Chapters: 13/?

Additional Tags: AU - Canon Divergence, Hange survived The Rumbling, Floch as well, Slow Burn, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Second Chances, Pining, Dual Timeline, Unreliable Narrator, PTSD, Forced Proximity

Summary

Commander Hange Zoe survived The Rumbling only to inherit a world balanced on a knife's edge.

Then Levi reappears. The man who had been her comrade, friend, and lover. After years of silence, he materializes before her without a word of explanation. Unchanged in all the ways that matter, and yet entirely distant.

She's left to wrestle with an agonizing question: Why did he leave? And could any part of their relationship have endured in this world built on ashes?

Excerpt

Levi clenched his jaw, but forced himself to maintain his usual mask of indifference. Even so, he was struck by the power in her stance, the fire in her eyes, the richness of her laughter as she cackled in the midst of the attack. Admiration and irritation mingled within him, and worst of all, he couldn't identify the source of either to stifle it.

“Ogling comrades is not proper behavior...” Mike appeared at his right.

Levi blinked and tore his gaze away from Hange. He cleared his throat.

“... Wasn’t ogling.”