levishart

Morning comes slowly to the barracks with noise. You hear the distant scrape of shoes, the murmur of the early risers, the creak of old wood—all settling into another day that no one has asked for but everyone will endure anyway. You’re already awake before all of it, standing alone in the small kitchen with your sleeves rolled to your elbows and a kettle beginning to boil on the stove.

You’ve always liked this hour best, the hour before the Scouts fully wake, where even war seems far away and the world is reduced to small manageable things like steam and the smell of tea leaves. For a few minutes, you can pretend that life is nothing more complicated than boiling water and waiting.

You brace your hands on the edge of the table when the first cough hits, catching in your chest like a hook. You close your eyes immediately because you already know this one is going to hurt. It comes again, harder. Then again. Your shoulders shake with it, breath catching halfway in your lungs, the sound too loud in the quiet kitchen. You turn your head into your sleeve to muffle the sound.

It burns. It always burns now.

By the time it stops, your eyes are watering and your chest aches in a deep, bruised way. It’s wearing you down slowly from the inside. You stand there for a moment, counting each inhale.  You tell yourself, not for the first time, that it’s nothing. You’re tired and run down. Everyone is tired. Everyone coughs. Everyone pushes too hard and sleeps too little and keeps going anyway. This is nothing unusual. Nothing worth worrying anyone about. You’ll deal with it later.

You straighten slowly, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand, and reach for the kettle just as the door opens behind you. You don’t turn immediately. You don’t need to. You know the sound of that door opening at this hour. You know the weight of the footsteps that follow. You know exactly who wakes this early without needing to see him.

Levi stops just inside the doorway, his eyes finding you in the half-light, taking in the kettle, the cups, and how you’re standing suspiciously still. He doesn’t say anything at first, but you feel his attention settle on you. He heard it. He hears everything.

“You sound like you’re dying,” he says finally, as if he’s commenting on the weather instead of the way your lungs still feel as if they’re lined with glass. 

You pour the hot water into the cups carefully so your hands don’t shake, watching the steam rise between you. “I’m fine,” you say, and you hate how predictable that sounds even as you say it.

He doesn’t move closer, but his eyes narrow slightly, the way they always do when he thinks someone is lying to him, which unfortunately is often, and especially often when it’s you.

“That didn’t sound fine,” he says.

“It’s a cough,” you say.

“I’m aware.”

You allow yourself a small smile at that, because he’s so consistently himself that sometimes it feels relieving. At least one thing in this world is stable and predictable. You slide one of the cups toward him across the table.

“Tea,” you say. Tea has always been the answer to everything.

He walks the rest of the way into the room then and picks up the cup by the rim, but his eyes flick once more over your face, lingering for just a second too long. You look down quickly, pretending to adjust the kettle, pretending not to notice that he’s noticing. 

“You should sleep more,” he says.

“You should sleep more,” you reply automatically.

“I sleep enough.”

“You sleep when you pass out from exhaustion. That’s not the same thing.”

He takes a sip of the tea, makes a faint, unimpressed sound. You watch the familiar sequence play out—the peculiar way he holds the cup, the way he stands slightly angled toward the door like he’s expecting someone to barge in and say the walls have been breached—and you realize, not for the first time, that this is one of your favorite parts of the day. This. Right here. The quiet. The tea. The way he shows up without asking, as if this small morning ritual is as inevitable as sunrise.

You fell in love with him so slowly you never noticed it happening.

It hadn’t been a single moment. It wasn’t a dramatic rescue, a sudden realization, or a grand shift in the world. It was this instead—cups of tea, shared silence, how he handed you things without looking because he trusted you to be there, the way he corrected your grip on your blades once without saying a single word, how he stood just a little closer to you in crowded rooms than he did to anyone else.

It was ordinary. Which was the most dangerous thing of all.

“You’re staring,” he says suddenly.

You blink and look away quickly. “You’re imagining things.”

“I don’t imagine things.”

You almost laugh at that, because if there’s one thing Levi does, it’s imagine a future where he gets to keep the people he cares about.

“I’m fine,” you say again, softer this time, and you’re not sure whether you’re trying to convince him or yourself.

He watches you for another long second, and you can practically see the thoughts moving behind his eyes—calculating, filing things away for later—and you wonder briefly what it would be like to tell him everything, to say I’m scared, to say I don’t think this is going away.

But you don’t say any of that. There’ll be time for that later.

“There’s a supply report I need you to look over,” he says finally, turning slightly toward the door. “After breakfast.”

“I’ll do it,” you nod.

“And eat something this time.”

“I always eat something.”

“You pick at food and call it eating.”

You roll your eyes. “You watch me eat now?”

“I watch everything. That’s why I’m still alive.” He says it so simply that you can’t argue with it. He finishes the tea in two more sips before setting the empty cup back on the table near your hand, close enough that your fingers almost touch the ceramic at the same time. “Don’t collapse before you finish the report.”

“I won’t.”

He pauses at the door, and for just a second he looks back at you, and there’s something in his expression you can’t quite decipher—something too unusual to be casual, too quiet to be anger, something that feels uncomfortably like concern—and then it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Later,” he says. “After breakfast.”

“Later,” you agree.

The door closes behind him, and the room feels larger and quieter and colder than it did a moment ago. You stand there for a long time with your hand resting on the edge of the table, listening to the sound of your own breathing slowing down again.

You’ll rest later. You’ll see the medic later. You’ll tell him later. There’s still time, you tell yourself, picking up the empty cup he left behind and rinsing it carefully.

There’s still time.

.

By the time headquarters is fully awake, the quiet of the morning has been swallowed whole by noise. You hear footsteps, doors opening and closing, voices calling across the hallways, the metallic clatter of gear. You move through it all, slipping into the rhythm of the day the way you always do. 

Routine has always been able to keep the world from shifting under your feet. If you keep moving, keep working, keep everything exactly the same as it’s always been, then nothing will change. Routine has always been your best defense against fear.

You carry a stack of reports under one arm and push open the office door with your shoulder, stepping inside without knocking because you haven’t needed to knock in a very long time. Levi doesn’t immediately look up when you enter. He already knows its you from the sound of your footsteps alone. He would never say that out loud, but it’s true. He knows the way everyone walks in this building. He knows who drags their heels, who stomps, who hesitates outside doors before entering, who walks like they’re afraid of being noticed. He knows yours because he’s been listening for them for longer than he would ever admit.

“You’re late,” he says, even though you’re not.

“You told me after breakfast,” you reply, setting the reports down on his desk. You slide them into a neat stack, aligning the corners without thinking.

He glances at the papers, then at you, eyes narrowing slightly. You look tired, he thinks. More tired than usual. Your eyes are a little dull around the edges, your movements just a little slower than they should be, and he doesn’t like it. Not at all. But he doesn’t know what to do with that information yet except store it away and watch more closely.

“You eat?” he asks.

You almost sigh. “Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You hesitate when you lie.”

You cross your arms. “I hesitate when I’m deciding how much I want to argue with you.”

He stares at you for a long moment, and you stare right back because this is familiar territory, this quiet stand-off that’s less about authority and more about concern neither of you will acknowledge. After a few seconds, he exhales through his nose and picks up the top report.

“Sit,” he says, nodding toward the chair across from his desk.

You sit. You always sit there. You’ve sat in that chair so many times that it’s begun to feel like a place that belongs to you specifically, not a guest chair. Levi reads in silence for a while, flipping pages, occasionally making a small mark in the margins, and you watch his hands as he works without meaning to. 

You’ve always noticed his hands. They’re not elegant hands, not soft, not ones that belong to someone who lives a gentle life. They’re scarred and strong, the hands of someone who survives by control and skill and refusal to make mistakes. You’ve seen those hands hold blades, reins, teacups, paperwork, and once, briefly, your wrist when you nearly slipped on wet stone during a supply run. You think that you would recognize his hands before you recognized his face.

“You’re staring again,” he says without looking up.

“I’m thinking,” you say.

“That usually means trouble.”

“For you or for me?”

“For whoever is closest.”

You smile a little at that, and he finally glances up from the papers. For a second, neither of you says anything. The silence between you feels safe in a way you can’t explain to anyone else. 

This is what loving him has always felt like. Not fireworks or some sweeping obvious romance, but instead this: arguments about whether you ate breakfast and stacks of paperwork. It had never been a moment. It had been a thousand small things that added up to something you couldn’t undo even if you wanted to.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he says.

“What thing?”

“Going quiet.”

“I’m reading the report with my mind,” you say dryly.

He snorts softly and sets the papers down, leaning back slightly in his chair. His eyes linger on you again in that way that always makes you feel like he can see more than you want him to.

You look fine. A little tired, maybe. Everyone is tired. That cough this morning was probably nothing. Just overwork. You’re one of the strongest soldiers he has. You don’t get sick. You don’t slow down. You don’t break. Still. He watches you shift in the chair, you press a hand briefly against your ribs as if your chest hurts and you don’t want anyone to see. Something uncomfortable washes over him. 

“You’re coming on the supply inventory this afternoon,” he says abruptly.

“That wasn’t on the schedule.”

“It is now.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You just want me to do your work for you.”

“I want the work done correctly.”

“So you admit it’s your work.”

He ignores that. “Be in the courtyard after lunch.”

You nod. “Fine.”

He hesitates, then adds, “And eat something before that.”

You stare at him. “You are unreasonably invested in my eating habits.”

“You’re unreasonably bad at taking care of yourself.”

You open your mouth to argue, then close it again because arguing with him about this always goes in circles. And because some small, traitorous part of you likes that he notices these things, that he notices you at all.

“Later,” you say instead, half-joking, half-serious. “I’ll eat later.” 

His expression tightens slightly, though you are not sure why that word bothers him at this moment. “Don’t put everything off until later,” he says. “Later turns into never.”

You blink at him, surprised by the sudden bite in his voice. He looks away almost immediately as if he regrets saying it. As if the words came from somewhere he does not usually let himself look at. You want to ask him what he means by that, what later has taken from him already, but you don’t ask, because there are some questions Levi will never answer. You’ve learned not to push against walls that won’t move.

Instead, you stand and gather the reports again, stacking them neatly the way he likes. When you slide them toward him your fingers brush the back of his hand for just a second. The contact is so brief it almost feels imagined, but he freezes for a moment anyway. Neither of you comments on it. Neither of you ever does.

“Courtyard,” he says, voice back to normal now.

“Courtyard,” you repeat.

You turn to leave, and as you reach the door you feel that familiar sensation again, the sense that he is watching you even when he doesn't say anything. You glance back over your shoulder just in time to see him looking at you with an expression you can’t quite read. He looks away immediately when you catch him.

You step out into the hallway, the noise of the castle swallowing you up again, and you press your hand briefly against your chest as you walk, waiting for that tight, burning feeling to ease the way it always eventually does.

The medic will have to wait. For now, there’s work to do.

.

The afternoon is colder than the morning had been. The courtyard is busy with movement with soldiers crossing from one building to another, crates stacked near the supply doors, and horses shifting restlessly near the fence. You keep yourself moving because it’s easier than standing still long enough to notice the way your chest feels too tight and your breathing never quite fills your lungs the way it used to.

