job offer, Sasha told her that Levi asked Connie if he would buy his house if he decided to sell. Mikasa assumed he intended to leave Mitras even before they slept together in that meadow.

“No,” Levi says again. “I knew I couldn’t do that. I hated Mitras, but I hated leaving you more. I started to prepare, to plan, in case you would decide to come with me.” Walls help her, there’s an almost boyishly shy quirk of his lips. “Might have even prayed a bit.”

She doesn’t know how to believe him. Not because she thinks he could possibly be a liar, but because of how diligently she has spent the last hour trying to find the mental fortitude to cope without this affirmation. Levi sees her hesitation.

“Come here.” He drops both hands to her waist, gathering her into his chest as he stands.

Levi lifts them both and Mikasa accepts the help, eying him curiously when he leads them to the kitchen. Passed the stark white cabinetry and marble granite countertops, and to the triple-paned window overlooking a ceramic sink. Facing the side of the house, it isn’t a generous view of the coastline; instead, it’s a rare patch of grass-covered plains of an endless backyard. Splashes of color steal her entire attention.

Countless patches of dandelions are strewn across the yard, their golden crowns swaying proudly in the wind. Mikasa steps forward on her own, as earnest as she’d been earlier when dismounting from her horse. She stands at the sink, first staring out at the stubborn, wild weeds strewn out randomly in the yard, but then turning only to the ones kept in a wooden planter attached outside the window.

Weeds don’t belong in planters. Dandelions aren’t the most attractive choice for such a prominent placement. No one would deliberately plant weeds outside the kitchen windowsill.

Not unless they’d been told what, and where, and why they were her favorite.

Mikasa falls forward, resting her elbows down on the sink’s ledge. Mid-morning sun shines on the yard, golden light slanting onto the dandelion’s marigold hues. Compared to the brittle, faded shades of dried flowers she’s kept between pages, these ones are vibrant and lively. The way they should be. Blooming where they belong.

Levi, positioned a step beside her, takes advantage of her relaxed posture to stand directly behind her. Looping both arms around her stomach, he drops his chin atop her right shoulder and looks forward too.

Mikasa closes her eyes. More significant than the sight of the flowers is the feel of Levi holding her. She focuses only on him, cataloguing each sensation. The hard planes of his chest pressed neatly into her shoulder blades. Firm pressure from his thighs resting into the curve made by her partially bent knees. The weight of his chin tucked securely into the crook of her neck. She has no idea why he’s gripping hard enough to bruise, but relishes in the rough pads of his fingers digging into the flesh above her hips, the strength in his forearms wrapped securely across her stomach.

She thinks she might be able to remain like this for forever. If loss hadn't forced her to learn to value just one more minute, to treasure a single second more, then even forever wouldn’t be long enough. As it stands, Mikasa has learned to be grateful for every moment that’s given to her.

“You planted those the last time you were here,” she says eventually, quietly in consideration of their close proximity now and the dismal state of their distance back then.

“Well I don’t know sh*t about gardening,” Levi answers just as quietly, his breath warm as it brushes over her collarbone. “Harlo and his daughter helped.”

Mikasa smiles briefly, leaning further into him, serious again. “You didn’t know that I’d ask to come with you when you did that. When you did any of it.”

“No, I didn’t.” Levi pauses. “You could say I took a gamble.”

Her lids flutter open. She considers her words carefully. “You sound like Commander Erwin.”

“Hmm.” Levi manages to grip harder, tilting his chin toward the column of her throat. “Yeah, I know.”

Mikasa tries to turn and better see him, but he’s buried into her neck. Her lips part, unprepared but planning to make some sort of conciliatory remark, when Levi shifts. His chin lifts upward, just enough for the side of his nose to slide up the length of her neck. He looks at the gold-crowned dandelions planted outside the windowsill.

For a man ordinarily conservative with his commands, he issues the following ones with chilling authority.

“If I hurt you, or if I fail you, then you leave. If this place makes you unhappy, if it asks you to be someone who you’re not, then you leave.”

Mikasa tenses, startled eyes vying to search him, but Levi carries on uninterrupted; his warm breath against her cheek, all of his strength strapped around her sides.

“But you are never allowed to leave for thinking I would do anything less than everything for you.”

