Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a wonderful day outside, and Levi was suffering. Maybe it was because of the particular way his body punished him for existing, his nerves flaring up like thunder at each step. Maybe it was because every morning since he was a child, he would wake from a nightmare he couldn't quite remember, terror giving place to grief, and grief to numbness. Maybe he was just lonely and homesick. 

He didn't know. He didn't care. 

He had a job to do, and a life to earn. Those things wouldn’t simply accomplish themselves. So he took the bus to college, and with tired, heavy feet, started his shift. 

The National University of Sciences and Technology, NUST for short, had hired him to work as a janitor. It was the first job he managed to land ever since arriving at the capital city of Paradis, Sina, a buzzing metropolis in which old stone buildings and marble palaces turned museums managed to coexist with the modern architecture trends of polarized glass and rising steel beams, though it fully lacked the presence of proper skyscrapers, like his home city in Marley. 

He arrived at one. Today it was his first day, though his manager had made sure to give him a quick guide through the building he was assigned to work in the day before, the northern wing of the faculty of biology. He was tasked with cleaning the hallways, some lecturing rooms, and most importantly, the main laboratory. He was also given some training, which he didn’t really need, and a shitty-looking gray uniform more fitting for an inmate than for a cleaner. At least they had the decency to not make him buy one himself. 

Levi’s evening had been so far unremarkable, consisting of the same repetitive, if soothing, motions of sweeping, mopping, scrubbing and dusting off. The only thing left for him to do before going home was cleaning the lab, which promised to add at least some excitement to his otherwise dull routine. 

Contrary to what he expected, the door wasn’t locked, and the lab was not empty. 

There was someone inside, a dark figure lit only by a single lamp, hunching over a stack of open books. Their only discernible characteristics were their tilted square glasses and their wide, wicked smile.

“Excuse me?” He said, and the person raised their head, startled by his authoritative tone. “You are off-hours. Lab closes at seven. I’m going to clean up.”

He entered the room and turned the lights on, which struck him as disgustingly bright. It took his eyes a while to get used to it, but now he was better able to appreciate the person sitting at the desk. They had messy brown hair and wore a long white coat. 

“Excuse me, miss?”

“Call me professor, please,” they said, adjusting their glasses and getting up. “Professor Hange Zoë. I assume you’re new around here.”

He wasn’t able to reply, too confused by the way his stomach turned when he looked at them to think about anything else. 

“I tend to stay here in the lab until after hours,” they went on. “Everyone knows that, but I guess no one has come around to tell you yet. Nice to meet you, by the way. What’s your name?

This made him react.

“I'm Levi.”

“Levi what?”

“Just Levi.”

“And are you trained on what to do with hazardous waste?”

“I am, yes.”

The professor sat down again, shifting their attention back into their work.

“Then get on with it. I'll be here, but pretend I don't exist. Alright?”

“Alright.”

One of the many perks of being a janitor was that people usually didn’t notice his presence. Levi was, for most, invisible, and he frankly preferred it that way. He found most people insufferable, and the one time he ever tried to have a customer service job, he ended up detained for lashing out at a woman that insulted his height. 

It was odd for someone to go so far as to ask his name, and even odder for him not to be bothered by it. 

But he didn’t think much of that, and went back to his job, happy to give some much-needed order to the laboratory. Everything in that space had to be taken care of in very specific ways, and it was in this specificity that he found joy. He was also tasked with keeping track of the stock of materials and chemicals in the shelves, making sure nothing was lacking. 

It took him an entire hour to be done with it, which the professor spent immersed in their own research, writing down notes as they went through a stash of books. He was about to leave, thinking Zoë wouldn’t notice, but they lifted their head when they heard him opening the door. 

“Oh, are you going now? Alright then, Levi. Have a good night!”

“Night,” he replied, stepping out and closing the door behind him, only to find himself standing alone in the cold, dark hall with nothing but a growing emptiness inside his chest. 

He finished up his shift and arrived home, exhausted and restless. 

-.-.-.-.-

Ever since Levi could recall, he had trouble sleeping. As a kid, he dreaded falling asleep, haunted by the fear of recurring nightmares. As an adult, used to them as he was, he never managed to get any more than three hours of sleep each night.

Tonight it was no different. He woke up in the morning, tired and hurt as always, managing to get on his feet by a determination just short of miraculous, stretching his body to the creaky choir of his joints, and ready to start yet another day of quiet misery.

His morning routine was as unremarkable as his evening one, though it was significantly less draining. He drank his morning tea, usually black tea, with whatever bread or pastries he had gotten the day before. He didn’t know how to cook anything other than eggs, be them boiled, fried or scrambled, so they served as his main source of protein. 

He didn’t leave the apartment until past midday, and arrived at work at exactly the time required, not a minute earlier. After greeting his manager, he got to work.

He was mopping the main hallway when he noticed someone looking at him. It was a girl with long black hair and dark eyes that had stopped dead in her tracks just to silently stare at him. She looked barely out of high school, and somewhat resembled the pictures Levi had seen of her mother from when she was that age. Perhaps it was because of this resemblance that he decided to speak to her. 

“Do you need anything?” he asked, in the kindest tone he could manage, thinking that she might be a new student that was lost and was too shy to ask for assistance. The girl jumped, startled. It took her a few seconds to reply.

“No. I apologize. I thought you were someone I knew.”

She left right after that, disappearing into the crowd, leading Levi to wonder if they had in fact met each other before. If they had, he couldn’t remember. 

-.-.-.-.-

“Hi there, Levi!”

Hange welcomed him to the lab, enthusiastically waving at him from behind the microscope. 

“Hello, glasses.”

What exactly compelled him to give someone he barely knew and that was arguably his superior a nickname like that was beyond him. He was starting to fear having offended them, if only because this sort of impolite behavior had cost him jobs before, but instead they chuckled. Levi thought it was nice to hear them laugh.

“No one calls me that since high school.”

He closed the door behind him and got to work. He started by his least favorite part, cleaning the floor, and progressively moved onto tasks he found most pleasurable, like sanitizing the tables and the shelves, and perfectly fitting each piece of equipment in its rightful place. He disposed of the red bin containing bio-hazardous waste with particular care, all of this accompanied by a constant clicking sound he didn’t know what to make of.

“You are diligent,” the professor said, as he aligned the chemical containers in the closet. He loved symmetry.

“It’s the bare minimum.”

He kept doing that, now very aware that he was being watched. The silence turned awkward. 

“You are not very talkative, are you, shorty?”

“No.”

To his own shock, this time around, he didn’t mind being called that. 

The professor kept working, periodically clicking the buttons of a little gray machine set beside them, paying no mind to Levi. But instead of being relieved of fading into the background, he felt disappointed. Even though he never liked talking to people, particularly strangers, there was something very comforting about listening to Hange speak. He was trying to make sense of his own feelings on the subject when the professor turned around to face him. 

“Want a peek?”

“Huh?”

“You seem like you really want to take a look. Come here.”

Levi complied, because admitting he had unwittingly started staring at them for no reason would be rude and embarrassing. Hange instructed him to sit on their chair and bend down to reach the lens. 

He saw a lot of round purple things , suspended lifeless in a clear substance. He assumed them to be cells of some sort, though they didn’t look like the pictures he had seen of bacteria before. 

“These are human cells,” Hange said, as though giving a lecture for their students. “They are from a blood sample. See those tiny ones that look like donuts? They’re erythrocytes. But I’m not doing research on them. My focus is on lymphocytes, those big, dark round ones. Now, they usually protect your body from infections, but if you look at these in particular, you realize that some of them look all wrong. They are too big, and too dark, deformed even.”

Levi thought that they all looked pretty much the same, but didn’t contradict them. He hummed, to let Hange know he was listening. They continued their explanation.

“This blood is from an individual with leukemia. Normally, in a sample like this, you would also get a bunch of platelets, tiny white blood cells, forming clots. But we are seeing very few of them in this sample. Dangerously little. The bone marrow is too busy dealing with the cancerous blood cells to actually produce any platelets, so if this person started bleeding out, their body would have no way to stop the hemorrhage. Right now, I’m counting the number of platelets in the sample, and comparing them to the expected amount. That’s what the machine next to me is for, it’s a cell counter. Now, I am no doctor, but if I were, I’d say the prognosis for this patient is not too great.”

“Grim,” Levi replied, getting up from the chair and giving it back to Hange. 