You tell yourself you’re fine. You’ve been telling yourself that for weeks now, maybe longer, and the word fine has begun to lose meaning, stretching thinner and thinner every time you use it until it barely covers anything at all.

You carry a small stack of inventory sheets in one hand and move toward the doors, already mentally organizing the rest of the afternoon—check the storage logs, update the supply count, bring Levi the corrected numbers, maybe steal five minutes to sit down somewhere quiet where no one will notice you closing your eyes for just a moment—and you’re so focused on staying upright, staying normal, staying useful, that you don’t notice how lightheaded you are until you reach the stairs.

The first step is fine. The second is fine. On the third, the world tilts.

It doesn’t tilt dramatically. It doesn’t spin or go black or do anything that would make for a crazy story later. It just shifts slightly to the side, like a painting that has slipped crooked on a wall, and suddenly the ground feels farther away than it should be and your foot misses the edge of the step by half an inch.

Your hand shoots out automatically and hits the stone wall to steady yourself, and you stand there for a second, breathing slowly, waiting for the dizziness to pass, hoping no one saw. 

Of course someone saw. 

You feel his hand on your wrist before you hear his voice. The grip is firm and immediate, fingers wrapping around your wrist. When you turn your head Levi is standing one step below you, looking up with an expression that is already halfway to anger.

“What was that?” he asks.

“Nothing,” you say automatically, because that’s what you always say.

His grip tightens slightly. Not enough to hurt. Enough to stop you from pulling away. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You missed a step.”

“I tripped.”

“You don’t trip.”

You try to pull your wrist free, but he doesn’t let go immediately. The contact sends a strange, unwelcome sensation up your arm. He’s holding you as if you’re something breakable, and you do not want him to think that about you.

“I’m fine,” you say again, and now the word sounds false even to your own ears.

He stares at you, eyes moving quickly over your face, your posture, your other hand still pressed lightly against the wall as if you aren’t entirely sure you can stand without it. You don’t look fine. You look pale. Too pale. There are dark circles under your eyes he doesn’t remember being there before. Your breathing is slightly uneven, as if you’re trying to control it instead of letting it happen naturally. He’s seen soldiers look like before, usually right before they collapse.

“You’re not fine,” he says quietly.

“I am.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

You finally manage to pull your wrist free, and you immediately regret it because the loss of that steadying grip makes the world shift slightly again. You have to shift your weight carefully to keep from swaying. He notices.

“I said I’m fine,” you repeat, more sharply now, because you can feel that dangerous pressure building behind your ribs again, the cough that wants to come, the weakness you can’t afford to show, not here, not in front of him, not when he’s looking at you like that.

“Don’t insult me,” he says. “I just watched you almost fall down a set of stairs.”

“I missed a step.”

“You don’t miss steps.”

“I did today.”

“Why?”

You open your mouth to answer and realize you don’t have an answer that he’ll accept, because the truth is I’m tired and I can’t breathe right and something is wrong and I’m scared, and you can’t say any of that without changing everything. So you shrug instead. 

“Maybe I didn’t sleep well,” you say.

“That doesn’t make you forget how to walk.”

“I’m still walking, aren’t I?”

He looks like he wants to shake you. Instead, he steps closer, and suddenly he’s too close. Close enough that you can see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. His attention locks onto you so completely that it feels like the rest of the world disappears. “You’re going to the infirmary,” he says.

“No.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“I’m not going to the infirmary because I tripped on a stair.”

“You didn’t trip.”

“I did.”

“You’re lying again.”

You hold the stack of papers to your chest, partly because you’re irritated and partly because pressing against your ribs helps ease the pain in your chest. “You worry too much,” you say.

He almost laughs at that, but there is no humor in it. “I’m not worrying. I’m observing a problem and fixing it.”

“I am not a problem.”

“You will be if you collapse in the middle of work.”

“I’m not going to collapse.”

“You almost did.”

“I caught myself.”

“That’s not the point.”

You look away from him then, because you can’t keep looking at his face when he’s looking at you like this, like you’re something important, like you’re something he can’t afford to lose, and that thought is so dangerous you push it away immediately.

He cares, you think. But he cares about all of his soldiers.

But he’s holding you differently. Looking at you differently. Talking to you like this is personal. “I’m fine,” you say again, softer now.

He studies your face for a long moment, and something in his expression shifts slightly, the anger cooling. You’re not fine, he thinks again. Something is wrong. You’re hiding something. You’re getting weaker. You’re not eating enough. You’re not sleeping enough. You’re coughing. You almost fell down a set of stairs. And the thought that follows is immediate, enough to make his heart stop.

What if you’re sick?

He doesn’t say that part out loud. Instead, he reaches past you and pushes the door open, stepping back slightly and nodding toward the hallway.

“Infirmary,” he says again.

You shake your head. “Later.” The word comes out automatically, and the moment it leaves your mouth you see his expression change again, frustration flickering across his face.

“You keep saying later,” he says. “Later for sleep, later for eating, later for everything.”

“I’ll go later,” you insist.

“You’ll go now.”

“I have work to finish.”

“I’ll finish it.”

You blink at him, surprised. “You hate inventory reports.”

“I hate idiots more.”

You almost smile at that, but the smile fades quickly because he’s still looking at you like that. As if this matters too much. As if you matter too much. You can’t afford to let yourself believe that.

“I’m not going now,” you say quietly. “I promise I’ll go later.”

He stares at you for a long moment, and you can see the argument forming behind his eyes, the list of reasons, the orders he could give, the authority he could use to force you to go. You hold his gaze because you know him well enough to know that if he orders you, you’ll go.

After a few seconds, he exhales slowly and steps back. “Fine,” he says. “Later.” But the way he says the word makes it sound like a threat.

You nod once and move past him into the building, aware of his eyes on your back the entire time, aware that he’s not convinced, that he’s watching you more closely now. As you walk away, you press your hand briefly against your chest again, waiting for the tightness to ease, and you tell yourself the same thing you have been telling yourself for weeks now.

Later. You’ll deal with it later.

You don’t see the way Levi watches you until you turn the corner and disappear from view, and you don’t hear the quiet curse he mutters under his breath when you’re gone. You don’t know that he stands there for a long moment after you leave, staring at the now closed door, replaying the way you swayed on the stairs, the way your hand trembled when he grabbed your wrist, the way you said later.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong, and you’re not telling him.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

It happens a few days later in the middle of something painfully ordinary, which somehow makes it worse, because later—much later, when you think back on this moment—you will remember that the world did not end with thunder or shouting or some grand announcement of tragedy, but with sound of your own lungs refusing to cooperate with you anymore.

You’re in a storage room when it starts, checking inventory numbers against a clipboard. The air is dry and dusty. At first the cough is small, almost polite. Something you could ignore if you tried hard enough. And you do try, pressing your lips together and breathing slowly through your nose the way you’ve learned to do, waiting for the tickle in your throat to fade.

It doesn’t fade.

It scratches at you instead, deep in your chest, like someone is slowly pulling a cord tighter and tighter around your ribs. The next cough comes harder, forcing your shoulders forward, your hand flying up to cover your mouth automatically as the sound tears out of you before you can stop it.

You bend slightly at the waist, trying to breathe, trying to stop, but it comes again and again, each cough sharper than the last. Your lungs burn. Your vision blurs at the edges. You grip the edge of the table beside you because suddenly standing requires effort and concentration.

“Stop,” you whisper to yourself, as if your body might listen. “Stop, stop—”

It doesn’t stop.

The cough tears through you again, violent enough this time that something wet hits your palm, and you freeze for a second before slowly pulling your hand away from your mouth and looking down.

There’s blood on your palm.

You stare at your hand, breathing shallowly now, afraid to cough again, afraid of what else might come up if you do. A strange, cold realization knots in your stomach. This isn’t just a cold. It’s not exhaustion. You can’t make this go away if you rest for a few days. Something is wrong. Something has been wrong for a long time, and you’ve been pretending not to see it.

You hear the door open behind you, but you don’t turn right away, too focused on wiping your hand quickly on a cloth, too focused on breathing normally, too focused on pretending everything is fine again before anyone sees.

“You disappeared,” Hange says from the doorway, voice light at first, distracted, the way they sound when they’re thinking about something else entirely. “Levi sent me to find you because apparently you’re essential to the functioning of this entire place and—”

They stop mid-sentence.

You turn then, and whatever Hange sees on your face makes their expression change immediately, the easy curiosity replaced by something more serious.

“What happened?” they ask.

“Nothing,” you say automatically.

Hange walks closer, eyes narrowing slightly. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re really bad at saying that convincingly.”

You try to laugh, but the laugh turns into another cough before it fully leaves your throat, and this one hurts more than the last, forcing you to turn away again and cover your mouth, and when you pull your hand away this time, there’s more blood.

Hange sees it. They don’t say anything for a second, but the silence that follows is heavier than any reaction could have been. “We’re going to the infirmary,” they say finally, voice calm in that way people get when something is very wrong and they’re trying not to make it worse.

“I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do,” Hange interrupts gently, already taking a step closer, already reaching out like they’re afraid you might fall if they don’t. “You’re coughing up blood. That’s not a thing we ignore.”

“I just inhaled dust or something.”

Hange raises an eyebrow. “You inhaled dust that made you cough repeatedly over the last few weeks?”

You freeze slightly. “I haven’t been—”

“You have,” they say quietly. “I’ve heard you. You think no one notices, but I notice things.”

You look down at your hand again at the faint red smear that you couldn’t wipe away completely. The fight drains out of you all at once, replaced by a sudden, heavy exhaustion.

“Okay,” you say quietly. “Infirmary.”

.

You sit on the edge of one of the beds while the medic listens to your lungs with a stethoscope, their expression growing more serious with every breath you take.

“Deep breath,” they say.

You inhale slowly. It hurts.

“Again.” You do it again, and this time the cough comes with it. You turn your head into your sleeve as it passes. “How long has this been happening?” the medic asks.

“A few days,” you say.

Hange, standing nearby with their arms crossed, makes a quiet, disbelieving sound. “Try a few weeks,” they say. You glare at them slightly, but they don’t look apologetic.

The medic looks between the two of you, then back at you. “Have you had fevers?”

“Sometimes.”

“Fatigue?”

“Yes.”

“Chest pain?”

You hesitate, then nod once.

The medic’s mouth tightens slightly, and they place the stethoscope back on the table. “Wait here,” they say. “I need to look at something.”

They leave the room, and the silence that follows feels too large, too heavy, pressing down on your shoulders until you feel like you might sink into the mattress behind you. Hange doesn’t speak right away. They just watch you, their usual restless energy completely gone, replaced by a stillness that is somehow more unsettling than any of their usual behavior.

“You knew this wasn’t just a cough,” they say finally. You don’t answer. “You should have come sooner.”

“I didn’t want it to be something,” you admit quietly. “If I didn’t come here, then it could still be nothing.”

Hange exhales slowly and leans back against the wall. “It doesn't work like that.”

“I know.”

The medic comes back a few minutes later, carrying a small stack of notes, and they don’t sit down right away, which is somehow worse than if they had. They look at you, then at Hange, then back at you again, and there is a long moment where no one says anything, and in that moment you already know.