The world stops spinning. Grinding to a halt, she’s left stunned. Breathless. Like the final kiss he pressed against her skin that morning in the meadow, surprisingly tender and entirely unassuming, she’s reminded again of how Levi loves. Without expectations. Regardless of whether or not she’ll reciprocate. Enough to wait, to remain committed even when she couldn’t.

When the world starts to spin again, it moves around the same axis but rotates in the opposite direction. In this world, Mikasa loves more and she is loved most.

.

.

How they make it down to the polished pinewood floor in the adjacent room is a blur. Whether it’s Levi who walks them backward or her who guides them forward. Without blinking, without breaking stride, they make it out of the kitchen.

Neither are patient. Levi bunches the material above her waist into a fist and yanks it out from her belted pants. Mikasa focuses on undoing the rest of his buttons until she remembers his shirt is already ruined; she reaches for the lapels and rips until the rest of it opens.

Neither are willing to compromise. Mikasa shoves the rest of his shirt off his shoulders at the same time Levi tries to work her top up her torso and over her head. After a tangle of limbs and rough reaches, the torn fabric compromises for them.

"Right now?" Mikasa asks, though it's hardly a legitimate question.

Taking advantage of newly exposed skin, she lays both her hands onto each side of his sculpted chest. They're praying hands, flat and ready to bow; instead of kneeling onto a mat, she presses in to worship him.

Reaching behind her back, Levi glides his palm up and over every nodule of her spine. A twist and turn of his practiced fingers, and Mikasa feels her bra loosen from the sudden unclasp. Like a mission accomplished and the soldier sent home, he drops his hand back down to her waist.

"Right now," Levi answers, palms from both his hands sliding down possessively to curve beneath her bottom. He grips hard, every intention to bruise.

In the far corner of the living room, next to the stack of their boxes and before the dormant fireplace, there's no furniture and no rugs. Mikasa doesn’t notice or care. He slides one hand down the back of her thigh, coaxing her to bend from the back of her knees. She yields for this.

Levi leans over her, guiding both of them onto the floor. She drops herself carelessly though, tilting her head back to get the best view of him. Already rapidly beating from what she’s heard, now her heart hammers harder by what she sees. They’re still half-clothed, they’ve just been fighting, but he’s looking at her like he does when they’re f*cking; every raw and unfiltered thought is on open display.

The piercing pain of hearing his tormented memories and reliving her forgotten days doesn’t disappear, but it fades, stored into a sacred space. There’s more to talk about, apologies to extend on both sides, and she sets those thoughts aside for later too.

Though she hasn’t said anything that can be considered a real response, she’s an open book to him, one he’s picked up enough times to have memorized all the pages. Mikasa thinks if he can read her doubt, he must be able to read her devotion.

Levi leans further down, in her sight but out of focus as he drops his forehead onto hers. He lets loose a breath, one that reminds her of his earlier admission, and turns it into a ghost of a kiss against her temple.

She still isn’t sure what to say, so she lifts her hips upward and into him, overwhelmed before they’ve even started.

"Right here?" This time, she sounds wanting even to her own ears. She grabs onto his belt loops, needing to hold on.

Keeping one knee bent in anticipation, Mikasa relaxes her other leg beneath him, cataloguing these sensations, too. How Levi drops into position between her hips, pressure from the purposeful alignment of his thighs, his right-handed grip that digs determinedly into her ass, the starved manner he reaches with his left to remove her bra entirely. Then there’s only the bare skin of her breasts brushing against the muscled expanse of his chest. He feels like home.

Unbothered at the limited choices in location, Levi finds her lips. “Right here."

.

.

Touch is easier, touch comes more naturally to them both, and Mikasa feels the pull to reach for his belt buckle and forget about everything else except for what happens once she removes it. Talking, telling him through her words, isn’t something she’s mastered either.

Every time she claims his bottom lip and tugs, she tries and fails to convey her commitment. No matter how avidly she kisses Levi back, tongue curling onto the roof of his mouth and curving into his own, it’s not enough to convince him. What he’s spoken has speared through her worst insecurity; she can’t fathom leaving him to sort through his own.