He wasn’t sure why he wasted his time listening to someone speak on a topic he knew so little and cared so little about, but Hange seemed so excited to share this information with him, he almost felt ashamed at his inability to understand it. 

“You may wonder why I am doing this, since I am but a humble college professor. I’m not actually doing research on leukemia itself, but in human cell reproduction. The reason?” They cackled, like a witch from a fairy tale would. “Titans.”

Levi cringed. From a young age, he had learned to keep his distance with people heavily fixated on titans, the titan war, or any topic tangentially related. They were either very hostile to Eldians, such as himself, or Eldian nationalists that believed themselves and their country to be superior to all others. He despised either kind of people, both ignorant and cruel in different ways. Hange didn’t pick up on his discomfort, though, and kept talking, without shifting their attention away from the sample.

“I’m still putting together a proper hypothesis, but my best guess is that what we understand as titan powers are a result of hyperactive cell division. Isn’t it fascinating?”

“I’d call it disturbing.” 

“Oh, come on, don’t be boring. If we are going to hang out like this every night, at least show a bit of interest in my work, will you?”

Levi thought that “hanging out” was not an accurate description of what they were doing. He was only there because he got paid to clean. Keeping that in mind, he would have to resign himself to at least tolerate Hange, whether he liked it or not. Even though they seemed nice, and he wasn’t the type to judge, he’d tread with caution from then on regardless.

“Sure. Whatever you say, professor.”

-.-.-.-.-

That night, for the first time in years, he had a dream he could remember. A campfire danced under the moonlight, warming up the darkness of the forest surrounding him. Next to it sat Hange, who was wearing a green cape and an eye patch, lovingly stirring the soup atop of the flames despite their visible fatigue. 

“I’d rather have the two of us just live here. How does that sound, Levi?”

They had spoken to him so tenderly while asleep, he almost regretted waking up. Yet, he was well rested, and in less pain than the night before. Feeling this well was strange, foreign even. But dwelling on that would do him no good, and so he got up. 

Chapter Text

Listening to Hange speak while cleaning the laboratory quickly became a vital part of his daily routine. Levi had learned not only to expect it, but to look forward to it. They always had something interesting to share, and even their mundane ramblings about their students had a distinct charm to them. 

“And there’s this guy, a first semester student, and you are not going to believe this, but his name is literally Eren Jaeger. I mean, who the fuck names their kid that?” 

Levi grimaced. 

“That’s pretty fucked up.”

“I know right? And I have to act like that is normal. Like it’s a normal name to have.”

Professor Hange turned out to be not only an amazing researcher, but extremely knowledgeable in Eldian history as well. Titans had been their special interest, as they called it, since they were a child, spending hours upon hours deep into every book they could find on the subject, whether they were reliable or not. At some point as a teenager, they had decided to take this strange hobby to another level, choosing to study cell biology with the purpose of better understanding the mechanics of titan transformation. 

“I’ve always been inexplicably drawn to them. Everyone thinks it’s weird, but I can’t help it.” 

“You are as normal about it as you could be,” Levi replied, thinking about his previous experiences with titan obsessed people, none of them pleasant. Hange was, in comparison, thoughtful and measured, as well-informed on the subject as one could be. 

He enjoyed the consistency of this routine for a good while, so when one day he entered the lab to find that Hange wasn’t there, he became instantly upset. The room was orderly, unnaturally so, and it was reasonable to assume it was because the person responsible for the expected mess hadn’t shown up to work at all. Maybe they had gotten sick, he reasoned, trying not to think too much of it, attributing his distress to this sudden change in schedule. 

When he came home, he wasn’t able to bring himself to fall asleep. He stared at the dark ceiling until sunrise.  

-.-.-.-.-

He had arrived to work early, just to ask around about Hange. One student, a young man with blond hair and a sweet smile, had been kind enough to answer. Next to him, there was a boy with brown hair, clinging to his arm like a scared child. Levi thought he had a very punchable face. 

“Do you know when they'll be back?”

“No, but I've got their contact info. They sent all the students a note telling us their class was canceled.”

But this did not ease his concern. This irrational worry, summed up to his lack of sleep, took a significant toll on him, and he was bitterly miserable for the rest of the day as a result. 

So he felt really stupid when the next day Hange welcomed him into the lab, bright as sunshine, fully recovered from whatever it was that had kept them housebound for the past two days. 

“You look more tormented than usual,” they said as soon as he got close enough for them to see his gloomy face. “Is everything alright?”

“I guess I’m back to normal,” he replied. “I got a few nights of good sleep since arriving to Sina, but I guess good things never last.”

“You are not from Sina?”

Levi shook his head, starting to sweep the floor, as this was his usual first step. 

“I’m from Marley.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I was in the military and all. I was diagnosed with some shitty chronic condition before I could be deployed, though. I was never actually on a battlefield. So I left, and that's when I became a janitor.”

Levi wasn’t sure about why he was opening out to Hange this way. He loathed talking about himself for the most part, let alone mentioning his own illness out loud. He blamed it, once again, on his lack of sleep. 

“Huh. Why didn't you stay in Marley?”

“We were in a rough spot with the war and all. Didn't earn enough to make a living. And since my mother and I are Eldians, I figured I would have better luck over here. I still don’t have a full citizenship, though.”

Marley’s failed imperialist efforts had driven his home country into a perpetual state of crisis. Young men and women were encouraged to join the army in hopes of earning a better life for themselves and their families this way, in an endless cycle of struggle. Eldian communities, already ravished by poverty and crime, and sharing a historical militarist past as allies to Marley, were particularly susceptible to the narratives pushed by the government.

Levi was lucky, all things considered. His Eldian heritage meant that he was able to travel and work in Paradis without a permit, though his rights were still restricted compared to those born on the island. Unlike them, he did not have access to the same social services, such as healthcare and education, or the ability to vote. If he wanted to access these benefits, he would have to either work in the country for three years straight, prove his academic or athletic aptitude in a state-sponsored test, join the army, or go on to marry a citizen.

“Ah, I see.”

“I do enjoy it,” he went on, still surprised by his own willingness to share information about himself. It was as though Hange was a close friend he’d lost contact with for years, as opposed to a few days. “I've always loved cleaning. There is something very satisfying about a perfectly tidy room. If I were more poetically inclined, I'd say it's my life's calling.”

Hange laughed, like he had told them an excellent joke.

“That’s the oddest thing anyone’s ever told me. And they call me a freak.”

Seeing their delight, Levi decided to play along. 

“That's because you are. If we were to call anyone here an abnormal freak, that'd be you, shitty-glasses.”

But suddenly Hange wasn’t smiling anymore. They looked around somewhat confused, and then they looked at Levi, as though they were meeting him for the first time. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked, worried that this comment had somehow offended them. It was not something he would typically care about, other’s opinions on him were none of his business, but he didn’t like the idea of losing Hange’s trust. 

“Sorry. I felt like I was in a dream for a second.” They looked around once again and touched the table intently, as though trying to assure themself it was actually there. “What do they call it? Dissociation?”

“Is this normal for you? Should I call someone?”

“No, no, it’s alright.” They chuckled rather forcefully. “Maybe I’m just tired, too. I haven’t slept well at all these past few days, either. I got these nasty fevers out of nowhere, an infection perhaps, and then…” but their mind failed them again, and they didn’t finish their sentence. “It doesn’t matter, really. I’m fine now.”

Levi knew not to believe them, but it was better not to press them further about it. Hange spent the rest of the evening quietly looking through the microscope’s lenses, only ever making a sound through the periodic clicking of the cell counter beside them. It was borderline unbearable. When it finally came time for Levi to leave, Hange gave him a lethargic goodbye, so unlike them that for a moment he felt as though he was interacting with an entirely different person than he was when he first entered the lab, just an hour earlier. 

-.-.-.-.-

Hange was acting differently, and they weren’t doing a very good job at hiding it. Levi had only known them for a bit over a month, but he could tell. They were clumsier in their speech, their comebacks less snappy, zoning out more often than usual and losing track of their own thoughts. But the worst part was doubtlessly the sudden changes in routine caused by Hange’s repeated absence. At least once a week, they would disappear with no explanation, leaving Levi worried and upset. And when he asked about it, Hange would nervously dismiss him and change the topic.

Levi couldn’t allow it. 