You don’t know exactly what they’re going to say, but you know it won’t be good.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” the medic says finally. “The damage in your lungs is severe. This didn’t start recently. It’s been progressing for a long time.”

You swallow. “Can you treat it?”

“We can ease the pain. We can slow the symptoms for a while.”

The way they say while makes your stomach drop.

“But we can’t cure it,” they continue quietly. “The lungs are too damaged. They’re scarred and infected in places we can’t reach. Even if you stopped working completely, even if you rested every day, it wouldn’t reverse what’s already happened.”

You stare at your hands in your lap, watching your fingers twist together slowly as if they belong to someone else. “How long?” you ask.

The medic hesitates. Hange shifts slightly beside you, and you can feel their attention snap fully onto the medic now.

“It’s difficult to say exactly,” the medic says. “Months, most likely. It depends on how quickly it progresses. If the coughing worsens, if the bleeding increases, if infection spreads further…”

They don’t finish the sentence. They don’t have to. You nod once, very slowly, and the room feels strangely distant, like you are watching this conversation happen to someone else. Months. You try to picture months and find that the word feels both too long and not long enough at the same time.

“Will I still be able to work?” you ask. Hange makes a quiet, frustrated sound, but you don’t look at them.

“You should reduce your workload,” the medic says. “Eventually, you won’t be able to fight at all. Even walking long distances will become difficult.” You nod again. “Does Captain Levi know?” the medic asks.

Your head snaps up immediately. “No.” Hange closes their eyes briefly, like they were expecting that answer and still didn’t want to hear it. 

“He should,” the medic says gently.

“No,” you repeat. “He shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Because he has buried too many people already, you think. Because I don’t want him to look at me like I’m already gone. Because I don’t want my last months to become everyone waiting for me to die. Because I don’t want pity. Because I don’t want him to be careful with me.

But you don’t say all of that out loud.

“I don’t want special treatment,” you say instead. “I don’t want everyone watching me all the time. I don’t want to be moved to some quiet room where people whisper about me in the hallway. I want to work as long as I can. I want things to stay normal.”

Hange steps closer then, their voice quieter than you’ve ever heard it. “He’s going to find out eventually.”

“Then let it be later,” you say softly.

Hange looks at you for a long moment, and there is something like sadness in their expression now, something heavy and resigned. “You’re asking me to lie to him,” they say.

“I’m asking you not to tell him,” you reply. “There’s a difference.”

“He’ll be angry.”

“He’s always angry.”

“He’ll be angry at me.”

“He’ll be angrier if he spends the next few months watching me die,” you say quietly. “I don’t want that. I don’t want his last memories of me to be in a bed, coughing and barely able to breathe. I want things to stay the way they are for as long as possible.”

Hange’s shoulders drop slightly, and they run a hand through their ponytail, looking suddenly very tired. “You’re not going to make this easy for anyone,” they mutter.

“I’m not trying to be difficult.”

They look at you again, and after a long moment they nod once, reluctantly. “I won’t tell him,” they say. “Not yet.”

“Thank you.”

“But you have to promise me something,” they add. “If it gets worse, if you start collapsing, if you can’t work anymore, you tell him yourself. I’m not letting him find out by accident.”

You nod. “I promise.”

It’s not a promise you know you can keep.

The medic leaves you alone after that, and Hange eventually excuses themself too, saying something about needing air, and you sit there on the edge of the infirmary bed with your hands resting in your lap, staring at nothing in particular.

Months.

You try to imagine telling Levi. You try to imagine the look on his face, the way his eyes would go still, the way he would immediately start trying to fix something that cannot be fixed, the way he would start watching you like you were already halfway gone.

You can’t do that to him. You can’t do that to yourself.

So you make a decision there, sitting alone in the quiet infirmary with the smell of medicine in the air and the sound of your own breathing too loud in your ears. You’ll keep working. You’ll keep drinking tea with him in the mornings. You’ll keep arguing with him about whether you ate breakfast. You’ll keep everything exactly the same. And when the time comes, when you find the right moment, when things are quiet and normal and not overshadowed by sickness and endings, you’ll tell him how you feel.

Not now. Not like this.

Later.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

You wake up the morning after the diagnosis feeling exactly the same as you did the morning before it, which is the strangest part of all, because you had half-expected something dramatic, some shift in the world, some visible sign that everything had changed, but instead the sun still rises, the Scouts still wake, and your lungs still hurt in the same way they did yesterday. 

The world doesn’t change when you learn you are going to die. Only the way you look at it does.

You sit on the edge of your bed for a long time before standing, hands resting on your knees, breathing slowly and carefully the way the medic showed you. You tell yourself the same thing you decided in the infirmary: nothing is going to change yet. You'll keep working. You'll keep your routine. You'll keep everything normal for as long as you possibly can.

If you act normal, maybe everything will stay normal. If you keep moving, maybe you won’t have to think about the word months and what it actually means.

The mess hall is loud at breakfast, full of clattering dishes and conversations that overlap, and you sit at the long table with a piece of bread in front of you that you’ve been slowly breaking into smaller and smaller pieces without actually eating any of it.

You’re not hungry. Or maybe you are, but the idea of food feels like too much effort, like something your body has decided is optional now.

You don’t notice Levi sitting across from you until his hand slides your cup of tea closer, the ceramic scraping softly against the table.

“Eat,” he says.

“I am eating,” you reply, picking up one of the tiny pieces of bread and putting it in your mouth just to prove a point.

“You’re insulting the concept of food.”

You swallow slowly. “I’m not very hungry this morning.”

“You’re never very hungry anymore.”

You shrug one shoulder. “Maybe I’m evolving past the need for food.”

“If that were possible, I’d have done it already.”

You almost smile at that, but the smile fades quickly when he reaches across the table and pushes the rest of the bread closer to you with two fingers.

“Eat,” he repeats.

You look down at his hand near yours on the table, close enough that your fingers could touch his if you moved them just slightly, and you think that you would give anything for this to be your life forever—arguments about bread, tea in the mornings, the way he notices everything about you and pretends he doesn’t care.

“I will,” you say quietly.

He doesn’t move his hand right away, and for a moment both of you are just looking at the space between your fingers on the table, close but not touching, and then he pulls his hand back and picks up his tea as if nothing happened.

But you both noticed.

You always notice.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

A few days later, you’re in Levi’s office again, standing beside his desk while he reads through a report and you wait for him to finish so you can explain why the supply numbers don’t match the previous week’s inventory, and you feel the cough building in your chest before you can stop it.

You turn slightly away from him, bringing your sleeve up to your mouth as the cough hits, keeping the sound as quiet as possible, and when it passes you take a slow breath and turn back toward him as if nothing happened.

He’s not looking at the report anymore. He’s looking at you. Specifically, he’s looking at your sleeve. You follow his gaze and see it immediately—a faint smear of red on the fabric near your wrist where you must not have wiped your hand well enough earlier.

Your stomach drops. “It’s ink,” you say quickly.

“I didn’t ask,” he replies.

You reach down and try to rub the stain away with your thumb, but that only smears it slightly, making it worse, and you can feel his eyes on you the entire time.

“You’ve been coughing for weeks,” he says finally.

“It’s just a cough.”

“You’re tired all the time.”

“Everyone’s tired.”

“You barely eat.”

“I eat.”

“You almost fell down the stairs the other day.”

“I missed a step.”

He sets the report down slowly and leans back in his chair, still watching you in that way that makes it feel like he’s trying to solve a puzzle and you are the puzzle. “You’re getting worse,” he says.

The words land harder than you expect them to. “I’m not getting worse,” you say.

He doesn’t argue immediately, which is somehow worse than if he had. He just looks at you, eyes moving over your face. 

You don’t hold his gaze for long. You can’t.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

A week later, you’re standing at the edge of the training yard, watching a group of younger soldiers practice maneuvering, when Levi walks up beside you without saying anything, hands behind his back, eyes on the trainees.

“You’re not scheduled for training anymore,” he says after a moment.

You glance at him. “Since when?”

“Since now.”

You frown slightly. “I can still train.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I said you’re not scheduled.”

“That sounds like the same thing.”

“You’re more useful with logistics and reports right now,” he says. “We need someone who can keep the supply numbers from turning into a disaster.”

You study his face, trying to decide whether this is really about logistics or if he’s quietly moving you away from anything physically demanding. He doesn’t look at you while he says it, which tells you more than if he had.

“You’re reassigning me to paperwork,” you say.

“I’m reassigning you to something you’re good at.”

“I’m good at other things too.”

“I’m aware.” There’s a pause, and then he adds, more quietly, “I need you where I can rely on you.”

He doesn’t want to admit the truth. He’s not doing this because he thinks you’re weak. He’s doing this because he’s worried.

He just doesn’t know why yet.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

A few days after that, you, Levi, and Hange are in the office going over supply routes for the next month, maps spread across the desk, Levi pointing at different locations while explaining what needs to change.

“Next month we’ll shift the supply route through here,” he says, tapping a spot on the map. “It’s longer, but safer.”

Next month.

You stare at the map, but you’re not really seeing it anymore. You’re thinking about months. You’re thinking about how many next months you actually have. Hange notices the way you go still, how your hand tightens slightly on the edge of the table. They look from you to Levi and back again, their expression briefly clouded with something like guilt.

Levi keeps talking, unaware. “We’ll need to stock more medical supplies before winter,” he continues. “And we should start planning for—” He stops when he realizes neither of you is responding. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” you say quickly.

Hange forces a small smile. “Just thinking.”

Levi looks between the two of you, suspicious, but he doesn’t push it this time. He just nods once and goes back to the map, and Hange looks at you again, their eyes soft and sad in a way that makes you look away almost immediately.

They know something Levi doesn’t.

And every time Levi talks about the future, you can see the guilt in Hange’s face, the way they’re silently counting time in a way Levi can’t yet.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The mornings continue the way they always have.

You make tea. He shows up. You drink it in silence or argue about something small and unimportant. The routine stays intact.

But one morning, halfway through your tea, the cough hits suddenly and hard, and you turn away quickly, covering your mouth with your hand, trying to keep it quiet, trying to keep it contained.

When it passes, you lower your hand slowly and reach for the cloth on the table to wipe your fingers, but when you look up again Levi is already watching you, his tea untouched in his hand.

He doesn’t say anything. He just watches. And that silence is heavier than any argument you’ve had with him. He sets his cup down slowly and pushes yours a little closer to you like he always does when he thinks you’re not drinking enough, but his fingers linger on the edge of the cup for a second before he lets go, like he’s thinking about saying something and then deciding not to.

You want him to ask. You want him to demand the truth so you don’t have to decide when to tell him.

But he doesn’t.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

Over the next couple of weeks, Levi becomes sharper with you.

Not in the way he is with everyone else, not cold and dismissive, but irritated in a way that feels personal, like he’s angry at something he can’t see and somehow you’re involved in it.

“You’re late,” he says one morning when you arrive at his office exactly on time.

“I’m not late.”

“You’re slower.”

“I’m not slower.”

“You are.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“I told you I don’t imagine things,” he says again, and there’s a tension in his voice now that wasn’t there before.