Levi withdraws partially, only enough to reach into his back pocket and remove the switchblade he’s kept on him throughout their travelling. It gives her a chance to try and think through the haze, a final opportunity to figure out what to say. While he knifes the nearby box neatly labeled as blankets, she secures her fingers through his belt loops and steadies herself.

“I know you want the job,” Mikasa says, still catching her breath. “Take it.”

He glances swiftly at her, then resumes unpacking, pulling out a variety of woven and knit blankets and unceremoniously dropping them at their side. She should help him, but she’s too focused on studying him, on steadying herself.

“Alright,” Levi says, breathing hard too. She watches his thoughtfulness, and she’s able to see the exact second his lips quiver into a less-than-smug, more-than-satisfied smile. “I will.”

Only once he doesn’t question if she’s certain or not does she appreciate his immediate acceptance. Levi takes a folded, navy knitted blanket to tuck beneath her head. Mikasa lifts her neck up to make room, still watching him closely.

“And we have to buy it.”

“The house?” Levi asks, situating the blanket beneath her shoulders.

“It’s not a house,” she says, surprised at her own sincerity. “It’s our home.”

Levi pauses, hands halted on the blanket around either side of her head. He looks down, studying her too, before the corner of his mouth twitches again. When he speaks to give her an out, he says it knowing she won’t take it.

“There’s no reason to rush.”

“There’s no reason to stall,” she says primly, and then quietly. “We’ve stalled enough.”

“Tch.” He breathes out, a light-hearted agreement.

She could care less about comfort, but there’s something mesmerizing about watching him prepare to f*ck her, in wondering what ways he plans to make love to her. Levi continues to carefully arrange blankets beneath her, lifting her by the waist and rearranging her limbs, and she lets him.

“At least look at the rest of it before you decide on this one,” Levi says, and she’s honestly unsure whether he’s being practical or playful.

He arches a brow, his steel gray eyes darkened by lust. Both, she decides.

Content with the ensemble of blankets, Levi drops back down onto her. The relief of feeling him fully against her, both his unchecked weight and natural body heat, floods through her system. An instant resurgence of dopamine, and an immediate return to feeling both dazed and determined.

No longer able to resist the temptation, she lets go of his belt loops. Her touch travels up, onto his braced forearms and over the familiar shape of his biceps, thumbs edging over hardened muscle.

“Fine,” Mikasa agrees, thumbs still stroking. “Then show me the rest.”

Only she makes no move to release his arms. At odds with her request, she rolls her hips beneath him, slow and testing. Levi hums lowly, reaching to push loose strands of salt-heavy hair away from her neck. He leans in, mouth a mere millimeter from her throat, and threads lithe fingers up the base of her scalp until he has a handful of her hair. But with his lips, he only hovers.

“You want a tour,” he says more than asks.

Returning the sentiment, he rocks into her once, deliberate and forceful, and then again, too light and too slow. Purposefully not enough. It sends a violent crash of need coursing through her.

“Yes,” she says, craning her neck a notch upward. “Give me a tour.”

Levi follows her cue, tightening his grip on her hair and tugging harder. Her next exhale is a hiss, her hips buck in response; a puppet beckoned by the pull of his strings.

Mikasa feels his own response hard against her outer thigh and she shifts, centering herself with deliberate emphasis, rocking into him like it’s the final punctuation.

“Alright,” he says obligingly, but then he skims his teeth over her jugular and grinds against her.

She thinks she might strangle him if he doesn’t start to kiss her again. Mikasa takes matters into her own hands, letting go of his upper arms in favor of searching out his throat. But just as her palms glide over his collarbones, he yanks her hair roughly back and drags her chin up to gain better access to her throat.

Her yelp immediately melts into a moan. Finally, his lips are back on her; a hard and hungry kiss, he devours the most vulnerable stretch of skin. Her hips move on their own accord, seeking friction, and shamelessly securing it. How Levi grinds into her, as properly as if their clothing isn’t still on and interfering, is maddening.

“After,” Levi decides for them, releasing his taut grip on her hair. In an instant transition, he begins massaging into her sore scalp. “I’ll give you a tour after.”

Mikasa regains her own momentum, releasing her prayer hands from his chest to map out every ridge of rugged terrain his torso offers. She tracks across his stomach, gentler above his ribs but pressing firmly into the inflexible muscles of his abdomen. If they can cave, they will cave to her.

