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It was finished.
And somehow, Levi had lived.
He looked around him at the others, at all of their faces, gaunt and tired and looking older than their years, old like he felt, sometimes, old like the metaphorical fucking chains around Erwin’s raw ankles.
Some people laughed, some people cried.
They waited a year: a probationary year, Erwin called it, just to make sure, just to be certain that the titans wouldn’t come back.
Levi snorted at it, and Hange wrung her hands. “But Erwin,” she said. “Just a year? They were hidden within the walls for—“
And Erwin sighed, cutting her quiet voice off. “What else can we do?” he asked her, hand on her shoulder, the stump of his right arm now healed beneath the pinned-up sleeve of his military jacket. Erwin explained things as best he could: if they let everyone out now, it could prove disastrous, but they needed order, they needed unity of mankind—they needed for humanity to feel safe. Titans in the walls, titan shifters hidden in villages or towns; they couldn’t afford to spread paranoia among the people. Could they?
When the year was up and no titans had been seen, the date was made a holiday, and people celebrated, shouting in the streets, crying and laughing because this time, for some reason, it felt real. This time, they were sure they had been successful at eradicating a corrupt government and the titans and everything else horrible in their lives.
Levi did not laugh. He didn’t cry, either. He sat with Hange and Erwin in Erwin’s office, instead. None of them said a damn thing for a long time, and then Hange spoke, grabbing liquor from a cabinet on the far side of the room.
“Might as well,” she said.
“Mm,” was Erwin’s response.
Maybe it was stupid to not be celebrating, but all Levi could think about were the lives that had been lost getting to their goal, lives not wasted, lives that meant something, that called forth faces and names and experiences: another handful of them for every time the bottle circled around to him and Levi tilted it back and let the burning warmth of the liquor slide down his throat.
Levi vowed to never sit in a tree again.
Hange was saddened by this fact; she loved trees, after all—all plants were interesting and wonderful.
But she understood, too, why Levi felt that way, without him ever telling her.
He’d spent his whole life having to hide, having to climb up into nooks and crannies so as to not be spotted; he’d had to stay out of reach of titans and the law and everything else that came across his path. He was tired of hiding.
He didn’t believe fully in the idea of their freedom.
Not yet.
It was too hard to believe it, sometimes. Hange struggled to remember in the morning, some days, that she was at HQ, that her room was her own, that the lack of fresh wounds did not indicate some kind of dream, but was, now, her reality.
When the probationary year was up, the newly reformed government started organizing a movement of the people. It made sense, and part of it was Hange’s idea, argued in the face of a lot of stiff-faced men wearing clothes tailored in Sina; if they let everyone leave, the economy would collapse. People would die. Tradesmen would go out of business. It needed to be slow. They needed organization.
Trost was the first city moved out, with Flegel Reeves as its representative. Hange oversaw it all; it kept her so busy that for weeks she hardly saw anyone she knew intimately, least of all Levi.
She stepped down after that.
She said she needed a vacation, but she wasn’t sure if that was what she needed or not. Levi said, when they ran into one another in the mess hall, that she was not meant for such things.
“I was almost commander of the Survey Corps, you know,” she told him, sipping at the tea he’d given her.
“You’d have done well, but that doesn’t mean it’s what you want for yourself.”
She wondered what it was, then, that she was hoping to find.
It was late at night when Levi heard a knock on his door and opened it to see Hange standing there in her nightshirt, a half-melted candle in one hand.
“Don’t you know it’s the middle of the goddamned night?” he asked.
“I have a question for you.”
Of course she did. She always had questions, and oftentimes she wanted answers.
“What is it?”
“Let me in, first.” He did, and when she was sitting on the edge of his bed, she said, “I’m going away for a while, I think.”
The tone of her voice, the way she tacked on the, I think like she wasn’t entirely convinced it was a bright idea—it piqued his interest, made him raise an eyebrow. “Going away?”
“Yeah. I thought maybe you’d like to come with me.”