Another day, he snaps at you for carrying too many files at once.

“Give me those.”

“I can carry my own files.”

“You’re going to drop them.”

“I’m not going to drop them.”

“You almost dropped them yesterday.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

He takes half the stack out of your hands before you can argue more. Your fingers brush as he pulls the files away. The contact is brief but it makes both of you go quiet for a second.

He’s scared, you realize suddenly. He doesn’t know why, but he’s scared. That realization hurts more than the illness does. Because you’re the reason he’s scared, and he doesn’t even know it yet. He watches you constantly now—when you walk, when you cough, when you sit down too slowly, when you forget to eat, when you stare at nothing for too long—and you can feel his attention on you even when you’re not looking at him, like a hand hovering just behind your shoulder.

You should tell him, you think sometimes when he’s looking at you like that. You should tell him before he figures it out himself. But every time you try to imagine the conversation, you see his face in your mind, the way his eyes would go still, the way his mouth would press into a straight line, the way he would immediately start trying to fix it even though it would be futile, and you can’t do it. Not yet.

So you keep acting normal.

You keep working, keep drinking tea, keep arguing with him about food and reports and schedules, keep pretending that the future he keeps planning includes you in it, even though you know it probably doesn’t.

And Levi keeps watching you, more and more closely every day, growing quieter, more easily irritated, because something about this situation feels wrong to him in a way he can’t explain, like he’s standing in a room where something important is missing but he can’t figure out what it is.

He just knows that every time he looks at you lately, he feels a strange, unwelcome thought in the back of his mind.

You look like you’re slipping away from something.

And he doesn’t know what it is, and he doesn’t know how to stop it, and he doesn’t like the feeling that whatever is happening to you is happening slowly, quietly, right in front of him, and he might not realize what it is until it’s already too late.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

It starts with you not showing up.

At first, Levi doesn’t notice immediately, because mornings are busy and people are always late for something, always running behind, always needing to be told twice to finish what they were assigned. He assumes you’re somewhere else in the building, already working, already fixing something that someone else messed up.

But when the reports that should already be on his desk aren’t there, and when the supply ledger is still sitting exactly where he left it the night before, and when he realizes he hasn’t heard your footsteps in the hallway once all morning, he knows something is wrong.

He asks someone where you are. No one knows.

He checks the offices, the mess hall, the courtyard, the storage rooms, each place with growing irritation that feels suspiciously like worry, and by the time he reaches the hallway near the private rooms he’s already angry in that very quiet way that means he’s not angry at all, not really.

He knocks once on your door and doesn’t wait for an answer before opening it. You’re sitting on the edge of your bed, bent slightly forward, one hand pressed against your chest and the other gripping the blanket, breathing like each inhale has to be dragged into your lungs manually. You look up when the door opens, and for a second neither of you says anything.

“You didn’t come to work,” he says finally.

You try to straighten up. “I overslept.”

“You never oversleep.”

“It happens.”

“You look like hell.”

You almost laugh at that, but the laugh turns into a cough, and this one is worse than most, forcing you to turn away from him and cover your mouth with your hand as it passes through you. By the time it stops, you’re shaking slightly, breath shallow, and when you look back at him his expression has changed completely.

He steps closer without saying anything and presses the back of his hand to your forehead. You flinch slightly at the contact, not because it hurts, but because his hand is cool and steady and the touch feels too gentle for the way he usually interacts with the world.

“You’re burning up,” he says.

“It’s just a fever.”

“You’re not working today.”

“I can work.”

“You can barely breathe.”

“I can still sit at a desk.”

“You’re not working,” he repeats, and this time there’s no room for argument in his voice. You don’t have the energy to argue anyway. He looks around your room for a moment, then moves to the small table near the wall and pours water into a cup, bringing it back to you and holding it out until you take it. “Drink,” he says.

You take the cup, your fingers brushing his briefly. He watches until you finish half the cup, then takes it back and sets it on the table again.

“Lie down,” he says.

“I’m fine sitting.”

“You’re not fine doing anything.” You almost argue again, but the room spins slightly when you try to stand. He reaches out immediately, his hand closing around your arm to steady you before you can fall forward. “Easy,” he says quietly. You lie down because it’s easier than fighting him, and he pulls the blanket up over you. “I’ll get the medic,” he says.

“No,” you say immediately, reaching out and catching his sleeve before he can turn away. “Don’t.”

He looks down at your hand on his sleeve, then back at your face. “You’re sick.”

“It’s just a fever. It’ll pass.”

“You’ve been sick for weeks.”

“I haven’t.”

“You have.”

You don’t answer that, because the truth is sitting dangerously between you. You don’t know how to move around it without knocking it over. He exhales slowly through his nose, then pulls the chair from your desk over to the side of the bed and sits down. 

“I’m not leaving,” he says.

“You have work.”

“It can wait.”

“You hate when things don’t get done.”

“I hate the idea of you collapsing more.”

You close your eyes for a moment, because the fever is making everything feel too loud. When you open them again he’s still there, sitting in the chair beside your bed, arms resting on his knees. Watching you like he’s trying to make sure you don’t disappear when he looks away.

“You don’t have to stay,” you say quietly.

“I know,” he replies.

But he doesn’t leave.

.

You wake up later to the feeling of something cool against your forehead.

For a second you don’t know where you are, the fever pulling you in and out of sleep in uneven waves, and then you realize you’re still in your room and Levi is sitting beside the bed with a damp cloth in his hand.

“You’re awake,” he says.

“You’re still here.”

“Unfortunately.” You smile a little at that, and he sets the cloth aside and pours more water into the cup, handing it to you again. “Drink,” he says.

You drink slowly while he watches. When you hand the cup back your fingers brush his again. This time neither of you pulls away immediately. He sets the cup down without looking away from you.

“You should’ve told me you were this sick,” he says quietly.

“It’s just a fever.”

“Stop saying that.”

You look at him for a long moment, and there’s something in his expression you’ve never seen directed at you before, something worried and almost angry, as if he’s upset with you for something he doesn’t fully understand yet.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” you say softly.

“I’m not worried,” he says immediately. You raise an eyebrow. He hesitates, then looks away briefly, jaw tightening. “I just don’t like it when people under my command start falling apart,” he says.

“That sounds like worrying.”

“That’s not worrying. I’m being practical.”

You smile faintly. “If you say so.”

There’s a long silence after that, the kind that isn’t uncomfortable but isn’t exactly comfortable either, just full of things neither of you knows how to say.

“If this war ever ends,” you say quietly after a while, staring up at the ceiling, “what do you think you’ll do?”

He doesn’t answer right away. “I don’t think about things that aren’t guaranteed to happen,” he says finally. You think he's going to ignore the question when he suddenly adds, “I don't know what I’d do.”

You ponder for a moment. “I'll just live out in the forest. If I survive.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he says quietly.

“Like what?”

“Like you only plan on being here for a short time.”

Your breath catches slightly at that, and you look away quickly so he doesn’t see the expression on your face. “I’m just talking,” you say.

“No, you’re not.” He reaches out then, almost without thinking, and brushes a piece of hair away from your face where it has stuck to your skin from the fever, his fingers light and careful. “You scare me sometimes,” he says quietly, almost like he doesn’t realize he’s saying it out loud.

You blink at him. “You’re not scared of anything.”

“I’m not scared of most things,” he corrects.

“Then what are you scared of?”

He doesn’t answer that. Instead, he leaves his hand resting on the edge of the bed near yours, close enough that you can see the small scars across his knuckles. You reach out slowly and touch his hand, just lightly, your fingers resting over his like you’re not entirely sure you’re allowed to do it. He goes very still.

“You mean a lot to me,” you say quietly.

He looks at you. “Where did that come from?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he says. “Don’t say things like that like you’re saying goodbye.”

“I’m not saying goodbye.”

“Good.”

There’s another long silence, and you’re still holding his hand now, your fingers curled slightly around his, and he doesn’t pull away. Instead, after a moment, he shifts his chair closer to the bed and rests his forearms on the mattress, leaning forward slightly so he’s closer to you. The distance between your faces is suddenly very small. You can see the faint shadow under his eyes, the way his expression softens when he thinks you’re too tired to notice. 

“If something’s wrong,” he says quietly, “you need to tell me.”

You swallow. You could tell him now. You could say the words: I’m dying. I don’t have long. I’ve loved you for years and I was too afraid to tell you. You look at his face, at the way he’s watching you like you’re the only thing in the room that matters, and the words rise in your throat before you can stop them.

“I—”

You stop. He waits. You can see him waiting. He leans slightly closer without realizing it. His hand tightens very slightly around yours like he’s bracing himself for something.

“I…” you try again, and the words are right there, right at the edge of your mouth, so close you can almost hear them.

I love you.

But you can’t say it like this. Not when you’re lying in bed with a fever and he’s looking at you like he’s already worried. Not when the words would sound like a confession and a goodbye at the same time.

So you swallow them.

“I appreciate you,” you say instead.

He stares at you for a second, like he knows that’s not what you were going to say. “You’re terrible at talking about feelings,” he says quietly.

“So are you.”

“I know.”

You’re both still holding hands, and after a while the fever starts to pull you back toward sleep again, your eyelids getting heavier, your grip on his hand loosening slightly as you drift.

“You should sleep,” he says softly.

“You should go back to work.”

“I’ll leave later.”

You don’t argue this time. You fall asleep still holding his hand, your fingers loosely curled around his. He stays there long after your breathing evens out, sitting in the chair beside your bed with one hand trapped under yours and the other resting on the mattress, watching your chest rise and fall slowly under the blanket.

He tells himself he’s staying because you’re sick. Because someone should be here in case the fever gets worse. Because he’s your captain.

But as the hours pass and the light outside your window shifts from afternoon to evening to night and then slowly toward morning, he realizes something he hasn’t let himself think about before.

He’s watching you breathe because he is afraid that if he looks away, you might stop. He’s staying because the idea of leaving you alone like this feels wrong in a way he can’t explain. He’s staying because something about this situation feels like standing on the edge of a cliff and not realizing how close you are to falling until the ground gives way under your feet.

He looks down at your hand where it’s still loosely wrapped around his, and he closes his fingers around yours carefully so he doesn’t wake you.

He realizes, sitting there in the quiet of your room while the rest of the Scouts sleep, that he’s afraid. Not of Titans. Not of battle. Not of dying.

He’s afraid of losing you.

Losing you, he realizes, would destroy him.

He stays until morning.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

You don’t go to the infirmary because you’re sick anymore; you go because you’re being monitored now, quietly, unofficially, the medic checking your lungs every few days under the pretense of routine evaluations.

You sit on the edge of the bed while the medic listens to your breathing again, their brow furrowing slightly in the way you’ve learned to dread.

“Try to breathe deeper,” they say.

You try, and the breath catches halfway in your chest before you can pull it all the way in, and you see their expression tighten just a little more. You don’t ask what that means. You already know.

They finish the examination and make a few notes, then leave you alone for a few minutes while they go to retrieve something from another room. You sit there swinging your feet slightly off the edge of the bed, staring at the floor and thinking about how strange it is that you can sit here knowing exactly how this ends and still feel like you’re living in the middle of something instead of at the end of it.