Now that his lips are on her, Levi doesn’t take them off, scorching her with a line of hot, tongue-led marks that can’t be described as kissing. She loses track of how many welts he leaves as he blazes through the base of her throat up to the soft skin beneath her ear. She thinks he’ll nip, or suck, and waits for the brief bite of pleasure-pain. Instead, his tongue flicks out, caressing her earlobe until he brings it fully into his hot mouth.

Mikasa’s answering moan is short and sweet; determined to retaliate, she subtly reaches the valley of his Adonis belt and lightens her touch to tease. She traces only the very tips of her fingertips down the rope of v-shaped muscle, drags the side of her thumbs softly down the line as it leads beneath his pants.

His tongue stutters on her earlobe as he cuts a breath, and she grins to herself against his shoulder.

“After?” Mikasa manages to ask, turning forcefully to the side and away from his torturous tongue. She snags his earlobe, starved for her own turn; though she nips first, then suckles.

Levi accepts the reversal, a throaty groan at her continued trek of scraping teeth and sweet sucking against the column of his throat. He shifts onto his side, keeping their canting hips locked together as he goes. Able to move more freely, he avidly reaches for the bare skin of her stomach.

She thinks she should be too used to his touch to shiver from it, but somehow, she’s not. Levi is too careful, too purposeful. He draws circles around the sensitive skin of her navel. He traces horizontal lines across her toned stomach in slow, even strokes. The rough pads of his fingertips roam upward only one centimeter at a time, catching Mikasa’s breath in her throat.

“After,” she repeats, unable to swallow the sound of her need. “After what?”

Her patient hand sets to work on unbuckling his belt, but her impatient one slides further down to find him, hard and bulging beneath his pants.

Levi isn’t willing to lift either hand off her, but he takes control again, dragging himself away from the filthy prowess of her teeth and tongue. He lowers his mouth, ignoring her groan of half-hearted protest, to resume his previous line of marks down the plane of her chest.

“You know what,” he tells her, blunt and gravelly.

Mikasa manages to unbuckle his belt and work it out of its loops with a few hard tugs. She promptly tends to the single button and then drags down his zipper.

Having reached the top of her breasts, Levi is too distracted to help her with the rest. His teasing hand traces deliberately across her lowest-lying rib while he considers carefully where to place his lips.

At her insistence, Levi pushes himself up and balances over her. Mikasa works the last of his clothing down to the top of his knees. Relieved, she reaches to get a real hold of him.

He decides his next mark. Levi doesn’t continue with a kiss, but suctions onto the soft skin beside her near-peaked nipple. Mikasa inhales, arching into him as he sucks harder, and runs her palm down the length of his arousal. While his fingers are divine and his tongue is sinful, there’s something even more deviant, even more sacred, in weighing his co*ck in her hand and remembering just how well he fills her.

Levi mutters an incoherent string of expletives, something related to the expertise of her warm, wanton hands. She hears him well enough, and in a form of replying, leans up to bite him hard on the shoulder, breaking skin. He almost growls at her.

Timed to taunt, Levi traces lines underneath her breasts, roaming intentionally from one to the other. Needing him, needing more of him, she rolls her hips harder, pumping the length of him in-between their thighs.

It’s not enough. He’s not close enough. She starts to lift her hand to her mouth, planning to swipe her tongue across it to gather saliva and better cater to his co*ck, but then Levi dismisses the last of his resolve.

His thumb edges closer onto her nipple, circling its peaked position, and then his mouth is rounding onto her other one, the flat of his tongue lapping directly on her.There might as well be a switch that is flipped. Levi finishes with his gentle persuasions and dedicates himself only to filthy, earnest efforts.

“sh*t.” Mikasa digs her heels into the floor, toes curling in her boots.

He knows she cannot stand such fanatic attention to both breasts at the same time without squirming desperately beneath him. She also knows it’s the same damn reason he does it without pause and with such persistence.

A better option than saliva flashes through her mind. Mikasa drops her half-lifted hand down to her own waist and finds the top of her pants. She snaps the first two buttons clean off.