Unused to freedom and peace, but used to stress and anxiety and fear, Levi’s initial response was a bored-sounding, “Why would I want to go?” but he made himself take a deep breath, and then he sat down beside her, their legs barely touching. “Where are you going?”
“Just…away,” she told him. “There’s so much to see that we haven’t seen, not without fear chasing us.”
Levi didn’t know what to say to that. What could he say? It wasn’t a stupid idea, but it wasn’t especially interesting, either. “So, what,” he finally said, taking the candleholder from her hand and putting it on the small table next to the bed, “you’re going to just wander around for fun?”
“Something like that,” she said, but didn’t look fully convinced. “I don’t believe that seeing is believing; I’ve seen too much, you know. But I think—we have to believe that things are over, that everything will get better from here on out, but it’s…”
“It’s hard,” he supplied when she faltered. “Yeah, I know.”
She flashed him a flickering-shadows smile and fell back onto his bed. He twisted a bit to watch her, but she continued smiling. “I’m going to make myself believe it, even though it’s hard to believe sometimes.”
“Is this some kind of proof-journey you’re taking, then?”
“I guess so.” She tugged her nightshirt down a little, but it remained stubbornly at mid-thigh. “If I don’t believe it, who will? What better way to prove I believe it than to wander around for a while?”
Levi let himself lie down beside her, turning slightly onto his side so that he could watch her lips move and her eyes blink and her fingers clench just slightly in the fabric of her nightshirt. “All right,” he said after a while. “When are we going?”
The first day’s ride outside Wall Maria took them into old familiar territory. Hange made them walk the horses, made them take their time. She took off her shoes and nearly cried to feel the grass tickle them, and she ribbed Levi until he caved in and joined her when they made camp that night.
The expression on his face was…unusual.
“Levi, what is it?”
“I’ve never—“ he began, and then corrected himself, fixing his expression into something more neutral, something safer, something that Hange knew he thought would protect him from the entire world and everything in it. “I’m not used to not wearing shoes anymore,” he said. “It’s weird.”
And she got it, then.
His childhood—growing up in the Underground, his young adulthood much the same, then straight into the military. It had never been sanitary enough for Levi to feel comfortable going without shoes, she thought. At one time he had been used to it, but he no longer was. She wondered if he wore stockings to bed even in the summertime.
So she smiled at him from where they sat and pushed on his foot with hers. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Get your feet off of me,” he grumbled, but pushed back on her feet until she had to give in to the fact that Levi was stronger than her; she retaliated by grabbing one of his feet with her hands; he jumped, looking at her with startled eyes. “What?” he half-asked, trying to pull his foot back.
She let go but grinned at him. “You have wide feet,” she told him.
“And you have freakishly long toes,” he replied, frowning.
It was Hange’s idea to tell everyone goodbye, to share the good news with them. Levi went along with it even though it seemed kind of silly, even though he was certain that the people who were dead would stay dead, and that they couldn’t hear a damn thing the survivors said to them.
But she insisted it was only fair, said it was their duty as survivors to tell them that their sacrifices weren’t in vain.
“Just in case,” she said, looking sad, “they don’t know.”
“They died for a goddamn cause. They knew that when they signed up to join the military.”
“Just trust me on this, Levi,” she said, and smiled at him again.
He decided that, if nothing else, it couldn’t hurt.
So they did some thinking. The field where Levi remembered watching Isabel and Farlan die was their first destination. They stopped there, took off their shoes, looked around, and were just quiet for a really long time.
“Do you want to say something?” Hange asked.
“Not really,” Levi said. Not aloud, anyway. He wanted to say that he was sorry, that they hadn’t died for nothing, that he’d made the wrong choice and it was all his fault that they were gone. But he kept his mouth shut and stared at the grass poking up around his feet.
Hange did it for him, said it all, opened her arms up wide to the heavens and shouted that mankind was free, that everyone was now safe, said, “Thank you for your service!”, said, “You are missed,” and promised, at the very end of her spiel, that they’d all be together again someday.