The door opens again, but it isn’t the medic this time. It’s Hange. They close the door behind them and lean back against it for a moment, arms crossed, watching you in that quiet, thoughtful way they’ve had ever since the day in the infirmary when everything changed.

“You’re worse,” they say.

You shrug slightly. “I’m fine.”

They give you a look. “You need a new word,” they say. “You’ve worn that one out.”

You smile faintly, but it doesn’t last long. Hange pushes away from the door and walks over, stopping a few feet in front of you, close enough that you can see the worry they’re not bothering to hide anymore.

“He’s getting suspicious,” they say.

Your stomach churns slightly. “I know.”

“He watches you constantly.”

“I know.”

“He asked me yesterday if I thought you were sick.”

You look up. “What did you say?”

“I said you were overworking yourself and being an idiot, which is technically true.” You let out a slow breath you didn’t realize you were holding.  “He’s not going to stop asking,” Hange continues quietly. “And he’s not stupid. He’s going to figure out something’s wrong.”

You look down at your hands again, twisting your fingers together slowly. “I don’t want him to find out like that,” you say.

“Then tell him,” Hange replies immediately. “Tell him before he figures it out himself. Tell him before he has to corner a medic or interrogate someone. Tell him because he deserves to hear it from you.”

You shake your head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

You don’t answer right away, because the reasons are complicated and emotional and selfish in ways you don’t like admitting even to yourself. You don’t know how to explain them without sounding like you’re making excuses.

“I don’t want him to look at me like I’m already gone,” you say finally. “I don’t want him to start treating me differently,” you continue quietly. “I don’t want him to stop giving me work, or stop arguing with me, or start being careful with me like I’m going to break if someone breathes too hard in my direction.”

Hange’s expression softens slightly, but they still look unconvinced. “He’s going to treat you differently eventually,” they say gently.

“I know,” you reply. “But I don’t want that to start now. I want things to stay normal for as long as possible.”

Hange studies your face for a long moment, like they’re trying to see all the thoughts you’re not saying out loud. “That’s not the only reason,” they say.

You sigh quietly. “No.” They wait. You look down at your hands again. You swallow before speaking again. “I don’t want the first time I tell him how I feel to sound like a goodbye,” you say softly.

The room goes very quiet after that. Hange’s expression changes slowly, understanding settling into their face. You’ve never confided in them that you have feelings for Levi, but you’re starting to guess that Hange is a little too clever for their own good. “You’re going to tell him,” they say.

You nod once. “Yes.”

“When?”

You hesitate. “I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t have unlimited time,” they say quietly.

“I know.”

“Then you should tell him soon.”

“I will.”

Hange exhales slowly and runs a hand through their hair, looking frustrated and sad and tired all at the same time. “You’re both idiots,” they mutter.

You smile faintly. “That’s not new information.”

“He loves you, you know.”

The words hit you harder than you expect them to, and you look up sharply. “Don’t say things like that unless you’re sure,” you say quietly.

“I’m sure,” Hange replies immediately. “He watches you like the world might collapse if you trip over something. He rearranged half the duty assignments just so you’d be working closer to him. He hasn’t slept properly in weeks because he keeps checking if you’re still working too late. He came to the infirmary twice asking if anyone had seen you when you missed one morning. He just didn’t tell me why.”

You stare at them, heart beating faster now. “He just thinks I’m overworking myself,” you say.

Hange shakes their head slowly. “He’s not that stupid.”

You look away, your throat tight. “If he feels that way,” you say quietly, “then I want to hear it from him, not from you.”

“That’s fair,” Hange admits.

You sit in silence for a moment after that, the air between you heavy with everything that isn’t being said, and then Hange sighs and leans back against the wall again. “You need to pick a moment,” they say. “You’re waiting for the perfect time, but the perfect time doesn’t exist.”

“I know,” you reply.

“Then pick a good enough time.”

You nod slowly. You start thinking about it then—about where you would tell him, what you would say, whether you would say it all at once or in pieces, whether you would laugh first or be serious, whether he would understand immediately or stare at you like you’d just said something impossible.

You imagine telling him in his office. No, that feels too formal.

In the mess hall? No, too many people.

On a supply run? Too unprofessional.

Somewhere quiet, somewhere just the two of you, somewhere that feels like a moment instead of an accident. Somewhere that belongs to both of you.

“You’re thinking about it already,” Hange says, watching your face.

You nod. “Yes.”

“Good.” They push themselves away from the wall and head toward the door, then pause with their hand on the handle. “You don’t have to do this alone,” they say quietly.

“I know,” you reply. But you also know that some conversations have to be had alone, that some words only matter if they come directly from you and no one else.

Hange leaves the room, and you sit there for a long time after they’re gone, staring at nothing in particular and thinking about Levi, about the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not paying attention, about the way he stayed beside your bed all night while you were sick, about the way he says your name when he’s frustrated and when he’s worried and when he’s trying not to sound like either of those things.

You think about what it would feel like to say the words out loud. You think about how his face might change when he hears them. You think about how afraid you are that he might not say them back.

And you think about how much more afraid you are that you might run out of time before you ever say them at all.

.

The afternoon is quiet in Levi’s office. This quiet only exists when most of the soldiers are outside training or on duty. You stand across from his desk with a stack of supply reports in your hands while he studies a map spread out over the surface in front of him.

“Winter’s going to be worse this year,” he says, tapping a spot along one of the outer supply routes. “We’ll need to stock more blankets, more preserved food, and double the medical supplies.”

You nod, setting the reports down beside the map. “We’ll need more storage space.”

“I know. We’ll clear out the old equipment room and convert it. You can reorganize the inventory when we move everything.”

You can reorganize the inventory.

The words sink into you. You nod anyway. “That makes sense.”

He continues talking, moving a marker along the map as he plans out routes and schedules and supply rotations, and you watch his hands as he works. He’s always looking ahead, always preparing for problems before they happen.

“Next spring we’ll need to expand the storage again,” he says. “If we’re still running supply lines this far out, we’ll need a second inventory system. I’ll have you train someone to help with it.”

Next spring.

You stare at the map, but you’re not really seeing it anymore.

Next spring.

You try to picture it—the weather warmer, the courtyard full of training recruits again, new supply routes, new reports, new schedules—and for a moment you almost see yourself there, standing beside this desk again, arguing with him about numbers and organization and whether he should actually read the reports before signing them.

And then the image disappears, because you remember something he doesn’t know.

You might not be here next spring. You might not be here in winter. You might not even be here in a few months.

He keeps talking. “We’ll also need to start training someone to take over the logistics records eventually,” he continues. “You’ve organized everything so specifically that no one else can understand it without help.”

You blink slowly. “Eventually?”

“Yes. You’re not going to do this forever.”

“I thought you said I was the only one who could do it correctly,” you say.

“You are,” he replies without looking up. “That’s why you’ll train someone.”

You swallow, your throat suddenly dry. He’s planning a future where you’re still here long enough to train someone else. He’s planning a future that includes you in it without even thinking about it.

You rest your hands lightly on the edge of the desk and look down at the map, at the places he’s marking, at the lines he’s drawing between one month and the next and the next, and you realize that Levi thinks about the future like it’s something guaranteed, something that can be controlled and organized and prepared for if he just works hard enough and plans carefully enough. He thinks he can outwork time.

He doesn’t know that time is the one thing no one wins against.

“You’re quiet,” he says suddenly.

You look up quickly. “I’m listening.”

“You’re thinking,” he corrects.

“I can do both.”

“Not at the same time.”

You almost smile at that, but the smile doesn’t quite form. He finally looks up from the map, his eyes moving immediately to your face, studying you in that way he has now.

“You look tired again,” he says.

“I’m always tired.”

“You’re more tired.”

“I’m fine.”

He stares at you for a long moment, and you can see the familiar frustration flicker across his expression, the irritation that’s really just worry wearing a different face.

“You say that too much,” he mutters.

“I say it because it’s true.”

He doesn’t answer right away, and the silence stretches between you for a few seconds before he looks back down at the map and taps another spot with the marker.

“We’ll need to review these routes again in a few months,” he says. “Things will change once winter hits.”

In a few months. You look at him then. The words are right there in your chest, pressing against your ribs, begging to be spoken. I might not be here in a few months.

But you don’t say it. Instead, you nod slowly. “We’ll review them.”

He continues marking the map, talking about supply timing and storage capacity and how many people will be needed for each route, and you listen and answer and make notes like you always do, but inside your head there’s a different conversation happening, one he can’t hear.

He’s planning a life that includes you. He talks about the future like you’re automatically part of it. He doesn’t even question it. He just assumes you’ll be there. 

And the worst part is that you want that future too. You want winter supply routes and spring inventory and training new recruits and arguing with him about paperwork and drinking tea in the mornings and walking through the courtyard and growing older in a world that eventually you hope will become peaceful. You want all of it. But wanting something and having time for it are not the same thing.

“You’re doing it again,” he says.

You blink. “Doing what?”

“Going quiet and staring at nothing.”

“I’m looking at the map.”

“You’re looking through the map.”

You sigh quietly. “You’re very observant.”

"I have to be."

He sets the marker down and leans back slightly in his chair, still watching you, and there’s something in his expression now that makes your stomach twist slightly.

“You’re not telling me something,” he says.

You force yourself not to look away. “There’s nothing to tell,” you reply.

“You’re lying again.”

“I’m not lying.”

He studies your face for another long moment, and for a second you think he might push harder, might demand answers, might corner you into telling him everything right there in the middle of his office.  But he doesn’t. Instead, he exhales slowly and looks back down at the map again, like he’s decided that whatever this is, he’ll figure it out later.

“We’ll finish this tomorrow,” he says.

You nod. “Alright.” You gather the reports from the edge of the desk and turn toward the door, but before you reach it he speaks again.

“You’ll be here tomorrow morning,” he says, not quite a question, not quite a statement.

You pause, your hand resting lightly on the door handle. “Yes,” you say quietly.

He nods once, like that’s the only answer he would have accepted, and looks back down at the map again, already thinking about winter and spring and months from now, already building a future in his head that he assumes you’ll be standing beside him in.

You open the door and step out into the hallway, closing it quietly behind you, and you stand there for a moment with your hand still resting on the wood, staring at nothing in particular.

Inside the office, Levi continues planning, unaware that every plan he makes goes farther into the future than you might be able to follow him.

And in the hallway, you press your hand lightly against your chest and close your eyes for a second, wishing, just for a moment, that you could step into the future he’s imagining and stay there with him.

.

You don’t go to the roof because you have somewhere to be. You go because it’s quiet there, because the wind is cold and clean and makes it easier to breathe than the dust and stone air inside the building, and because from the roof you can see far enough that the world almost looks peaceful, almost looks like a place where people live long, ordinary lives instead of short, violent ones.

You sit near the edge with your knees drawn slightly toward your chest, watching the sun sink slowly toward the horizon. The sky turns into soft shades of gold and orange. For a while you don’t think about anything at all. You just sit and watch the light change.

You hear the door behind you open, and you don’t turn right away, because you already know who it is. Levi’s footsteps are quieter than almost anyone else’s, but you’ve known him long enough to recognize the rhythm of the way he walks, never wasted movement, never uncertain.