He had taken note of the contact information the blond kid provided, and was able to find Hange’s professional social media profile. The page was abandoned, save for an old update talking about how much they loved teaching, and how proud they were of their students. It had a picture of them smiling widely in front of a whiteboard with a bunch of words he didn't understand the meaning of. It was endearing, but useless. 

He sent them a private message asking how they were doing, hoping they wouldn’t think him weird for trying to contact them outside of work. To his surprise, Hange replied instantly. 

“ I’m in the. Please come.I dying.”

That told him everything he needed to know, and at the same time nothing at all. He doubted Hange was actually dying, but by the looks of it, they weren’t doing too good.

“I don't know where you live.”

Hange sent him their location as a reply.

It was an apartment complex nearing the city center, taller than most buildings Levi had seen around Sina by then. To his disgrace, it didn’t have an elevator, and Hange had told him they lived on the seventh floor. As he went up the stairs, he considered getting himself a cane, only to discard the idea when he realized how much money he’d have to save to get it.

He knocked on the door of Hange’s apartment, once, twice, thrice. No one answered.

“Hello? Is professor Zoë home?”

He heard the muffled sounds of someone tripping and crashing on the other side. Eventually, a disheveled Hange wearing a stinky yellow nightgown showed themself to open the door. The inside of the apartment didn’t look in a much better state than the person inhabiting it. Books and sheets of paper were littered all over the floor, mixed in with dirty clothes and empty fast food containers. It was impossible to walk around without accidentally stepping on something.

“Holy fuck. You live like this? No wonder you get sick so often, you got some mutant bacteria growing on here.”

“I'm taking that as a compliment. Come in, come.”

Hange closed the door behind them. Only standing there, at the heart of all chaos, did Levi fully internalize the dizzying extent of the mess before him. Someone with a weaker stomach would’ve thrown up. 

“Sorry I told you to come. I was lonely and feeling miserable. I'm better now, though. Hope you don't mind.”

By the way they pronounced those words, slurred and blurry, and the unusual bluntness of their movements, he could tell Hange had been self-medicating . 

“What did you take?”

“Tramadol. Don't worry, I calculated an appropriate dosage. I am, like, a professional.”

He made a point not to ask Hange how they had gotten their hands on a drug like that without a proper medical prescription. Even though he was starting to put all the pieces together regarding Hange’s odd behavior, he still needed further information to be of any help. 

“And why did you take that?” He asked casually, while clearing up the nearby couch, dusting it off with the rag he always carried with him. 

“I've been having the worst fucking headaches for a month now. Like a raccoon is eating my brains. And fevers. But then I went to the NIPH, they said I was fine, that my body temperature is normal, and that I should go seek a psychiatrist.”

The NIPH was the National Institute of Public Health. They were known for being severely underfunded, and prone to reject patients with conditions they didn't deem severe enough, or too complicated to treat. This included anything from rare genetic disorders to blood cancers to mental illness. They didn’t have the training or the equipment needed to deal with issues like that, and thus they didn’t bother. 

“Maybe you should,” he replied, thinking of all the ways Hange acted strangely, and the non-insignificant chance of them currently engaging in substance abuse. 

“It’s not like that. It’s really not…”

They didn’t get to finish that sentence. Levi helped them to sit down on the green velvety couch he had just cleared up for them. He instructed Hange to lay down on their side while he cleaned the apartment, trying to ensure their safety. In the state they were in, they could easily trip, fall, and get injured. Hange frowned. 

“But that’s not fair. It’s my house. I’m the one that should do this. Let me help.”

“Knowing you, glasses, you'll worsen the mess. So keep your ass where it is and don't be a burden.”

They didn’t try to argue after that, and any resentment left was quickly erased with the help of the internet. Hange stayed glued to their phone the whole time, doing lord knows what, constantly dozing off and getting up, startled, as though they were about to fall off the edge of the earth if they dared to close their eyes for too long. Eventually, though, they stopped fighting the effects of the drug and drifted away into a deep sleep.

Luckily for Levi, Hange’s apartment was on the smaller side. He started by addressing the pile of dishes rising out of the dishwasher like a greasy shrine to procrastination. He picked and classified all the litter from the floor, a task that wasn’t very kind to his back, but that got rid of most of the mess. When the floor was clear, he swept and mopped it, and he even changed a broken lightbulb after noticing it wouldn’t light up. It was by far not his best work, but he was doing it for free, so he deemed it good enough. Having finished this, he sat down to rest on a nearby chair, curiously going through the pages of a book that had piqued his attention while cleaning. It was about the early industrial revolution in Paradis, and it contained some wonderfully detailed illustrations of machinery, and extensive maps of railroads, ports and land routes. He never cared much about history, but there was something oddly comforting about those charcoal drawings of outdated technology that absorbed him. 

He was turning one of the pages when he heard a scream.

On the couch, Hange was breathing chaotically, looking around confused, holding their hands close to their chest. Levi instinctively reached out to help, grabbing their arms and back, but physical contact didn’t seem to bring them back to reality as he had hoped. It was as though Levi wasn’t even there. 

“I’m going to die.” They said, their voice shaking under their breath. “I'm going to die here.”

“Hange?”

“I'm going to die. I'm going to…” They looked up, suddenly aware of Levi's presence, reaching out to embrace him while crying. “Levi. You have to promise me, my death won't be useless. You are getting out of here in time.” 

“Don't be stupid. You are not dying.”

“I'm burning,” they went on, barely able to articulate words at all. “It's so hot in here. It's boiling hot, like titan’s blood.” 

“We are in your apartment.” He stated. “You are laying on the couch. I am holding your hand. Do you see me?”

Hange nodded, weakly. They grabbed him by the arms, as though afraid they would lose their balance. “Yes.”

“It is a normal Friday morning. And you are not dying.”

“But-”

“You are not fucking dying.”

Hange apologized in between sobs while still holding onto him. Levi didn't try to speak to them again, knowing that his harsh tone was likely to make things worse. They clearly needed time to recover, and he didn't want to trigger further distress. 

“I’m sorry you had to see me like this,” they said, their voice still full of tears. “I didn't… I don't…”

Levi patted their back as to comfort them, but that only made them cry harder. 

“I miss them. I miss them so much.”

They repeated this phrase over and over, alternating between that and variations of “I'm sorry.” It was a pitiful sight, and Levi had no idea of how to fix it. 

“Who do you miss?” He dared to ask only after Hange seemed to calm down enough to speak coherently. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I don't know. I don't…”

They held each other like that for a fleeting eternity, Levi’s shirt getting stained by their tears. He was hesitantly leaning into Hange’s embrace, hoping this would calm them down. When the professor finally managed to speak again, they did so in between bitter laughs.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist.” They swept their face with their sleeve and tried to get up, but failed, leaning back on Levi to not fall down. “Shit. My head hurts.”

“Take it easy, four eyes.”

“I must look so pathetic right now.”

“I saw my father die of a heroin overdose as a kid, so I'd say you are not there quite yet.”

That definitely shook them. Hange stared at him, like their whole reality had been shattered and rebuilt before their very eyes. His comment was so out of nowhere, it served to ground them instantly. 

“I’m joking,” he clarified, when Hange didn’t change their expression. “I didn’t actually meet my father.”

“I… I…” They chuckled, still taken aback, but with the risk of them relapsing into panic greatly reduced. “Good lord, your sense of humor is sickening. Guess I’m not the only one who needs a psychiatrist around here.”

“Marleyan soldiers go through an evaluation before joining the army, so that’s covered.” That bit was actually true. “Can you get up?”

It took them an effortful while, but eventually he was able to get Hange back on their feet. They were still very numbed down because of the drug, but they weren’t as drowsy. Levi helped them to sit down at the tiny dining room table and heated up an old piece of leftover lasagna in the microwave for them. Hange ate it gleefully. 

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“All your food is disgusting, so no.”

He made no mention of his own unhealthy eating habits or his lacking cooking skills. Hange shrugged, happy to finish the lasagna all on their own. Sooner than later, the clock marked past twelve, and Levi had to go to work. Hange was apprehensive about this news, though, and refused to let him go. 

“What if I have an episode again, and I'm alone? What if I injure myself?”

“That won't happen.”

“I'm scared.”

“Then don't be.”

Levi knew his answers weren’t too useful, but he couldn’t think of better advice to give. He resented having to leave Hange on their own, but he knew his manager wouldn’t be as forgiving as to take that for an excuse. They sighed, defeated. 

“Can you at least come over to check up on me after your shift is over?”