Levi did not look up from the ground.
Hange put her hand on his arm.
“How was that?” she asked, voice unsteady.
He looked up then, trying to push away whatever it was he was feeling—at both the sound of Hange’s voice and the old, deeply buried memories of the first people who ever bothered to get to know him—and saw Hange’s watery eyes. “It was sappy as hell,” he said, and she laughed, pressing her face against his shoulder to wipe her tears off on his jacket.
“Sorry,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time. Levi put an uncertain arm around her. “I’ve waited all my life to say that.”
Their next stop was back inside Maria: the Forest of Giant Trees, where both of them had lost innumerable comrades. Hange stood at the center of the forest and shouted it in the stillness, sending birds into flight and small mammals running away.
“Auruo!” she cried at last. “Petra! Eld! Gunther! Thank you for everything!”
Levi shifted from beside her, fingers clenching in the fabric of his white uniform pants. Hange took his hand, smiled at him.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “Just think it. They’ll hear you.”
They fanned out, and Hange spoke a few words at every location she remembered seeing a death: the village outpost where she’d lost her first roommate and friend in the Corps, the copse of trees Ilse Langnar had died in, the valley where almost half their number had died when they realized titans could slide down steep slopes.
When they finished there, they came back into Wall Maria, then into Wall Rose, and visited Castle Utgard. Hange cried for the four who died there, especially Nanaba, whom she’d known for years and years and years. "I'm sorry,” she said, kneeling in the rubble, refusing to look at a scrap of cloth that was pinned beneath a rock. “Had I ridden faster, I may have…”
Their last stop was the hideout that Mike had last been seen at alive.
“The kids told me,” Hange said, looking at the roof, “that Nanaba went onto the roof to talk to Mike, and then they both came down and it was shortly after that that Mike split from the group. Do you think we can find it?”
Levi said, “I don’t know.”
So Hange decided that they may as well try. There was no trace of Mike, or anything that had once been Mike. Hange felt unsettled by this fact, by the knowledge that Mike had died alone and nobody had seen it happen. A small part of her had always hoped he’d come back; he was a better fighter—stronger and taller and more experienced. He worked better in a team and better alone than Hange. And yet Hange was alive and Mike was not.
She finally gave up and stopped in an area with the remains of what had once been a village. It was there that she dismounted, took off her shoes and wriggled her toes in the cool grass, and told Mike the same thing she’d told everyone else.
She smiled at Levi when she was done, and didn’t bother to wipe her face. “You’re probably getting sick of me crying every time, huh?”
He looked up at her, eyes brighter than she remembered them being. “Nah,” he said.
Levi decided at the last minute that he wanted to stop in one more place. It wasn’t Trost, where Hange’s squad had died (“Oh, they already know,” she said. “They heard Trost celebrating!”), but up a winding mountain path. He remembered the cave, and the little smattering of trees just off to the side. He moved into the trees.
Levi didn’t say anything aloud, and this time, neither did Hange.
Levi just thought it, briefly. You’d be proud of your stupid son. He’s doing a goddamn fine job.
And then he said, “Let’s go, shitty-glasses.”
She grinned and tagged along behind him. “Where should we go, now?” she asked.
Levi shrugged. “Hell if I know,” he said. “Let’s just ride.”
They did—south and out of the gates and past forests and streams and fens and they never once saw a titan.
It was like titans had never existed.
Levi still wouldn’t sit in a tree, not even to enjoy the good view.
“You’re missing out,” Hange called down to the ground.
“Whatever,” he said.
When she managed to get down again, she said, “It really is a nice view.”
“Don’t act like you’ve never sat in a fucking tree before.”
She remembered doing it, remembered years of grappling trees, of swinging through them, of the forest floor fairly flying by—so fast that the colors blurred and blended into one another. She had once spent two days in the treetops with Levi’s squad and her own, waiting for an opportunity to escape because engaging the mass of titans below them would have been a suicide mission.