“You disappeared again,” he says as he approaches. He stops a few feet away from you, looking out over the edge of the roof instead of directly at you, and for a moment neither of you says anything.

The silence between you is comfortable in a way that surprises most people who see the two of you together. With anyone else, silence is awkward, something that needs to be filled. With Levi, silence is just another form of conversation.

“You shouldn’t sit so close to the edge,” he says after a while.

“I’m not going to fall.”

“You trip over stairs.”

“That was one time.”

“It was enough.”

You smile slightly at that, and he finally sits down beside you, not too close at first, leaving a small space between your shoulders that feels both intentional and unnecessary at the same time. The wind lifts slightly, pushing a loose strand of hair across your face, and you brush it back absently while watching the sun sink lower. 

“It’s quiet up here,” you say.

“That’s why I come up here,” he replies.

You glance at him. “You come up here a lot?”

“When I need to think.”

“You do a lot of thinking?”

“I do a lot of dealing with idiots. Thinking is necessary to survive that.”

You laugh softly. You sit there for a while, watching the sky change colors, the sun slipping lower and lower until the light softens.

“If this all ended tomorrow,” you say quietly, “what would you do?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. “That won’t happen,” he says finally.

“It might happen.”

“It might not.”

“You’re very optimistic.”

“I’m realistic.”

You tilt your head slightly, looking at him. “So realistically, what would you do if there were no more Titans, no more expeditions, no more fighting?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, staring out at the horizon like he’s trying to picture something he’s never really allowed himself to imagine before.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually. “Sleep, probably.”

You smile. “You’d sleep for a year.”

“At least.”

“What else?”

He shrugs slightly. “Find something useful to do.”

“You’d open a tea shop.”

He gives you a look. “I would not open a tea shop.”

“You drink enough tea to own one.”

“I drink tea because it’s hot and doesn’t taste like garbage.”

“That’s not a good business slogan.” He almost smiles at that, just a small shift at the corner of his mouth that most people would miss, but you don’t. “You could sit behind the counter and glare at customers until they leave,” you continue. “Very effective business model.”

“You’d be the only customer.”

“I’d come every day.”

“You already bother me every day.”

“That’s because you’d miss me if I stopped.”

He doesn’t answer that immediately. You look at him then, and he’s looking at you, and something in his expression makes your heart flutter slightly. “You’re important here,” he says quietly.

You blink. “That’s a very professional way to say you’d miss me.”

“I’m not saying I’d miss you.”

“You’re implying it.”

“I’m saying the supply system would collapse without you.”

“That’s very romantic.”

He snorts softly. “You’re impossible.”

“You tolerate me.”

“I tolerate a lot of things.”

“But you keep me around on purpose.”

He doesn’t deny that. Instead, he reaches over and adjusts the edge of your cloak where it’s slipped off your shoulder slightly, his fingers brushing the fabric and then your shoulder for just a second before he pulls his hand back again. The touch is brief, but it lingers in your mind.

“You work too hard,” he says quietly.

“So do you,” you say.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I’m in charge. I’m allowed to be miserable.”

“You’re not miserable.”

“I am most of the time.”

You shake your head slightly. “You’re just dramatic.”

“I’m not dramatic.”

“You just sit quietly and judge everyone.”

“They deserve it.”

You sit there in silence again after that, the sky turning darker now, the first faint stars beginning to appear overhead, and the wind has picked up slightly.

You realize suddenly that this is one of the moments you were talking about with Hange—a moment that feels like it belongs to just the two of you, separate from everything else in the world. You swallow, your heart beating a little faster now, and you turn slightly toward him. 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” you say.

He looks at you immediately, his attention focused in a way that makes it impossible to pretend this is a casual conversation anymore. “Then tell me,” he says.

The words sit between you for a second. You look at his face, at the way he’s watching you like nothing else exists right now. The words rise in your throat again, the same ones that have been sitting there for weeks, for months, maybe longer.

I love you.

You open your mouth. Then you close it again. You’re afraid that if you say it, everything will change. You’re afraid that if you say it, you’ll see something in his face that you’re not ready for. You’re afraid that if you say it, you’ll want more time than you have.

“I’m glad I met you,” you say instead.

He stares at you for a second, and you can see immediately that he knows that’s not what you meant to say. “You’re the only person here who doesn’t annoy me,” he says after a moment.

You smile faintly. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I trust you,” he adds, more quietly now. “More than anyone here.”

Your breath catches slightly at that, and you look down at your hands because you don’t know what expression is on your face right now and you’re afraid he might see too much if you look at him.

“You shouldn’t say things like that unless you mean them,” you say softly.

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

You look up then, and for a moment you’re both just looking at each other in the fading light, close enough now that you can see the exact color of his eyes in the dusk, close enough that if either of you leaned forward just a little bit more, everything would change.

He notices how pale you look in the fading light, how tired your eyes are, how thin your hands feel when he thinks about the way they felt the last time he held them. Something twists in him again, that same fear he’s been carrying around for weeks now without knowing exactly why.

“If something ever happened to you,” he says quietly, almost like he’s thinking out loud instead of talking to you directly, “it would be… difficult.”

You huff a small laugh. “Difficult?”

“I don’t like losing people.”

“That’s a very mild way of saying that.”

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he reaches over and adjusts your cloak again where the wind has pulled it loose, his hand brushing your neck. “You’re not allowed to die before me,” he says quietly.

You freeze slightly at that, your heart skipping a beat. “That sounds like an order,” you say softly.

“It is. So promise me.”

You look at him, and in that moment you realize that this is the closest you have ever been to him in every possible way—not physically, but emotionally, like the space between you has finally narrowed. You want to lean closer. You want to take his hand. You want to tell him everything. But instead, you both just sit there as the sky turns fully dark, the stars spreading slowly overhead.

“I promise,” you finally say, the words feeling heavy in your chest.

After a while, he stands and holds out a hand to help you up. You take it, your fingers wrapping around his. He doesn’t let go immediately after you’re standing. For a second, you’re both just standing there, hands still linked, neither of you moving.

Then he lets go. “We should go back,” he says.

You nod. You walk back to the door together, shoulders brushing once as you pass through the doorway. Neither of you comments on it.

At the bottom of the stairs, you pause for a moment, and he stops beside you. “I’m glad I met you too,” he says quietly, not looking at you when he says it.

Your heart stutters slightly. He walks away before you can respond, disappearing down the hallway. You stand there for a moment watching him go, your hand still warm where his had been a few minutes ago.

You realize then that if you had leaned forward just a little bit more on that rooftop, if you had said the words you almost said, if he had reached out just a little bit more, everything might have changed.

But you didn’t.

And neither did he.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

You’re running out of time.

The thought doesn’t scare you the way it did at first. It sits in you now heavily, something you carry around with you everywhere, something you’ve stopped trying to pretend isn’t there. 

But the idea of leaving without telling him—that still terrifies you.

You close the report in front of you slowly and lean back in your chair, staring at the wall across from you. You think about the rooftop, about the way he looked at you when you said you were glad you met him, about the way he said you weren’t allowed to die before him like it was an order he expected the world to obey. You think about the fever night, about his hand in yours, about the way he stayed until morning. You think about every cup of tea, every argument about food, every report you’ve handed him, every time he’s said your name in that particular way that means he’s irritated but also worried.

You think about how much you love him.

And you realize that you cannot leave this world without telling him that.

“I’m going to tell him,” you say out loud to the empty room. You stand up slowly and walk over to your bed, sitting down on the edge of it and staring at the small desk across the room where your writing supplies are scattered in their usual messy arrangement.

You should write it down. Just in case.

The thought makes your stomach twist slightly, but you stand again anyway and walk to the desk, pulling a sheet of paper toward you and dipping the pen into the ink with hands that are only shaking a little. You sit there for a long moment, staring at the blank paper, trying to figure out how to start something that feels too big to fit into words.

Finally, you write his name.

You stop there for a second, staring at it, your chest tightening slightly just from seeing it written in your own handwriting.

You start again.

I don’t know how to say this out loud, so I’m writing it down in case I never find the courage to tell you properly.

You pause, tapping the end of the pen lightly against the paper, thinking. That sounds too serious, you think. Too much like goodbye. But you don’t know how else to start a letter where you’re pouring years of feelings out. You continue writing.

I think I’ve loved you for a long time.

You stare at the sentence for a long moment after writing it, your heart beating faster just from seeing the words written down, from seeing the truth of it sitting there in ink where you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist anymore.

You keep writing slowly, the words coming easier now.

I never told you because I didn’t think it mattered if you knew. Being beside you was already enough for me. The mornings, the tea, the reports, the arguments, those quiet moments when neither of us had anything to say but stayed anyway. That was already more than I expected to have in this life.

Your hand trembles slightly, and a small drop of ink smudges near the edge of the paper where your fingers rest. You continue anyway.

You matter to me more than anyone. I don’t expect you to say anything back. I just needed you to know.

You stop again, staring at the paper, and your vision blurs slightly before you realize you’re crying. You laugh quietly at yourself and wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. “This is stupid,” you mutter to yourself. “You’re writing like you’re already gone.”

You don’t cross the words out. Instead, you keep writing.

I’m glad I met you. I’m glad I got to work with you. I’m glad I got to drink tea with you in the mornings and argue with you about whether I ate enough and listen to you complain about paperwork. If I had more time, I think I would have spent most of it sitting in the same room as you, not saying much, just being there.

You stop writing then, because your hand is shaking too much now and the words are getting harder to see. You read the letter over once, twice, then fold the paper carefully, smoothing the crease with your fingers. You set it down on your bed beside you and sit there for a moment, staring at it.

“Just in case,” you say quietly. You don’t like the way those words sound. But they’re true. Just in case you chicken out. Just in case you want to tell him but you can’t say it out loud. Just in case you didn’t tell him before you ran out of time.

You stand up and walk to the small mirror on the wall, looking at your reflection critically. You look tired. You always look tired now. But today, you want to look normal. You want to look like someone who is about to confess something important, not like someone who is slowly disappearing. You smooth your hair back with your hands, adjusting the loose strands until they sit the way you like. You straighten your jacket, brush a bit of dust from the sleeve, adjust the collar slightly.

You look at yourself for a long moment. “You can do this,” you tell your reflection quietly. You take a deep breath, then another, practicing the words in your head before trying them out loud. “I think I’ve loved you for a long time,” you say softly. You make a face. “That sounds ridiculous.”

You try again.

“I think I’ve loved you for a long time,” you repeat, a little more firmly this time. You tilt your head slightly, considering it. “Maybe start with something else,” you mutter to yourself.

You try again.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” You pause. “That sounds like I’m about to confess to a crime.”

You try another version.

“You’re my home.” You wince slightly. “That sounds too cheesy.”

You pace a little in the small space of your room, running through different versions out loud like you’re practicing for a speech. Some versions make you laugh because they sound stupid. Some make your heart wrench because they sound too honest, too serious, too much like a goodbye.

Eventually, you stop pacing and lean against the wall, closing your eyes for a moment.

“You’re overthinking this,” you tell yourself. “Just say the truth.”