They had only known each other for a bit over a month. In a moment of realization, Levi wondered if Hange had family members or other friends better suited to care for them in times of need. If their filthy apartment and their desperate attempts to socialize with the janitor were anything to go by, they didn’t.

They were alone. Just like he was. 

“Sure.”

This calmed them down slightly, just enough to let Levi go. For now, that would have to do. 

-.-.-.-.-

He spent the whole evening at work thinking about Hange. The look in their eyes, so familiar, yet so foreign. It was the face of someone with an all-encompassing awareness of a certain death.

Levi was frustrated, rendered helpless by his ignorance, lost in his own sense of prevalent unreality. Like trying to solve a puzzle blindfold, only guided by the feel of the pieces of the board. There was something missing, something he should already know about and somehow escaped his mind. 

When he went back to Hange’s apartment, he was greeted with a pleasant sight. They had put on proper clothes: a cheap looking gray shirt with black shorts that, unlike the nightgown, at least smelled nice, and their hair was wet and well combed. 

“You look nice,” he said, not realizing the way his words could be interpreted. When he did, he corrected himself. “Compared to what you looked like last time I saw you, that is.”

“And I feel so much better, too. Here, here, I brought you dinner.”

They grabbed his arm and took him to the tiny dining room. The effects of the medicine were clearly not over yet, but they were significantly diminished. From the kitchen, Hange brought a plate of stir-fried rice with leek and vegetables, and just the right amount of spiced chicken chunks.

“Since you were coming, I made you something I knew you’d like.”

Levi didn’t remember discussing his favorite foods with Hange, but they weren’t too far off on their assumptions. They also brought a second bowl for themselves. 

“You cooked this yourself?”

Hange nodded enthusiastically. 

“I actually love to cook. I just never have time. And I hate having to do the dishes afterward. So I always end up eating fast food, it’s more convenient. But since I had the evening free to do whatever I wanted, I decided that I would make this, if only to thank you for your trouble. Do you like it?”

“It’s great. Thank you.”

Even though his affect was flat, he found the dish delightful, and Hange knew him well enough to notice. 

They finished their dinner together, Levi quietly listening to Hange give a detailed critique of a movie they had been watching in his absence, something about a zombie apocalypse. Even though he wasn’t familiar with the film, it was pleasant to simply hear them speak about it, listing every single scientific inaccuracy and plot hole they had noticed. Maybe he was just glad that, after all, they were doing fine. 

When he got home, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, welcomed by the now recurring dream of Hange stirring the soup by the fire in the forest, their kindness lingering in his mind even after waking up the next morning.

Chapter Text

Contrary to what they liked to believe, Hange didn’t recover after Levi’s visit, not fully. At times, while giving a class, the professor would be overcome with a sense of overwhelming dread, lacking in source or direction. If their students ever noticed, they didn’t mention it. 

They were almost mid-way through the semester, and by that time Hange had gotten to know some of those students. Armin Arlet instantly stood out. His near perfect scores were the best of the class, his commentary was insightful, and his eagerness was such, Hange suspected he spent most of his free time reading research papers for his own amusement. He was often accompanied by Eren Jaeger, who despite his atrocious name acted as a kind young man, if at times a bit impulsive. While not nearly as talented as his friend, Jaeger did well enough in his own right, and Hange had come to respect him.

“This generation has potential,” they told Levi, leaning back on the lab chair. Even though his shift had ended a long while ago, he had chosen to stick around to talk. 

“How can you tell?”

“I just know.”

The two had started to hang out not only during work, but on the weekends as well. He still preferred to keep to himself, but he was an amazing listener, asking the right questions at just the right times, quick to point out inconsistencies and share his own thoughts on a subject once given enough context. He even helped with doing chores at their apartment, no matter how hard Hange tried to dissuade him from doing it. 

Levi did a lot for them, and so Hange started wondering what they could give to him in return. 

One lazy Saturday morning, they had the impulse to invite him out to a recently opened tea shop. It took Levi a while to finally see and reply to the text, and to Hange’s delight, he agreed. 

-.-.-.-.-

It was a small, homely place, with ivy blossoms hand painted on the wall and warm lights hanging from the ceiling. They were soon offered a table for two and given a lengthy menu, containing varieties of tea and infusions neither Hange nor Levi had ever heard of. 

“Good morning,” a waiter asked after they had been settled for a while. “What may I serve you?”

“I’m going to want, uh, do you have hot cocoa?” The waiter said yes. “I want that, and some of those cookie sandwiches filled with strawberry jam. They look really good.” 

The waiter took note. 

“And for your date?”

The waiter’s words were like a punch to the face. This man, who didn’t actually know them, had the nerve to make assumptions about their relationship. He considered for a second if it would be appropriate to return the punch, this time physically, but discarded it the moment they heard Hange cackle as loud and shamelessly as a raven. 

“Sorry, it's just that we aren't, we aren't dating.” Hange was not yet recovered from their fit of crying laughter when they tried to explain their situation to the waiter. He blushed, and apologized profusely. 

“I want black tea.” Levi said, less like a request and more like a threat. “No sugar. No milk. And an almond biscuit.”

He left, still abashed by the interaction.

“I hope you don’t take it the wrong way, shorty,” they said, still trying not to chuckle. “Look, I do love you, but I’ll be honest upfront. I would never date you.”

Levi stared at Hange for a moment, not offended by the implication that he was romantically undesirable, but trying to process the fact that someone had just told him “I love you” like it was no big deal. He felt his chest go warm with something akin to joy. 

“None taken,” he replied, still taken aback. For a moment he tried to picture himself and Hange dating, but the mere thought made his joy dissipate and his head hurt. “I don’t think I’d ever date you, either.”

“Glad we cleared that up. It was nagging me, you know? Guys always chase me because I am so pretty and sexy, but when I mention titans, and they leave me on the spot. They say it kills the mood for them.”

But Levi, who rarely, if ever, felt sexual attraction, had no way of knowing what killing the mood meant, so for him this was not a problem. 

“Whatever.”

Now, Levi didn't consider himself much of an expert on tea in general, even though it was his favorite drink. He liked to stick to what he knew, mainly out of habit. Growing up, they weren’t able to afford anything too fancy. He could tell when something was good, though, and the rich, warm bitterness of the beverage he was served was good, no doubt. The biscuit was nothing to scoff at, either. He enjoyed this meal while Hange, with their usual enthusiasm, tried to explain to him the mechanisms by which sugar is turned into energy inside the body, gesturing openly with their jam-filled hands as to illustrate their lesson. It was not a surprise they had gone on to become a professor. Nothing made Hange happier than to share their knowledge with others. 

Everything was going as well as it possibly could. At least until a loud, explosive siren went off, alerting the crowd. Hange got up swiftly, ready to exit the place with everyone else, but Levi stayed fixed in place, startled and confused.

Then the ground began to move.

The whole building rumbled. It rumbled to its very foundations, the earth itself rising as an army of titans. The dishes and cups clanged on the tables chaotically, the windows shaking in their frames, the hanging lights dancing threateningly above. Hange took him by the arm and tried to drag him outside, but he just sat there, still, waiting for the world to end. 

They would all die there, he realized, and he couldn’t do anything about it. 

He didn’t have his gear or weapons on him. Even if he had, it was already too late to stop it, even for someone as strong as him. Allowing himself to go around totally unprepared, when he knew this would happen, was unforgivable. He should’ve seen this coming. 

The world was going to end and it was all his fault. 

But then, just as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped. The earth went quiet, and the customers went back inside, annoyed and frustrated. Hange was still by his side, holding his arm, both of them laying on the floor. He didn’t remember having fallen from his chair. 

“Levi. It’s fine.”

He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings. They were in a tea shop, small and homely, with ivy blossoms hand painted on the wall and warm lights hanging from the ceiling, swinging ever so slightly. The plates and cups rested silently on their tables, the building undisturbed.

“What the fuck did just happen?”

“There was a minor earthquake. It’s over now.”

“A minor earthquake? ”

“I mean, I'd give it, like, a six at most.” 

Hange’s casual attitude was puzzling, yet reassuring. They helped him to get up from the floor and into the chair. He was still visibly shaken, so Hange stayed by his side. 

“Was it your first earthquake?” They asked, concerned.

“Yes. Is this a common occurrence?”

Hange shrugged. 

“We get one once in a while. Every five months or so.”