“I have,” she said, “but I’ve never really noticed the view, you know? I couldn’t see it for all the titans.”
Levi stopped suddenly, an apple they had picked from what had once been an orchard halfway to his mouth. “That’s silly,” he said.
But the next day she woke to find that Levi had climbed the same tree and was staring down at her with an odd expression on his face.
When he came back down, he said only, “Not bad.”
She nudged his bare foot with her own and grinned, eyebrows arching upward. “Not bad?” she asked.
“Pretty good,” he said, and put a hand on her head.
She smiled, but after less than a second he roughed up her hair and added,
“Get up and let’s go.”
Levi had considered Hange a close friend for many years, but that was all he would ever allow himself to think about. The existence of the titans—humanity’s prison, he supposed—kept him from ever letting his mind consider relationships in general, let alone one with Hange.
Other people were not so cautious, but Levi had seen too many broken, ruined families in the Underground to take the risk, and in the military it had simply seemed counterproductive—unwise at best. People died in the military; why risk letting yourself care too much?
But with the titans gone, Levi started to consider it—briefly, at first, but as more time passed, the idea came to mind more frequently.
After all—why not? What were the downsides of being with Hange always, even when they drove each other crazy and argued? They had made it this far, hadn’t they? What could stop them now?
But one thing stopped Levi, and that was the origin of the idea. What was it based on?
He worried, sometimes, that it was convenience—that he found in Hange a conveniently attractive and willing individual who could put up with his quirks and his flaws, who smiled at him despite them, even, and who always believed the best of him when she had no real reason to.
Hange kissed Levi when the moon was low and orange in the sky.
They were heading back to the walls, back to HQ, back to their previous lives, and they were camped out on a hillside beneath a tree.
“What was that for?” Levi asked, voice sounding oddly strangled when she pulled away.
Her reply came high and breathless around a grin. “I don’t know! I’ve always wanted to try that—I’ve just never had the time.”
“Yeah, well, you fucking caught me off-guard.”
“My face slowly getting closer to yours wasn’t warning enough?” she teased, pressing her forehead against his and staring at the furrow between his brows.
“No,” he said, voice oddly soft—but he quickly reverted back to his usual tone and finished his sentence with: “Try it again.”
Headquarters seemed strange after they were away. In the long months that had passed, they had grown used to not seeing other people. Levi found some comfort in the familiarity of the crowds, of the narrow alleyways and wide thoroughfares.
They arrived at night and went straight to their rooms, parting with a sloppy, still-awkward kiss.
Hange said, laughing, “We’ll have to practice if we want to get better.” And then, just before she turned the corner at the end of the corridor, she added, “We can’t let the younger people be better at it than we are, you know.”
Levi could not sleep when he tried, as nice as it was to have a real bed again. He found himself in Hange’s room an hour after midnight; she slept peacefully on the bed, blankets up to her chin, one arm half under her head.
When he sat on the edge of her bed, she stirred, scooting over on the narrow mattress, rubbing her bleary eyes. “Y’okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“’Kay. Then wh’izzit?” She touched the side of his leg like she knew he wanted to ask her something, wanted to do something.
Maybe she did. She had always understood him too well.
But he couldn’t ask to hold her because he didn’t understand the desire for it himself. He couldn’t ask her to hold him because it seemed silly and stupid and he wasn’t sure if he wanted that or not.
“It’s really over,” he said.
She half sat up and leaned against him, arms wrapping around his chest. “Yeah,” she sighed into his shoulder. “We’re safe now. We’re all…safe.” She yawned, rubbed her face against the material of his shirt, and stayed there like she thought that was where she belonged.
The next morning Hange woke up on her stomach with Levi sleeping half draped over her back. She smiled and rolled over and when Levi stirred she held him to her in what she hoped counted as an affectionate hug.
He eventually squirmed out of her grip and immediately reached for his hair.
“It looks cute messy,” she said without thinking.