The truth is simple.

I’ve loved you for a long time. You matter more to me more than anyone else. You complete me.

You open your eyes and look at yourself in the mirror again. “Okay,” you say quietly. “That’s what I’ll say.”

You take one last look at your reflection, make a small adjustment to your hair, smooth your jacket again even though it doesn’t need it, and then you turn toward the door before you can change your mind. You open the door, step into the hallway, and close it behind you, your heart beating faster now, your hands slightly cold despite the warm air inside the building.

You don’t look back.

You don’t notice the folded letter still lying on your bed, exactly where you left it, the ink fully dry now, the paper carefully creased, waiting for someone who isn’t there yet to read the words you were finally brave enough to write down.

You walk down the hallway toward Levi’s office, rehearsing the words in your head one more time, your heart pounding like you’re about to step into battle instead of a conversation.

This is the most important conversation of your life. 

You don’t know that it’s the last decision you will ever make.

You walk faster than usual, though you try not to make it obvious. Your heart beats loudly as you repeat the words over and over in your head so you don’t forget them when you finally see him. You mouth the words silently as you walk, testing how they feel, trying to make them sound natural in your head so they won’t come out strange or awkward when you finally say them out loud.

You pass a window and catch your reflection for just a second—hair fixed, jacket straight, face blanched but determined—and you almost laugh because you look like someone about to go into a battle, not someone about to confess something that feels bigger than anything you’ve ever done in your life.

Your hands are cold. Your heart is racing. You feel like you’re about to step into something that will change everything.

Just say it, you think. Just say the truth.

You turn the corner into the main hallway that leads toward Levi’s office. As you walk you pass the infirmary door on your right, the familiar smell drifts faintly into the hallway as someone opens it from inside. For a brief moment you think about how many times you’ve walked past this door pretending everything was fine.

After this, everything will be different.

You take another step. Then another.

Then suddenly the world spins.

At first it’s small, just a strange wave of dizziness that makes the hallway feel slightly longer than it should be. You stop walking for a second, pressing your hand lightly against the wall as you wait for the feeling to pass.

“Not now,” you whisper under your breath. “Please, not now.”

You push yourself away from the wall and take another step. Your chest wrenches. You try to breathe in, but the breath catches halfway painfully. The cough comes before you can stop it, tearing out of your lungs so violently that you double over slightly, one hand flying up to cover your mouth as the coughing fit takes hold of you completely.

It hurts.

It hurts more than usual, like something inside your chest is breaking apart instead of just struggling to breathe. You try to straighten up but another cough hits you immediately. Then another. You stumble sideways, your shoulder hitting the wall harder than you meant it to.

“Not now,” you whisper again, your voice hoarse and broken between coughs. “I just need a few more minutes.”

You try to walk again, but your legs don’t feel steady anymore. The hallway seems too long, the distance to Levi’s office suddenly impossible. You take two steps before the coughing comes back worse than before, forcing you to your knees as you try desperately to breathe.

Your hand comes away from your mouth wet. You look down. There’s blood on your fingers. More blood than you’ve ever seen before.

For a second, everything goes very quiet. 

“Oh,” you whisper, staring at your hand. “Oh.”

The world spins again, harder this time, and you try to push yourself back up, try to stand, try to keep moving, because you were so close. You were almost there, you were going to tell him today, you were finally going to say the words out loud. But your legs give out before you can stand, and you fall sideways onto the stone floor, the impact distant and dull, like it’s happening to someone else instead of you.

The hallway ceiling swims above you, the light blurring, and you try to breathe but your chest won’t cooperate, each breath shallow and uneven and not nearly enough.

Footsteps run toward you. You hear voices. Someone saying your name.

And then Hange is there, dropping to their knees beside you so quickly it almost looks like they fell too, their hands immediately on your shoulders, their face pale and terrified in a way you’ve never seen before.

“Hey, hey, stay with me,” Hange says, their voice too loud and too tight. “Look at me.”

You try to focus on their face, but everything keeps drifting in and out, the edges of the world going soft and dark. “Hange,” you whisper, and even saying their name takes more effort than it should.

Hange turns their head sharply toward a cadet who’s frozen a few feet away, staring in shock. “Go get a medic!” Hange snaps. “Now! Run!” The cadet bolts immediately, footsteps echoing down the hallway. They turn to the other cadet and yell, “Get Captain Levi immediately!” He sprints down the other end of the hallway. Hange looks back at you, one hand gripping yours tightly now, the other pressing lightly against your shoulder. “You idiot,” they say, their voice breaking slightly. “You said you were fine.”

“I was,” you whisper weakly. “I was going to tell him.”

Hange’s grip tightens on your hand. “Tell him what?”

You try to breathe again, but the breath won’t come properly, and your chest hurts so much now you can barely think around it. “I was on my way to him,” you say, the words coming out slowly and unevenly. “I was going to tell him.”

Hange’s expression changes immediately, understanding and heartbreak and guilt all crashing across their face at the same time. “You can still tell him,” they say quickly. “He’s here. We’ll get him.”

“Is he coming?” you ask, your voice small and distant even to your own ears.

“Yes,” Hange says immediately, squeezing your hand tighter. “He’s coming.”

You nod slightly, relieved, your fingers curling weakly around Hange’s hand. “Good,” you whisper. “I didn’t want… I didn’t want to leave without telling him.”

“You won’t,” Hange says quickly. “You can tell him yourself. Just stay with me.”

You try to nod again, but the world is getting darker now, the light dimming like someone is slowly turning it down. Your body feels very heavy and very tired, like you’ve been running for a long time and can finally stop.

“I’ve loved him for a long time,” you whisper, the words barely louder than the sound of your breathing. “Can you tell him that? In case… in case I don’t…”

Hange shakes their head quickly, tears in their eyes now. “You’re going to tell him yourself. He’s on his way.”

You look at them, trying to focus on their face, trying to stay awake just a little longer. “You have to tell him I was on my way,” you say softly. “I was coming to tell him.”

“I’ll tell him,” Hange says, their voice breaking now. “I promise. I’ll tell him everything.”

You relax a little at that, your grip on their hand loosening slightly. “Is he close?” you ask quietly.

“Yes,” Hange says gently. “He’s very close.”

You nod slowly, your eyes starting to close even though you try to keep them open.

“Good,” you whisper. “I just… I wanted to see him one more time.”

Your breathing slows, each inhale shallower than the last, and Hange squeezes your hand tighter. “Stay with me,” they whisper. “Just a little longer.”

You try to answer, but you’re too tired now, too tired to keep fighting your own body, too tired to keep your eyes open, too tired to keep breathing when each breath feels like climbing a mountain.

The last thing you feel is Hange’s hand holding yours tightly.

The last thing you hear is Hange saying your name.

And the last thing you think, as the world finally goes quiet and dark around you, is that you were so close.

.

Levi is in the middle of reviewing reports when the door to his office slams open hard enough to hit the wall behind it. He looks up immediately, irritation already rising before he even sees who it is.

A cadet stands in the doorway, breathing hard like they’ve been running. “Captain, you’re needed immediately,” the cadet says.

Levi frowns. “If this is about missing inventory again, I swear—”

“It’s not that,” the cadet interrupts quickly. “It’s— you’re just needed. Right now.”

Something in the cadet’s voice makes Levi pause. He sets the pen down slowly, the irritation still there but shifting now into alterness.

“Where?” he asks.

“The main hallway. Near the infirmary.”

Levi stands immediately. He doesn’t run. He never runs unless there’s a Titan involved. But he walks quickly, the cadet hurrying ahead of him. As they move through the building Levi feels a strange, unpleasant churning in his stomach.

“Who’s hurt?” he asks. The cadet hesitates for half a second. Levi notices. “Who?" Levi repeats more sharply.

The cadet doesn’t answer. The feeling in Levi’s stomach gets worse.

They turn the corner into the main hallway, and he sees the small crowd first—soldiers gathered in a loose circle, whispering quietly, standing back, not wanting to get too close to whatever is happening in the middle of the floor.

And then he sees Hange.

And the medic.

And you.

You’re lying on the stone floor, too still, one arm at your side, the other slightly bent like you tried to reach for something and didn’t make it.

For a moment, Levi doesn’t understand what he’s looking at.

Then his lungs nearly stop working.

He walks straight toward the crowd, his voice cold. “Move.” No one argues. They step aside immediately, and he drops to one knee beside you, his hand already reaching for your wrist before anyone can say anything.

Your skin is still warm. Your hand is limp in his. He presses two fingers against your wrist, searching for a pulse. He waits. One second. Two seconds. Three. Nothing.

He slowly lowers your hand back to the floor, and for a moment he just stares at your face. Then he looks up at Hange. And the look on his face is something most people would never want directed at them. He looks like he’s going to kill Hange.

“What happened?” he says quietly.

Hange’s eyes are red, and there are tears on their face they clearly haven’t bothered to wipe away. “She collapsed,” Hange says, their voice shaking slightly. “She was walking down the hallway. She started coughing and then she just—”

“Why,” Levi interrupts, his voice still quiet but dangerous now, “did she collapse?”

Hange swallows. The medic looks at the floor. Levi’s eyes move between them slowly, and the silence stretches long enough to become unbearable. 

“Someone,” Levi says, his voice dropping even lower, “is going to explain this to me.”

Hange exhales slowly, like they’ve been holding their breath for weeks. “She was sick,” Hange says.

Levi’s expression doesn’t change. “Everyone gets sick.”

“No,” Hange says quietly. “She was dying.”

The words land in the hallway like a stone dropped into still water. Levi doesn’t react immediately. He just stares at Hange, like he didn’t hear them correctly.

“What?” he says.

“She was diagnosed many weeks ago,” Hange continues, their voice breaking slightly now. “It was her lungs. There wasn’t anything the medic could do. She knew. I knew. The medic knew.”

Levi’s eyes sharpen. “And no one thought to tell me.”

“She made me promise not to,” Hange says quickly. “She didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want you to treat her differently. She wanted things to stay normal for as long as possible.”

Levi laughs once, a short sound that doesn’t sound like laughter at all. “She was dying,” he says slowly, “and she thought I’d treat her differently.”

“She didn’t want pity,” Hange whispers. “She didn’t want to become fragile in your eyes.”

Levi looks down at you again, at the way your hair falls across your forehead, at the way your face looks strangely peaceful, like you’re just sleeping in the middle of a hallway for no reason at all.

“She hid it,” he says quietly.

“Yes.”

“And you helped her hide it.”

Hange closes their eyes for a second. “Yes.”

Levi doesn’t say anything for a long time after that. Then he asks, very quietly, “Why was she in the hallway?”

Hange’s face crumples slightly at that. “She was on her way to your office,” they say.

Levi’s head snaps up slightly. “Why?”

Hange hesitates. “She said she needed to tell you something,” they say softly. “She told me she was on her way to you when she collapsed.”

Levi feels like a knife is being turned slowly behind his ribs. “What did she need to tell me?” he asks, though something deep down already knows the answer.

Hange leans in and lowers their voice so only he can hear. “She had last words for you,” Hange says quietly. Levi’s throat feels suddenly too tight. Hange leans closer and whispers in his ear. “She told me to tell you she loved you.”