Hange kept close to him, holding him in their arms, hoping this would help Levi recover. To his own shock, he leaned into the embrace, even though Hange’s clothes were full of cookie crumbs and strawberry jam. It didn’t bother him, finding comfort in the pressure and warmth. 

“There, there, it’s alright. We are all well. That’s what matters.”

Once he managed to put himself back together, he apologized to Hange for what he considered to be frankly immature behavior, and ruining their evening for his irrational panicked response. To his relief, they dismissed his worries instantly. 

“It doesn’t matter, I promise. I know it can be scary if you aren’t used to them. If this happens again, this is what you should do…”

They spent the rest of the evening talking about earthquake safety protocols, the geology of Paradis, and how it differed from that of mainland Marley. They talked about how seismic events were measured and the history of earthquakes on the island, and how it was scientists from the National University of Sciences and Technology that came up with the idea to develop a system to alert citizens of upcoming earthquakes ten whole seconds in advance. And even though Hange worked in a completely different faculty, they were very proud of being part of that same institution. He felt a lot safer having this knowledge, which made Hange smile.

He almost dreaded having to finish eating his biscuit. 

-.-.-.-.-

Hange accompanied Levi home. He, too, lived in an apartment, though it was considerably farther away from their workplace. It was a nice place still, and of course, it was perfectly well-kept, more akin to a movie set than a household.

“It's almost like no one lives here.”

Levi shrugged. 

“Guess I don't live much.”

For the first time, Hange started to wonder about what Levi did in his free time, how they spent the hours he wasn’t at work or with Hange. 

“Do you have any hobbies?”

“I like to read the crime section of the newspaper and judge murderers for not cleaning after themselves properly.” He paused. “I also like to knit.”

Hange was expecting him to clarify that what he had just said was a joke. He had to do this often, since his flat intonation often made it unclear. But he didn't. 

“Wait, really? You knit?”

“Yes. Scarves, sweaters, shit like that. I also do crochet.”

Hange could not believe their ears. They remembered one of their first lectures they received in college, while studying the scientific process. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 

“Show me.”

Levi took them to his bedroom, opening the closet door to reveal a bundle full of colorful sweaters with diverse designs, a notable contrast to his sober, cynical personality.

“You can keep these. Take it as a late birthday gift.” He said. “I never wear them.”

“Why? You'd look so cute in them!”

Levi winced. Firstly because he was being called cute, which was gross, and secondly because he hated the texture of synthetic wool on his body. 

“I wouldn't.”

“But-”

“Not happening.”

“Then why do you even make them?”

“It's just something to do.”

Hange took one of the sweaters. It was brown with pink stripes. The stitches were impeccably consistent all throughout, the yarn warm and dreamlike. They held it close to their chest, relishing its softness. It was perfect, all of them were. Then Hange took a look at its maker, a short man with cold, pale hands and dull gray eyes. 

“You are so boring, it flips around to make you fascinating.”

Levi couldn't help it. He smiled, and his smile was as lovely as the sweater.

Chapter Text

Hange had an amazing memory. They remembered everything, unless they forgot, which was, as of late, more often than they would like. 

“Who are you again?”

“Mikasa Ackerman.”

Right. Mikasa. They recalled her now. Hange wasn't sure why she had chosen to pursue biology as a career at all. She did the bare minimum required, and while her work was not bad, often even excellent, it lacked passion. She followed Armin and Eren around, almost like a bodyguard. Nothing but a shadow of herself. 

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Do you know Doctor Grisha Jaeger?”

They had spoken to each other maybe once or twice. He’d been a speaker at a recent conference about the epidemiology of prion disease in livestock, something Hange hoped would help guide their own research. He was most well known for his work as a consultant for the National Institute of Public Health as a consultant regarding vaccination programs for the general population. 

“I’m familiar, yes.”

“He sent me to ask you a favor. He wants you to keep an eye on his son. He's also very interested in your work.”

It took them an embarrassingly long time to realize she was referring to Eren, the only student in the class he shared a name with. The resemblance was obvious in retrospect.

“He sent you? Why?”

“I’m a family friend.”

Mikasa didn’t elaborate any further than that. Just as swiftly as she had arrived, she was gone. Like she hadn’t been there at all to begin with. 

The whole interaction struck Hange as out of place, removed from context. Eren was, in their eyes, a normal kid. The strangest thing about him was his name, and that was something his parents had knowingly picked for him. It was a cruel thing to do to a child, Hange thought, to doom him to bear a name like that. Even the most extremist of parents should be wise enough to see that. 

They only knew Doctor Grisha as it related to his good deeds. Hange had no way of knowing if they were actually a good person. 

Hange decided the most likely explanation was that of an overprotective father worried about the academic future of his child, and didn’t dwell on it any further. When encountering contradictory evidence, it is best to not jump to conclusions. Forgetting the matter wasn’t hard. Once they set up the microscope, the memory of Mikasa were buried deep down many layers of books and scientific articles, magnifying lenses, Petri dishes and agar-agar.

“And then I thought, maybe I won't find the answer by studying just human cells. I need to broaden my scope.”

Levi was mopping the floor, looking as disinterested as always. He hummed, letting Hange know he was paying attention and wanted them to keep talking. 

“Now, our leading hypothesis regarding titan powers is that there is, or was, something about the biology of Eldians that made us able to transform. It is also true that modern Eldians are also susceptible to many forms of cancer, compared to the global average.”

“We are?”

Hange nodded, excitedly. 

“So I figured that maybe our cells are genetically predisposed to multiply out of control. It makes sense, doesn't it? I might need help to figure that one out. Now, if only we were able to artificially trigger this response…”

“You are not turning your undergrads into titans.” He cut them off dryly. 

“Of course not! The ethics committee would never approve that! Which is why I'm planning to use dogs. Well, dog cells. I would never dare to hurt a puppy.” They took a worryingly long pause before continuing. “Nor an undergrad.”

Levi squinted his eyes, suspicious about their statement. 

“Like, I mean it. I wouldn't do that. I might be a freak, but even I have standards.”

But Levi stayed vigilant regardless. He knew that Hange had good intentions, but a part of him couldn’t help but feel they were entering dangerous territory just by continuing their research. What bothered him most was thinking about what would happen to their findings after being published. Titans had historically been used as weapons of mass destruction, and allowing the mechanisms that made that destruction possible to be widely known was, in his opinion, entirely irresponsible. 

The titan war had ended over two hundred years ago, and the world was not fully healed from it yet. And maybe it would never be. 

“Tch. I'm keeping an eye on you, shit-eyes.”

-.-.-.-.-

Hange woke up the next day with an atrocious migraine, sweating as though their skin was burning off their flesh. Just as they started to think the fevers were finally gone. 

It was not like they didn’t seek help. They had gotten an appointment with a psychiatrist, just like Levi had advised them, but he sent them home with only a prescription for antidepressants that did nothing more than give Hange nausea. He also had the audacity to suggest suspending their hormonal treatment, without even consulting an endocrinologist first, saying that estrogen could have “unforeseen side effects.”

Well, Hange had been on estrogen for over a decade. And they didn’t have a problem with it once.

So, opioids it was. They took a higher dose than usual, which made them too visibly clumsy and dizzy and numb for them to go to work, but at least the headache went away. 

They were floating in the border between alertness and sleep when Levi arrived. He went to visit so often, he’d gotten his own copy of the keys by then. He looked at them melting high in the couch disapprovingly. 

“If you keep taking days off work you are going to get yourself in trouble.”

“I have tenure, Levi, I'll be fine.”

“You aren't acting fine.”

His concern was ridiculous. Hange had told their students in advance that they wouldn’t show up to class. They even took the time to send them a document with the abridged version of that day’s lecture, just so they wouldn’t fall behind. Hange trusted them enough to know they could manage. It was not an ideal solution, but their own situation was far from ideal. 

“Have you eaten anything yet?”

Levi must have figured out it was pointless to keep pressing them about work in the state they were in. Hange smiled with the self-satisfaction of someone who just won an argument, giddy and dumb. 

“I have,” they replied. “Have you?”

“Yes”

He sounded significantly more jaded than usual, like he wanted to be done with them as soon as possible so he could go home and solve the daily Sudoku of the newspaper. But Hange could only think about ways of teasing him. 

“Quit acting like you're my mom,” They said, “I stopped talking to her for a reason.”

He didn’t reply. He had already picked up the broom.

“You are always so clean. Like you want to rub it in everyone's faces. Not even Petra likes that about you, and she idolizes you to bits.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Hange realized they didn’t either. 

