Work Text:
“So today I saw a squirrel,” she says to Hannah. “I took my bow and aimed at it until I realized it was really skinny and it wouldn’t have given me any meat. So I lowered my bow and I just observed the squirrel for a while. Its little hands were so cute. I kinda hoped it would come to me and… I don’t know, keep me company? But I guess I almost killed it so that’s fair it left.”
She sighs in the cold night. The campfire is helping to get through it.
“I really miss your laugh, you know? It’s been 36 days exactly and I feel like… I’m going insane without you. But I know you’re watching me, from up there and you would be so mad if I didn’t take care of myself.”
She rolls to her back and stares at the stars, still playing with the bracelet at her wrist.
“Yeah, I know that I should get back to town but I don’t wanna leave here."
A noise deep in the woods suddenly makes her sit up.
“What was that?” she asks, a bit scared. “It didn’t sound like a bird or another animal. It wasn’t the wind either…”
She makes a pause and listens carefully.
“It almost sounds like… water or… no it’s more like something rusty.”
She gets up on her feet, takes the knife and walks to the noise. Thanks to the moonlight she can perceive from afar a regular and slow movement. Somebody is coming. Somebody!
The woman’s eyes widen and she walks faster. She barely avoids the branches in her way.
When the stranger spots her, he stops. He is quite short and has been pushing a bicycle. He watches her coming to him. She is kind of excited but also terrified this might be a hallucination.
“Hi!” she says in the friendliest tone possible.
“Do I know you?” he asks, quite wary.
“Hum no, but it’s good to meet someone here… right?”
She waits but he doesn’t answer. He seems really on his guard and she squats to put the knife back in her boot.
“Come with me, I made a fire!” she says with a smile.
She starts to walk back to her camp, thinking she will get there alone but he somehow decides to follow her. During all the way back, no word is spoken, just the sounds of the forests are heard. She finally sits next to the campfire and invites him to do so.
After putting his bag and bicycle against a tree, he joins her. She can now observe him in the light of the flames. He has short black hair with an undercut, little eyes but a nice jawline. She doesn’t know why but she feels intimated. Like if he was above her. Maybe more skilled? He doesn’t look older than her though. But after people hit twenty years old, it becomes harder to guess their age.
"Could it be that you’re from the Refugees?” he interrupts her thoughts.
“What are the Refugees?”
“A group of jerks, staying at the entrance of Detroit.”
She shakes her head.
“I rarely go into town. And I only go to Chicago. Detroit is too far.”
He keeps staring at her.
“You do look familiar," he says after a while. "What’s your name?”
“Hum, Sasha. And yours?”
“Yeah that name rings a bell,” he murmurs, turning back to the campfire.
He keeps his eyes on the flames for a while and Sasha still feels too intimidated to reiter her question. Luckily, he finally answers:
“Levi.”
“Could it be-?!” she starts, way louder than their conversation has been. “Could it be that you were commander of a ship?!”
He looks at her with an eyebrow raised.
“I’ve never put a foot on a ship in my life.”
“Oh… Me neither actually,” she realized. “But I don’t know why, my mind immediately said: Captain Levi."
He looks away, thinking about it. Sasha realizes he could have taken her for a crazy person but he didn’t comment on it. On the contrary, he seems to take it very seriously.
"How about we tell each other more about our lives so maybe we could find out from where we already met?" Sasha suggests.
She didn’t know if she said this to really solve the mystery or if she was just jumping on the occasion to talk more. It's been a month she hasn’t talked to someone. Someone alive.
"Go ahead," he replies.
She smiles.
"So, I was born in Chicago. My parents raised my twin sister and I, hidden in an abandoned building. From time to time my dad would go find food downtown. But it was difficult and one day he never came back. I think he got bitten by those zombies, we shouldn't have let him go alone."
She looks at Levi, wondering if she is sharing too much. He didn’t interrupt her so she takes it as an invitation to continue.
"But then my mom got sick and we couldn’t find anyone to help. She didn’t make it. Like that it was just my sis and I. But luck still wasn’t on my family's side. When we left the city for these woods, it seemed to be a good decision yet we were so scared. Probably for a good reason because Hannah died in a trap. A human had left it. I don’t know if it was to catch animal meat or a zombie but either way, it was too efficient. I watched her die."
Sasha takes a pause. She tries to repress that lump in her throat so she won't struggle to talk again.
"So basically I've never been far away from Chicago. Is it the first time you're coming around here?"
"Yeah. Life is fucking strange," he comments.
Sasha laughs a bit uncomfortable with the bad word.
"Your turn?" she suggests.
"Actually I'm exhausted. I'll tell you tomorrow," Levi says.
She tries her best to hide her disappointment. During this very lonely month, she truly has been dying to get to know someone or just talk with them.
She wakes up in the middle of the night, startled by this nightmare: giant humanoids eating people. But she is mostly shaken by who was by her side in these battles. She feels like she has truly known them all. Mikasa, Jean, Connie…. No, it is certain now: this is a memory.
She silently turns to Captain Levi, whose sleeping face is relaxed and soft. He has finally gotten to sleep in this world. She decides to not wake him up with painful memories that belonged in another life.