The world stops.

Everything—every morning tea, every report, every second bickering, every moment spent together in silence, every time you said his name, every time you looked at him like you were about to say something and then didn’t—everything crashes into place all at once in his mind. The rooftop. The fever night. The way you looked at him when he talked about the future. When you said you were glad you met him. How you kept saying you were fine.

He realizes, all at once and far too late, that every moment he thought he still had time, you were already running out of it.

“You idiot,” he whispers, but his voice breaks halfway through the word.

He looks down at you again and reaches for your hand, lifting it carefully into his, holding it the way he did that night when you were sick. Maybe if he holds it carefully enough, you might still wake up.

“You should’ve told me,” he says quietly, his voice shaking now despite his best effort to control it. 

He stops, swallowing hard, his grip tightening slightly around your hand. He feels anger rise in him, overwhelming—anger at Hange, at the medic, at you, at himself, at the entire world for continuing to exist like nothing just happened.

“You weren’t allowed to leave,” he mutters, his voice rough now. He leans forward slightly, his forehead almost touching the back of your hand, and his shoulders shake once before he can stop them. “You promised,” he whispers hoarsely. “You promised.”

His voice breaks completely then, and he closes his eyes tightly like if he doesn’t look at you, maybe this won’t be real. But your hand is still cold in his, and the hallway is still too quiet, and everyone around him is still standing far enough away to give him space.

And Levi sits there on the stone floor, holding your hand and realizing that the future he’s been planning for both of you no longer exists.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

A few days pass before Levi goes to your room.

He tells himself he’s busy. That there are reports to finish, papers to review, training schedules to approve, problems that still need solving because the world did not stop just because you did. He tells himself that there will be time to deal with your belongings later, that someone else could do it, that it isn’t urgent.

But every time he walks past the hallway where your room is, he slows down without meaning to. Every time he sees someone carrying a stack of reports, he looks up automatically, expecting to see you behind them. Every morning when he makes tea, he pours too much water into the kettle before remembering that there is no second cup anymore.

After a few days, Hange quietly places a small key on his desk.

“She didn’t have much,” they say gently. “But someone should go through her things.”

Levi doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at the key sitting on the desk with a blank stare. 

“I’ll take care of it,” he says eventually.

He waits until evening.

He tells himself it’s because fewer people will be around, because he doesn’t want anyone watching him, because this is just a task that needs to be done and it will be easier when the building is quiet.

But when he finally stands in front of your door with the key in his hand, he realizes the real reason he waited is because opening this door will make everything final in a way he hasn’t fully allowed yet.

He unlocks the door slowly and pushes it open. The room is exactly the same. Your bed is made, though not perfectly. Your desk is still covered in papers and notes and a cup that probably held tea a few days ago. Your spare jacket is draped over the back of the chair. A book lies open on the desk with a small scrap of paper marking your place. Your other pair of boots are near the door like you just kicked them off and meant to put them away later. The room looks like someone still lives here.

Levi stands in the doorway for a long moment, not moving, not speaking, just looking at the space like if he stares long enough, you might walk in behind him and ask why he’s standing in your room.

He steps inside slowly and closes the door behind him. The room is quiet. He walks to the desk first, looking at the papers, recognizing your handwriting immediately, neat but slightly slanted, organized in a way only you seemed to understand. He picks up one of the pages and reads a few lines before setting it back down exactly where it was. He touches the back of the chair where your jacket hangs, running his fingers lightly over the fabric, half-expecting it to still be warm. He doesn’t take anything yet. He just walks slowly around the room, looking at everything like he’s trying to memorize it.

Then he turns toward the bed. And he sees the letter. It’s lying on top of the blanket, folded carefully, placed right in the center like you meant for someone to find it. Like you meant for him to find it.

His name is written on the front in your handwriting.

He stops walking. For a long moment, he just stands there staring at the letter. He walks to the bed and picks it up carefully. He recognizes your handwriting immediately, and something in his chest twists painfully because you wrote this knowing you might never say the words out loud.

He unfolds the letter slowly and begins to read.

I think I’ve loved you for a long time.

His breath catches immediately, and he stops reading for a second, staring at the words like they might change if he looks away and then back again.

He keeps reading.

I never told you because I didn’t think it mattered if you knew. Being beside you was already enough for me. The mornings, the tea, the reports, the arguments, the quiet moments when neither of us had anything to say but stayed anyway. That was already more than I expected to have in this life. You matter to me more than anyone. I don’t expect you to say anything back. I just needed you to know.

His hands start shaking slightly, and he has to sit down on the edge of your bed because suddenly he can’t feel his legs properly.

I’m glad I met you. I’m glad I got to work with you. I’m glad I got to drink tea with you in the mornings and argue with you about whether I ate enough and listen to you complain about paperwork. If I had more time, I think I would have spent most of it sitting in the same room as you, not saying much, just being there.

If I had more time.

The words blur on the page because his vision suddenly isn’t steady anymore, and he blinks hard but it doesn’t help. He reads the letter again from the beginning, slower this time, like if he reads it carefully enough, he might find some hidden sentence that says this isn’t real, that you’re still alive somewhere and this is just a misunderstanding.

But there is no hidden sentence. There’s only your handwriting and your confession and the devastating truth that you loved him and you were going to tell him and you died on the way to him and he never said the words back.

His chest tightens suddenly, painfully, like he can’t get enough air, and he sets the letter down beside him on the bed and presses his hands against his face, breathing unevenly. 

He realizes then, that you died thinking he didn’t love you. That you wrote this letter because you didn’t think you would ever hear the words back. That you were going to tell him anyway. That you were on your way to him.

He can’t breathe properly.

He bends forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands covering his face, and at first the grief is quiet, just a pain in his sternum and a shaking in his shoulders that he tries and fails to control.

Then the realization hits him fully, all at once, and something inside him breaks completely.

He reaches for the letter again, gripping it tightly in his hand like it’s the only thing holding him together, and he leans forward until his forehead is pressed against the bed beside him, and the sob that escapes him is quiet at first, then louder, then completely uncontrolled as everything he’s been holding in for days finally collapses all at once.

He cries until he can’t breathe, until his shoulders shake and his hands tremble and he presses the letter against himself like if he holds it close enough, he might somehow hold on to you too.

He doesn’t say anything out loud. There are no words for this. There is only grief and regret and love that arrived too late and the terrible, unbearable knowledge that he would have told you if he had known, that he would have said the words if he had realized there wasn’t going to be another chance.

Eventually, the crying slows, but he stays sitting on your bed, the letter still in his hand, staring at the wall across from him like he doesn’t know what to do with a world that still exists when you don’t.

The room is quiet. Your jacket is still on the chair. Your papers are still on the desk. Your boots are still by the door.

Levi sits there for a long time, holding your letter and staring at the space where your life used to be, and the silence in the room feels louder than anything he has ever heard.

The room still smells like you, and Levi realizes that this is the closest he will ever be to you again.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

It’s quiet where you’re buried.

Levi chose the place himself, though he never told anyone that. It’s on a small rise just beyond the edge of the training grounds, far enough away that the noise of the soldiers and the clatter of equipment fades but close enough that the headquarters is still visible in the distance if you stand in the right spot. From here, you can see the sky clearly, and when the sun sets, the light spreads across the grass.

He thought you would have liked that.

He comes in the late afternoon, when the light is starting to turn warm and gold, carrying a small bundle of flowers in one hand. He doesn’t remember picking them. He just remembers standing in a field outside the castle, staring at the ground until he realized he was pulling flowers from the grass without thinking. He kneels down in front of the grave and sets the flowers carefully against the stone marker.

Your name is carved into the stone. He still isn’t used to seeing it like that.

He sits down beside the grave after a moment, resting his forearms on his knees and staring out at the horizon instead of directly at the stone, because looking at your name too long is too painful.

For a while, he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, listening to the wind moving through the grass, watching a few birds fly across the sky. The world continues to move in quiet, ordinary ways that feel strange now, like everything should have stopped for at least a little while when you did.

“You’d hate how disorganized everything is right now,” he says finally, his voice quiet and rough from not being used much for conversation anymore. “The supply reports are a mess. No one can find anything without asking three different people first. I had to reorganize the inventory myself last week, and it took twice as long as it used to when you did it.”

He pauses for a moment, watching a bird land on a fence post in the distance.

“Hange is still annoying,” he continues quietly. “They keep trying to get me to take days off. Like that’s going to fix anything.”

He reaches down and pulls a small blade of grass from the ground, rolling it slowly between his fingers as he talks.

“The tea tastes worse when I make it,” he says after a moment. “I don’t know what you were doing differently, but it was better when you made it.” He huffs a quiet breath that might almost be a laugh. “You were better at a lot of things than most people,” he says.

He goes quiet again after that, the silence stretching between his words and the wind and the distant sounds of training in the background.

“Everyone still talks about you,” he says eventually. “They still use your system for the reports. They still complain about it, but they still use it. The new recruits hear your name all the time, even though they never met you. You’d probably find that funny.”

He looks down at the grass for a moment, then back up at the horizon where the sun is starting to sink lower, turning the sky into soft shades of orange and pink. The sunset reminds him of the rooftop. He remembers the wind, the quiet, how you sat beside him like it was the most normal thing in the world, how you said you were glad you met him, how you looked like you were about to say something else and then didn’t.

He remembers thinking there would be time to have that conversation later. He remembers thinking there would be a lot of later.

“There wasn’t a later,” he says quietly, almost to himself.

The sun drops a little lower, and the light across the field softens, the shadows stretching longer, the birds flying back toward wherever they go at night. He leans back slightly on his hands, looking up at the sky for a moment before closing his eyes briefly and exhaling slowly.

“I knew,” he says quietly. “I think I knew for a long time.” He swallows, his throat tight. “I just didn’t say anything,” he continues. “I told myself it didn’t matter if I said it out loud. I told myself you already knew. I told myself there would be time later.”

He shakes his head slightly, a small, tired movement.

“I was an idiot,” he says softly. “I should’ve said it. I should’ve told you. I should’ve told you the first time I realized I didn’t like it when you were late in the morning. I should’ve told you the first time you fell asleep at your desk and I covered you with your jacket. I should’ve told you on the roof that night when you looked at me like you were about to say something important.”

He looks down at the stone now, at your name carved into it. That same feeling returns, the pain that never really goes away anymore.

“I thought we had more time,” he says quietly. “I thought there would always be another morning, another report, another cup of tea. I thought there would be a later.”

The sun dips lower, the sky growing darker now, the air cooler as evening settles over the field. He sits there for a long time without speaking, just watching the last of the light disappear behind the horizon, the world slowly growing quiet.

Then he leans forward slightly, resting his hand lightly against the top of the stone marker, his fingers tracing the carved letters of your name slowly.

“I knew how I felt,” he says quietly. “I just didn’t say it because I thought there would be time. I thought there would be a later.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer than it’s ever been, almost like he’s afraid the wind might carry the words away before they reach you.

“I think I’ve loved you for a long time too.”

Thank you for reading. I hope you cried as much as I did while writing and editing this. Someone else needs to suffer with me. <3

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