“Whatever. You get what I mean.” They crossed their arms, trying to appear bothered. 

Levi did not get what they meant. 

“You are acting like an idiot.” He was audibly annoyed. “You always act like an idiot when you are high. You should try something more tame.”

“Look, I'd shove a whole flask of ibuprofen up my ass if it did anything to me. But it doesn't.”

Levi turned away, disturbed by the mental image. 

“Just shut up.”

But Hange was not one to comply. Their characteristic unwillingness to obey orders had gotten them in trouble before, but the stakes were now much lower. They wouldn’t be tried for treason for being a nuisance to Levi. But instead of lighthearted banter, they ended up going on a heated rant. A frustration so fundamental, not even chemicals could shut down.

“Look, it's just, I sometimes start feeling like I'm dying. I can't even breathe. And I start panicking, thinking there's a fire and the room is full of smoke, and that we have to evacuate the building, but I can't move. But then I look around, and I'm surrounded by a bunch of college kids and my hands have chalk on them. And they all stare at me and I have to pretend I'm doing fine because it'd be really fucking embarrassing if I died in front of them. So I have to be tough. I'm the veteran here, I'm Commander Hange Zoë, and since this division depends on me, I have to have my shit together.”

“You are saying nonsense again.”

But Hange was making perfect sense. They genuinely hoped that Levi, who was captain himself, would at least empathize with them. He was subjected to so much pressure as humanity’s strongest, and Hange couldn’t understand why he was being so harsh to them. But the man in front of them looked at them confused, almost pityingly. He was dressed not in the uniform mandated by the army, but in civilian clothes. A casual plain white shirt with dark gray pants. 

That was not humanity’s strongest, Hange realized, but just an average guy. He worked as a cleaner in the faculty of biology of the NUST from one to nine. He was an immigrant from Marley that had come to Paradis looking for a better life. He liked to knit . 

The room cooled down all of a sudden. Outside the cars passed by, a small dog barked, a flock of pigeons flapped their wings and turned to flight. The air was clean and cool. It was a nice autumn morning in the beautiful city of Sina, and they were feeling so very drowsy…

“I’m taking a nap,” Hange said, and almost instantly fell asleep. 

-.-.-.-.-

Levi watched them rest for a while. Their face was peaceful, artificially so. He was mindful enough to take off their glasses and put them on the dinner table. Hange was a messy sleeper, and would probably end up breaking them if he let them on. 

He wasn’t sure of how he knew this. He just did. 

It was the strangest thing. Ever since arriving to Sina, he felt more at home than he ever did back in Marley. He became closer to Hange than he was with most of the people he grew up with, save for his mom, and perhaps uncle Kenny. 

“I'd rather have the two of us just live here…”

It was a painfully enticing proposal. And he wasn't even sure why. Hange was loud and filthy, disorganized in their thoughts as much as they were with their living space. There was nothing appealing about living with a person like that.

Yet the prospect brought him some sort of inner peace, of long overdue closure. It was just right. 

When he came back from work, Hange was still asleep. They had fallen off the couch, and were laying on the floor, unaware of the very awkward position their body had taken. Levi picked them up and dragged them to their room with such ease it almost seemed practiced. 

He changed the old sheets and provided his friend with a thicker blanket, more suited for the cold season, making sure they comfortably settled on their wide mattress. It was already late.

By then, all public transport was dormant. That meant he would have to walk himself home, even though he was tired and in pain. He’d done so many times before, maybe not without struggle, but that wasn’t enough of an excuse for him to stay in a place that wasn’t his. It wasn’t that he couldn’t leave. For a reason he couldn’t yet understand, he simply didn’t want to.

“How’s that, Levi?”

There were spare blankets in the closet. In the living room, the couch was free.

Chapter Text

She was only twelve.

Her family had just moved to Sina, and Mikasa was not yet used to it. She missed the quiet streets of her hometown, the sweet rustling of the wind through the leaves at night, the dark calls of the owls, and even the howling of the packs of wolves that got up for the night. 

She clung onto her mother as they moved through the dense streets, as though she was going to drown below the crowd if she let go of her hand. Walking around like that, she looked much younger than she was. 

But even if she was only twelve, and conducted herself with the clumsy shyness of a girl of ten, Mikasa was very responsible, and most of those who knew her described her as very mature for her age. 

She was smart, polite and obedient. So when she refused to shake Doctor Jaeger’s hand, it came as a surprise. 

“I am sorry, Doctor,” she said, unable to comprehend, let alone verbalize, why she was acting like this. But he didn't judge her for that. It was as if somehow he understood. 

“Just call me Grisha.”

The Jaeger household was in a small isolated neighborhood, and unlike most houses in the city, it had a little garden. The doctor offered them a seat in the living room, and even brought them a plate with pastries. 

“Carla makes these, she's an amazing baker. Right now, she's picking my younger son up from school. I don't think you know him yet, do you, Henry?”

“Not in person, I haven't.”

“Well, let me tell you, he’s a handful.”

Mikasa didn't pay much attention to the conversation her parents were having with the doctor. She did not understand most of it anyway. She only ever spoke when spoken to, which was rare. 

It had been a good while when the front door opened. Carla, Grisha’s wife, entered carrying two bags of groceries, and behind her followed the kid that Mikasa assumed had to be the couple’s son. 

“So, this is Carla, my wife, and this young man here” he took a mildly nervous pause, “is my son, Eren.”

Mikasa didn't react. The whole world froze for what felt like an eternity. The boy looked at her, his eyes unreadable. 

“Eren…” 

But her voice was naught but a faint whisper. As he raised his hand to wave, the weight of her own existence fell upon her all at once. 

Eren Jaeger. 

She yelled, taking her hands to her head. What happened after, she couldn't quite remember. She was all feelings, at that moment, so busy remembering, that her mind forgo registering the present reality entirely. It was like a thousand needles poking holes through her skull, tearing her very personhood apart. 

When she finally came back into herself, she was in a separate room, laying in a bed that wasn't hers. The floor was littered with building blocks and action figures of characters she didn't recognize. Sitting next to her was Doctor Grisha, looking at her with deliberate gentleness, like she could shatter at a mere glance. 

“You knew,” she uttered under her breath, directing her eyes at Grisha. 

“I did.”

Mikasa sat there, silent. She looked at her own hands, touching her face, and then the sheets below her. It was all real. And yet, what she saw… 

“Does he…?”

“No. Neither does Carla. Or your parents, for that matter.” He spoke directly, but softly. “Only us.”

She didn't know if this was a good or a bad thing. It didn't really matter, though. She started crying anyway.

“This is me,” she mumbled while weeping. “I'm here.”

Once she had calmed down, she looked up at Grisha. His eyes were sad and tired. 

“How… When did you…?”

“When I held my first son in my arms for the first time. It all came back then.”

“Zeke…”

Grisha looked surprised.

“You knew him?”

Mikasa nodded. “Somewhat. But you wouldn't want to hear about him.”

“I suppose not.”

She was only twelve. But then, she wasn't just twelve anymore. She carried the memories of an entire life with her. More than ninety years of joy and grief locked inside the heart of a little girl. 

Her mother had called her an old soul once. Turns out she was right. 

-.-.-.-.-

Mikasa didn't have the courage to look at Eren in the face. 

“I just want to go home. I need to think.”

Grisha told her parents that Mikasa was suffering from migraines due to stress. That it was better to let her rest a few days, let her get used to her new home, and get to know around the city before enrolling her in school. 

She needed time to learn how to be herself again. 

Over the next few days, she recovered a lot of knowledge and skills from her past life. Most of it was painful, but she did not speak of it to her parents. It would be better to keep them in the dark. They seemed so happy, so whole. They were living the life that was taken away from them prematurely. And she wasn't going to be the one to ruin that. 

When she finally enrolled in school, she got to talk to Eren for the first time. She didn't want to make assumptions about him. 

“You are weird,” he said. “You look at me weird.”

Mikasa blushed, suddenly very aware that she was still a young girl that had the emotions of a young girl, and as such, she was terrified of embarrassment. She covered her face.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to.”

“It's fine. I like weird people. That's why I'm friends with Armin.”

Armin, turns out, was a kid from the grade below them. Mikasa recognized his curiosity and kindness instantly.