He frowned.
“I like it,” she tried again, helping him smooth it down into something that might have been considered his usual style, though the part was a little off. “Good morning,” she said, and kissed him; it was still awkward and a little shy and she loved it—it made her feel like a teenager in a good way, tingly and self-assured that it didn’t matter what it was like so long as it was with him.
He grunted a response, and she laughed.
“How am I as a pillow?”
“Passable,” he said, and she thought that she almost saw him smile.
They talked about love over breakfast when they had a moment to themselves, a five-minute respite.
“This isn’t some convenience bullshit to you, is it?” Levi asked, made himself ask even though he felt stupid saying the words.
“What?”
“This…” He gestured stiffly at both of them. “Us.”
Hange considered the question as she considered all things, teeth scraping her bottom lip, eyes narrowed, glasses sliding down her nose just a fraction. He hated that she didn’t have an immediate answer, but he understood it; it wasn’t something rash to be decided, after all; it wasn’t like killing stupid titans or grappling trees; those were decisions to be made instantaneously.
“Are you asking me if I love you?” she finally asked, and the question made him start.
Was he?
“I don’t know,” he said, and then: “I guess.”
“I think I’ve been in the Survey Corps for so long,” she said, looking a little sad, “that I’m not exactly sure what love really is anymore.” She looked more rested than he remembered her being even just a year ago, and because of that she appeared younger, but there was still something about her countenance that made her appear as old and confused as he felt.
“It’s okay,” he said.
She smiled at him. “I don’t really want to try kissing anyone else. I enjoy being around you. I’m happy that you like spending time with me—that you came with me outside of the walls. But is that love?” She shrugged and finished the rest of her drink. “I’m not sure if it’s the same as my parents had, or—or if I can ever feel something like that.”
“I don’t know, either,” Levi said. “About me, I mean.”
“Is this a question we have to have an answer for?”
It was Levi’s turn to think, but it didn’t take him long to come up with a reply. It would be nice to know, but, “Nah,” he said. “We are who we are or some shit like that.”
After breakfast, Hange dragged Levi with her to Erwin’s office.
“To report on what we saw,” she explained to Levi even as she knocked on Erwin’s door.
“Come in,” he said, and she stepped into the room, immediately saluting.
Levi followed half a second behind her.
“At ease,” Erwin said, smiling. “It’s good to have you back.”
Hange had a difficult time containing her excitement as she recounted their adventures visiting the places where so many had died; if Erwin thought her idea was crazy, he did not tell her so, he just smiled and looked a little sad at the mention of Mike and his squad.
When Hange finished talking about her ideas for future settlements along a nearby river, Erwin pushed a few loose strands of hair out of his eyes and asked, “Your mission and research aside, how did you like the outside world?”
Hange said, “I already knew it was going to be great.”
Levi did not say anything, and Hange turned to look at him. “What about you?” she asked, nudging him with her hip.
“Not bad,” he said, staring straight at Erwin.
Erwin’s smile only grew, but Hange nudged Levi again with her hip, this time harder. “What do you mean, ‘not bad?’” she asked him, thinking of his bare feet in the grass, and the expression on his face from the tree. “You can do better than that!”
She felt his left hand take her right, felt him squeeze a little bit. Then his hand was gone and he was still staring blankly at Erwin, looking almost bored.
“Well, Levi?” she prompted.
“Pretty good,” he said.
Hange sighed, but Erwin laughed—the first real laugh from him that Hange had heard in years. It brought a smile to her face, and even Levi looked startled.
“That’s high praise coming from Levi,” Erwin said at last. “Make sure you put that on the official report. I’m sure it will wow everyone in Sina.”
“Yeah,” Hange said, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “We’ll have to evacuate the walled cities right away because the outside world is pretty good. Captain Levi said so himself!”
The sound Levi made was probably supposed to be a grunt of annoyance, but Hange couldn’t take it seriously—not with Levi’s usually straight expression looking suddenly like he was trying not to smile.