When she dips her hand beneath both layers, she’s only half-surprised to find them soaked; what he spoke in the kitchen must have been the initial start of her need for him. Knowing she’s wet enough, she reaches directly for her core.She slides one finger in, attempting to focus when Levi tweaks hard between thumb and index, and she slips her second finger in, letting loose a whimper as his tongue swirls harder.

The temptation to remain focused on her own pleasure is fast and fleeting; the second she looks down to see his arousal, smooth velvet skin over throbbing veins, there is nothing else to consider other than to take hold of him again.

She drags herself out from her slit, and the phantom presence of how he will feel is enough to make her shutter. Slick now, she retakes Levi’s co*ck— Walls, he’s hard— without any of the grace afforded by hesitation. Gliding her wetness up and down the length of him, she establishes a rhythm just in time for it to be broken. For Levi to break it.

He switches sides, trading a rough hand for wet tongue, viscous suction for calloused caressing, and Mikasa arches reflexively.

“God damn it, Levi,” she grinds out.

Her grip slips, and though she immediately retakes him, her thumb is incidentally rewarded with a smear of his own come leaking from the tip. That, she decides to take for herself.

Mikasa collects what she can with the side of her thumb, taking her time to ensure he knows exactly what she’s doing on his head, and then delicately brings her hand up to her mouth. She watches and waits for when Levi glances up; mussed hair, hooded eyes, and his signature lethal focus.

Once he’s looking at her parted lips and dainty, hovering hand, she drags her thumb deeply down the center of her outstretched tongue.

“f*cking hell.” His hot breath tickles over the trail of wet skin he’s left atop her breasts.

A thrill shoots through her, one more satisfying than winning against him in a spar. She stares up to him intently, returning her triply wet hand onto his co*ck with renewed purpose.

“Tell me,” she insists, more breathy than she intends. She asks again, the same fervor but added steel. “After what?”

His groan rips out from the base of his throat. He lets go of her properly peaked nipples in favor of cupping her entire breasts. He tends to them just as thoroughly; he pushes them together, squeezing tentatively to start, then with firm and ruthless focus.

Levi drops his forehead down to hers and she tilts her head back up, letting her lips meet his in the middle.

“After,” Levi says again, low and decisive, tugging once on her bottom lip. “I’ll show you the rest of our house after I f*ck you.”

Our house. She inhales sharply, focused fully on pumping him the way she knows to do him best. It becomes increasingly distracting though, with how thoroughly he sets about kissing her.

There’s something different, something desperate in the way Levi works her mouth open. He’s less controlled, more earnest; as if he knows there’s more of her to taste, more that he’s allowed to take.It’s the truth, too. Mikasa has no interest in complex calculations, in determining the right ratio. She only wants to give more, and give harder.

Levi has something else to say, but won’t spare the breath to do it. Refusing to pull back, he doesn’t stop kissing her so much as forcing her to slow down and fall back. Mikasa pauses, their lips stacked together and sharing rapid breaths.

“After,” he says, so severely she wonders if it’s a promise or a threat. “I’ll give you a tour after I f*ck you so hard, you won’t be able to walk through any of the rooms without feeling me still inside of you.”

She starts to moan, but Levi swallows it, kissing her violently enough her entire body begins to ache for him. Her pulse hammers in her ears, an echo from the additional onslaught of adrenaline.

His stark words replay in her mind as she handles the length of him; he’s warm, velvet skin over thick iron hardness and all her heady thoughts narrow into single formation. She needs him to fill her and f*ck her into the floor this instant.

But to her dismay, and to her delight, he has praying hands of his own. The rest of her clothing comes off and Levi bows down to worship her.

.

.

This isn’t their first time, but laying down on the collective pile of random blankets and staring up at the pinewood ceilings in their new home, Mikasa keens in the ways she wanted to in the meadow, cries out what she couldn’t back then.

This won’t be their last time, but the way Levi spreads her thighs wide open and hauls her up mid-air to meet his mouth, he dedicates himself to her c*nt like he’s afraid it might be.

“Levi,” she gasps. “LeviLevi Le-vi—…,” and she comes for him.

.

.

He’s so hard in her hands, his co*ck straining for release, and she doesn’t understand how in the three Walls he can have the patience to kiss his way up her stomach instead of just slamming inside her. Too dazed from the aftermath of an org*sm, Mikasa remains compliant and listless. Her own patience runs out by the time he reaches her chest.