They had a good first three years together. Sometimes, Mikasa liked to pretend to forget her past life, and hang out with Eren and Armin without worrying about the world. It all changed, however, when one fateful day a guy, almost a man in the eyes of Mikasa, decided to sneak some whiskey into the school. That was Jules Fox. He was sixteen, and fashioned himself as a hero and a rebel. One of his friends had dared him to “beat up that smart-ass” while drunk because Armin had been allowed to skip a grade up due to his giftedness, while he had been forced to repeat one. 

They only found out about this after the incident, however. At the time, it just looked to Mikasa that the guy had decided to threaten Armin specifically for no reason. 

Eren, of course, would simply not allow that. 

“You want to pick a fight with him? Because he isn't as strong as you? What about you pick a fight with someone your size, you piece of shit?”

Eren was, truly, nowhere near the size of that guy. He looked at him like one does a cockroach. 

“Why don't you come save him?”

He was still pushing Armin against the wall. He wasn't able to move. 

“I'm going to kill you.”

He stated that with no hesitation. No doubt. Mikasa looked at him, very afraid of the cruel determination leaking from his fists. 

“Eren, wait-”

It was useless. Of course it was useless. Sooner than later, the two boys were on the floor, tearing each other apart like rabid feral dogs. And Eren, despite being smaller, and out of sheer, unwavering stubbornness, was winning.

For years after, Mikasa blamed herself for not stopping him, when she knew she had the ability to. She was stronger, wiser, more skilled. Instead, she stood and stared as Eren beat up the already unconscious body of his opponent, drawing more and more blood with each hit. When someone finally called a teacher, the drunkard student was already as good as dead. 

Both of them were taken to the hospital. Eren had fractured some of the bones in his right hand. The police interrogated him on the hospital bed, with both his parents present. 

When it came time to interview the witnesses, they were taken together to a separate room. 

“So. Your friend, Eren, right? He attacked a fellow student and beat him until he was unconscious.”

“Will he be fine?”

“Well, he has a few fractures in his skull and a pretty significant neck injury, but he'll get up. Eventually.”

“I was talking about Eren.”

The officer, a bulky woman with black hair, laughed. 

“Oh, that bastard is doing well enough on his own. But let's not derail the conversation. He says he did it because he attacked you first. Is that true?”

Mikasa looked away. 

“It's true,” said Armin. “Jules threatened me and pushed me against the wall. Then Eren saw that and came to defend me. He told him to let me go, and that he would… fight him, if he didn't. But Jules didn't let me go.”

The woman took note of that. 

“And you, princess? Did you see that happen?”

It was clear the officer was trying to appear friendly, but Mikasa didn't like her tone. 

“Yes.”

“You are not being very helpful.”

“Jules attacked Armin. Then Eren attacked Jules. That's what I saw.”

The officer rolled her eyes. 

“And before that, did Eren show any violent tendencies?”

“Of course not!” Armin was quick to answer. “I didn't… he only did it because he thought I was in danger!”

Mikasa looked away. Again. 

“Miss Ackerman?”

Well, at least she wasn't calling her princess anymore. 

“No.”

In the end, the case led nowhere, as most cases did. The family didn't press further charges, and Eren was allowed to go back to his usual life with a plaster on his hand and a splint on his nose, even if he had just attempted to murder a student. While it was awful to see him like that, what really pained Mikasa was how little regret he showed about it, at least outwardly. Jules spent almost a week hospitalized, and had to go through months of speech therapy to regain his ability to speak. 

“He deserved that,” Eren told her. “Maybe now he'll know better than to mess with other people.”

She couldn't even contradict him. Still, from then on, she stuck to him not only from a sense of attachment, but from a sense of duty. She would not allow this to happen again. 

So when the time came to finally leave for college, she had her mind made up. 

“I was thinking of what you told me. I'm going to do biology with Eren and Armin, at NUST” she told Grisha, a few weeks before they graduated from high school. 

“Are you sure? Didn't you want to study literature? I'm sure you'd be able to get into NUAH just by your own merits, I-”

“It's not about securing a place. I just have to do it.”

Grisha sighed. 

“Take care of him for me, will you?”

“I will,” she said, even though Mikasa wasn't sure if Eren needed her protection, as much as the world needed protection from Eren. 

-.-.-.-.-

Hearing that Commander Hange Zoë would be their cell and microbiology professor was not a surprise. It was fitting, Mikasa thought, for them to be a scientist in this life as well. 

What she was definitely not expecting was to find Captain Levi, humanity’s strongest soldier, mopping the hallways. He even had the exact same ugly, terribly outdated haircut, though she would never dare to confront him about that. She knew he styled it that way because it was extremely practical.

“Do you need anything?”

He was just as short, and his voice was just as deep. He didn't so much speak, as much as he spit out words. 

“No. I apologize. You looked somewhat familiar.”

He rolled his eyes and went back to work. 

Eren, on his end, was terrified of that janitor. 

“He looks like he has death in his eyes. Like a single look is enough to cut a grown man in half.” He shuddered. “I don't want to be anywhere near him.”

It was an ancient instinctual fear, that was, nonetheless, to a casual observer, irrational and ridiculous. 

“Sure, he's a bit off-putting.” Armin replied, “but if my job was mopping floors all day, I wouldn't look too jolly either.”

Mikasa made no comment about it. If Levi had chosen to live his clean-freak fantasies in this life, she was not going to judge him for that. He, more than anyone else, deserved to have the most average, most boring life. 

It was a weird thing to think, considering how furrowed his eyebrows were, but compared to the last time she had seen him, he looked happy. 

Then again, the last time he saw him, he was at his deathbed. 

“Let's go.” She said, trying to take her mind away from such thoughts. “We’ll be late for class.”

-.-.-.-.-

“Microscopy,” Hange started, “is not only a science, but an art form. And like any other form of art, it is a skill you hone. Now, you probably have used one of these before, but if we really want to learn how to use them, if you want to access their full potential, then we will need to talk a little bit about optics.” This elicited a muted, yet clearly negative, vocal response from the class. Hange smiled, as though they enjoyed torturing their students. “I promise it'll be quick. I know you picked this career because it didn't have as much math as other STEM fields, and I know this because I did the same thing as you. Rest assured, I won't have you solving any complex equations, not in my class. But this is the gist of it. So as you know, light is…”

While Armin and Eren took notes, Mikasa stared at the professor. They walked around, waving their arms enthusiastically as they spoke. She found it ironic, that in their past life, Hange had spent so much time studying the titans, those giant, mindless monsters, that towered over humans like humans did over ants, only to spend this life researching cells, the so insurmountably small, that which was impossible to see with the naked eye. 

Suddenly they stopped. They appeared disoriented. It was only for a few seconds. They rubbed their hands together, as though to make sure they were still there. Then they turned around to face the chalkboard. 

“As I was saying…” They continued, drawing a little diagram with the chalk, as though nothing had happened. Mikasa wondered if anyone else had noticed this, or if they were too busy actually paying attention to the lecture to do so. She figured it was best for her to pay attention as well, instead of musing about her past life, if she wanted to pass this class. 

-.-.-.-.-

The three of them had come together to rent an apartment of their own near college. While they had dorms, they were not nearly enough to accommodate all the students, and they prioritized those that qualified for economic and disability benefits, those that came from far away, or those that had earned a scholarship. 

There she discovered a few things about Eren that she didn't know before. 

First, he always woke up crying. Neither she nor Armin ever mentioned it, and Eren wasn't keen on discussing it either. They just accepted his teary eyes and snotty voice during breakfast as part of their daily routine. 

He also had trouble falling asleep. She didn't see this happen herself, since she had her own separate room, but Armin had told her about it. He would, sometimes, in the middle of the night, ask Armin what he only described as weird questions.  

“What do you mean by that?”

Armin visibly blushed. He tried his best to appear composed after that, clearing his throat and straightening his posture.”

“He asks me if we think he's evil. And… other stuff like that.”

He was not being completely honest, but given the way his face had reddened, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out. 

“And what do you tell him?”

“That he's not evil, of course! But that doesn't seem to calm him down. He's fixated on the idea that he's a bad person. But he's never done anything wrong!”

Mikasa thought about Jules. And then she thought about everything else.  

“Guess he hasn't.”

She should've made an effort to appear more convinced. Armin looked at her worriedly.

“Has he done anything to you?”

“What? No, no, it's not that.” She laughed, forcefully. “I just remembered the time he tried to cheat on a math test.”