She barely manages to sound collected. “If I remember correctly, you said you were going to f*ck me.”

Levi remains unhurried. He presses a languid kiss on her sternum, then responds calmly. “Actually, I said I was going to f*ck you hard.”

His co*ck twitches impatiently in her hand, betraying him. Levi realizes the irony too, and grunts in lieu of his next kiss. Already in a state of bliss, amused further by this display, Mikasa grins.

She’s forgotten what the sight of her smile does to him. Levi looks up, the sound of her gentle laughter like a magnet that draws him upward, and suddenly there is no longer a shred of patience left in him.

Levi rocks back onto his heels. He reaches for her left leg and props it over his shoulder to begin positioning her hips beneath him. Speechless at the start, Mikasa watches the flicker of molten silver pooling in his eyes, and knows it's every bit the look of a soldier zoning in on his target.

But she’s been a soldier too. This is ordinarily the split second that snaps her insubordinate streak forward; where her need for control, her own impatience, tells her to wrestle out from beneath him so she can take him— love him— for herself.

Instead, Mikasa remembers that this is a man who thinks he can’t tempt fate by asking for more. She helps him rearrange her legs into a readied position and then settles beneath him. Mikasa lets her smile fix permanently into her features.

A spark of surprise flits in his serious gray eyes. Her uncharacteristic compliance hasn’t gone unnoticed.

She pointedly relaxes her whole frame, slowing her purposeful strokes on his co*ck to an eased languor. Her loosely draped leg, her shoulders flat on the floor beneath them: her signs of submission are already obvious, but a sweet, steadied sensation takes over, and she finds that she likes it. Suddenly, giving more, and giving harder, looks like giving in.

Mikasa gently thumbs underneath his head, and in a final display of willingness, she rests her free hand lazily onto her stomach. He swears softly, snapped out of a temporary reverie.

Levi looks to her, a man starved, and moves onto her, already satiated. He wraps his hand fully over her tender grip, and removes her fingers one by one, until it’s only him who holds his co*ck.

They both look down to watch as he guides himself toward her entrance. Even though she’s more than primed for him, even though he’s pointed in the precise direction, Levi pauses to watch her. To see how her eyes widen in desperate need, how her mouth falls open in silent protest. How she looks, earnest and free, when she isn’t so afraid that she needs to hold on.

She might beg, though. If he tells her to beg, she’ll do it. Mikasa grinds her teeth instead.

“How hard?” she asks, and because she wants to hear him say it again, she says it too. “How hard are you going to f*ck me?”

Levi leans above her, co*ck firmly in hand, and strokes himself in consideration. He maintains her heavy-lidded, urgent gaze as he edges only the tip of his arousal inside her. Her lids flutter, dark lashes flitting rapidly, and Levi watches, her tongue darting behind parted lips. The self-control of a saint, he waits to push into her.

She must be a sinner. She’s absolutely going to murder him if he plans to tease more instead of fill her.

Mikasa resists the impulse to grab onto his sides and forcefully arch into him; instead, she rides on a different high in which Levi maintains control and looks downright devious as he does it.

He doesn’t push in further, but drags his head down her slit, ruminating on her wetness. She can’t help the anger nor the desperation in her moan; it’s the start of a curse, an inclination to plead. His only response is to nudge his head in further but not entirely, and then drag himself all the way down her.

Oh God, Levi. She hears her soft plea but barely registers she’s spoken aloud.

On his way back up, she swears furiously and hopelessly digs into his sides. Ordinarily cautious of her nails, this time, she hopes she’s drawn blood. His ragged breath is one of approval.

“Ask me again,” Levi says roughly, and he teases his head in until he finds her cl*t, rubbing against her just as deliberately.

Mikasa’s instincts don’t allow her to hesitate. Breathless, she asks him. “How hard— how hard are you going to f*ck me?”

Levi jerks his chin to the side, and Mikasa blearily follows his gaze to the opposite side of the room. There’s nothing in their empty house, nothing except for the pinewood staircase and its pristine white railing.

He keeps the pressure on, circling himself atop her cl*t and watching her writhe beneath him.

“When I’m finished f*cking you,” Levi says, dropping lower, finally pushing further in, “you’re not going to be able to walk up those stairs.”

Mikasa has been wet and ready for him. In one, fluid thrust, Levi drives into her, straight to the hilt and so hard she slams her lids shut to see a landscape of stars. Finished with the teasing, done with the taunting hesitation, Levi buries his grip onto her hip and does what he promised.

.

.

In every thrust, Levi moves harder and stronger and swifter, and Mikasa is certain she’s never felt him this deep before.

Yes, she tries and fails to say. f*ck, f*ck—! Yes.

Her lips remain parted, shocked by the immediacy of pain but subdued by every explosion of pleasure. She loses track of all stray thoughts, forgets entirely about their surroundings, until Levi hauls her back to the present.

“Ask me again,” he demands.

She’s hit with a vague sense of déjà vu, something about his words striking as familiar, but she can’t focus long enough to remember. There’s only blinding white pain and an impossible bliss that eclipses it.

Levi temporarily halts their viscous speed, transitioning them into a steadied rhythm. Though he’s found a sweet spot to keep driving into, he temporarily forfeits it, leaning down onto her and running his hand up her side.

She’s near-boneless, but Mikasa works with him to secure their new, looser alignment. His travelling hand finds her breast and he carefully cups her; further at odds with his ruthless thrusts, he glides the flat of his thumb over her pert nipple in gentle rotations.

He sacrifices the rest of his finesse and rhythm once he begins to kiss her senseless. In a paradox found only during intimacy, Mikasa kisses him just as wildly and thoughtlessly, yet suddenly feels grounded in the reality of the moment. Levi is home.

She doesn’t remember that he’s spoken until he stops kissing her, reluctant but intentional in his retreat. He releases his cradling hold on her breast, the side of his palm sliding over her clavicle as he reaches for her neck. Levi wraps his entire hand around the side of her throat and squeezes roughly, reminding her. Her eyes flash open to pay attention.

“Ask me again, sweetheart,” Levi demands, his lips pressed firmly into the corner of her mouth.

Mikasa blinks rapidly, enamored. It’s nonsensical to ask, futile for him to answer, when the proof is already in her terribly sore and throbbing core. She wants to know all the same.

“How hard?” Mikasa asks, draping her hand over her throat too, not to stop him, but to feel him. She sounds weak from breathlessness, but they both know better, and she boldly stares up at him. “How hard are you going to f*ck me? Can you f*ck me harder?"

Maybe she shouldn't have asked. Levi pushes his thumb under her chin and turns her neck for her. Mikasa lets him guide her head down to the side until her cheek brushes onto the blanket and she is pushed against the floor. He keeps her in his delicate chokehold.

“Oh, I'll f*ck you harder. Too hard,” Levi tells her, both of them eying the staircase. “I’m going to have to carry you.”

Mikasa aches but longs for nothing, lost in the pounding of his promises.

.

.

Levi has never promised her anything that he hasn’t made true.

.

.

Together they stand at the bottom of the staircase. She wonders what the rest of their house looks like; all the ways they can settle in and make it their own, for how long it will only be the two of them. Beyond the walls that surround them, she wonders what the rest of their life will look like; if they’ll stay here on the coast until they're old, or if they’ll ever take the risk and set sail.

Mikasa lays a hand loosely on the pain throbbing below her lower abdomen. f*ck fate, she thinks wistfully. One day, he will ask to have all of her. One day, she will tell him that he already does.

When her gaze drifts to the ivory railing and she considers taking the first step, Levi notices her hesitation. Mikasa barely has the chance to see his sly smirk before he’s behind her.

Levi wraps one arm around her waist, hooks the other beneath her legs, and before she can blink, she’s lifted off the ground.

Though she is in fact not sure, she starts to object. “I’m sure I ca—”

“I’m not walking up these stairs with empty hands," Levi interrupts bluntly.

“Hmm,” she tries and fails to protest, unable to help from smiling at the foolishness once he starts up the stairs.

Levi doesn’t intrude on her private thoughts, somehow knowing these reveries are the kind Mikasa doesn’t want interrupted. Wonder is like that, she’s learned; an ethereal sensation of joy, one that guides her toward acceptance, something that shows her how to see further ahead than just the next day. Except this time, maybe even all the times before, it isn’t wonder that overtakes her. It’s hope.

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