Armin chuckled in response, he didn't seem to notice that her amusement was faked. “That's hardly an evil thing to do. We were just thirteen.”

But Eren’s odd behaviors only intensified with time (or maybe they only noticed them now that they lived together). He acted very irritable at times, complaining about the tiniest of inconveniences. He also acted hostile towards anyone that wasn't either Armin or Mikasa, which wasn't a new development, but it had definitely gotten worse. It was as though he hated the world.

Mikasa made sure to notify Grisha about this over the phone, but most of it was stuff he already knew about. Eren woke up crying ever since he was a child, but he could never remember what he was dreaming about that made him cry. She also told him about Levi and Hange. 

“Oh, Hange Zoë? You said they used to be commander of the Survey Corps, right? Makes sense that they are so obsessed with titans.”

“Titans?”

“Most of their research these days is focused on that. I haven't talked to them much, but I highly respect them. I suppose it's hard to research the mechanics of something so ancient, that we have so little records of.”

“They don't talk about it in class.”

“I mean, they give you microbiology, don't they? They don't have much reason to talk about it.”

“Right.”

“Hey, when you see them next time, tell them to keep an eye on Eren, will you? Make sure he's doing well academically. We are almost in time for partials. And that I'd love to talk to them about their work one of these days.”

“I will.”

Chapter Text

He woke up feeling like shit. There was nothing new about that, of course, he was always hurting, in some way or another. But he didn’t feel nearly as bad as he thought he would, considering he had slept on the couch. There was a nice warm blanket over him, and on top of the blanket there was a little note. 

Thank you so much for sticking around. I feel better today. I'm off to work. There are pancakes. You can take anything you want. -Hange

He took the note and put it in his pocket. 

After tidying up the apartment a bit, he decided it was better for him to return home to shower and change clothes. He did eat one of the pancakes Hange had left for him on the counter, as well as an apple to snack on his way. 

He was just about to leave, but when he opened the door, he crossed paths with an oddly familiar looking man. The guy approached him, smiling. 

“Is this Hange Zoë’s apartment?”

He was very clearly faking that smile. It was so incompetent it was embarrassing. Levi grew up in a bad neighborhood, and he knew to trust his gut. This man was either a strained relative of Hange’s, a salesman or a cop. These were all terrible options to varying degrees.

“That depends on who’s asking.”

“Are you her boyfriend?”

“No.”

Levi locked the door behind him, keeping the apartment safe from prying eyes. If his back and legs had hated the stairs before, he now saw them as inviting. He had no desire to entertain the man for longer, dodging him and starting to make his way down. 

“May I at least have your name?”

Levi rolled his eyes.

“Jonathan Harker. And I’m their cousin.”

“Alright, Johnathan, I'm Nile Dok. You seem like a good guy. When you see Zoë again, can you tell her I came? It's important.”

So, it was not a relative. Not a salesman, either. 

“No.”

He ignored any subsequent questions from Dok, biting into his apple as he tried to engage in a very forced friendly conversation. When he stepped out of the building, the man hadn’t gone away, still insistent. It was getting to him. He turned around. 

“Don't you have something better to do, officer? Because I do. Stop being a fucking bother and go solve some crime or whatever you do with our taxes.”

Levi threw his half-eaten apple at him, knowing he could get away with it because Dok wasn’t actually armed, and apparently sent alone. He had a keen eye for this sort of thing, not like he went around telling people why. It was an unnecessary risk, that it could get him arrested, but hearing the man curse under his breath and leave his side defeated was reward enough to make it worth it. 

As fun as it was to annoy the police, it was still something he had to discuss with Hange in private as soon as possible. He had some ideas of why they had shown up to their door in the first place, and they were all far away from being fun.

-.-.-.-.-

“Hi there, four eyes.”

They were exactly where he expected them to. 

“Hi, Levi! What’s up?” Their smile was lovely. He hated to be the one to ruin it. 

“The police came to your apartment this morning.” He said. “Some Nile Dok guy. Now, if my experience is anything to go by, they are going to come with a warrant sometime soon, and then I won't be able to keep them away from your… Stuff.”

Hange looked at him confused.

“Are you sure it was the police?”

“They’re not very good at hiding it.”

“How can you know it was because of something I did?”

“Can you think of any other reason for them to be at your door?”

“No,” Hange confessed, closing the book they had been reading and putting it away. “But there's no way for them to know I've been using opioids without a prescription. They would have to get through Pieck first.”

“Pieck?”

He had heard that name somewhere before, but he couldn't recall where. 

“She's a friend, a pharmacist. She only gives me the Tramadol because she knows I can be responsible with it.”

Levi thought about it for a bit. He wasn't convinced. 

“In Marley, the government keeps track of shit like this. Every batch, every box is numbered. If something is amiss, they can easily find out about it. And then you'll go to jail, because careless pigs like you are an easier target than any of the actual fucking drug lords running around.”

Hange snorted. He didn’t like how lightly they were taking the issue. 

“Do you have a pharmacology degree you forgot to tell me about? How do you know all that?”

He sometimes forgot that the inner workings of the drug trade were not necessarily common knowledge among the general population. At least not outside the neighborhood he grew up in. 

“Reasons,” he replied, without elaborating further. Hange smiled smugly. 

“Well, this is not Marley. I’ll be fine. I'm always fine.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Their lack of forethought was beyond infuriating. He understood what Hange was going through, but he couldn’t help but resent them regardless. He sighed, standing still for a moment, thinking about how much his body was hurting, how much it had hurt him since he was a teen. He thought about the things he did back then, trying to numb his pain just enough to try to be successful, whatever that meant. How it led him nowhere. Despite his best efforts to live a simple life, even with his pain, a part of him yearned for that sense of carefree normality that his own body was set on denying him. That the doctors and the law were set on denying him. 

“It's because of people like you that people like me can't access treatment,” he said, and he wasn't even angry. He didn’t have enough energy to be angry. 

“What?”

He sighed. 

“It’s nothing.”

“No, Levi. I heard you.”

“Tch. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is what you’re going to do when you get found out.”

“I’m not going to get found out.”

“There was a cop. At your doorstep.”

“That barely means anything.”

The argument was starting to get heated. Levi shook his head, disappointed by their denial. Hange could be stupid, but this was too much.  

“I’m speaking from experience, Hange. Get rid of it. You can get more later if you are that desperate.”

This marked a shift in their attitude somewhat. 

“I can get rid of it if it makes you feel safer,” they said, hesitantly. Seeing that this pleased Levi, they went on. “I don’t think I need it that much anymore, anyway.”

“Really?”

Levi couldn’t deny it. He didn’t expect them to bulge in the end. He was prepared to take the damned box and throw it away himself, but thankfully it didn’t come to that. Hange was being sensible once again.

“It’s going to sound stupid, but I feel a lot better when I’m around you. Like I can’t die if you are present. You always manage to calm me down, bring me down to earth, so to speak.”

“Is that so?”

“I told you it was stupid.”

“Not at all. I’m glad I’m of help.” He wasn’t thinking through what he said next. If it was weird, or too daring, it didn’t cross his mind. “Maybe we should move in together. We’ll take care of each other that way. How does that sound?”

There was no way he could’ve predicted the way Hange reacted. Their eyes teared up, and Levi started to fear he had said something entirely inappropriate. 

“Hange?”

“I…” They touched their own face, confused by the tears now rolling down their cheeks. “Then…?”

They were sobbing now. Levi reached them, unsure of how to comfort them, but he didn’t have to wonder for long. Hange got up to hug him in an instant while sobbing openly. He was stiff, startled by the sudden motion, but he didn’t attempt to break the heartfelt vulnerability Hange was showing. That’d be too cruel, even for him.

“Levi. I know you.”

Hange started to chuckle, and then laugh, still while crying. Levi didn’t know what to do other than to stay where he was. 

Then they kissed his forehead. 

“Alright, that’s enough,” he said, extending his arms, butting distance between himself and Hange. “What came over you?”

But they weren’t in condition to reply. Whatever it was that they were feeling, it was too great and too complex to express verbally. At least not in a way that was actually coherent. 

“Dear god. Holy fuck.”

They went through the whole dictionary of Eldian curse words and expressions, mixed in with a good amount of tears, before finally saying something that made approaching sense. 

“You are going to live with me,” they said, grabbing him by the shoulders. 

“I was merely suggesting…”

“Levi. When we were in the forest. I was with you. I took care of you. Do you remember?”

They were talking about his dream. A dream he had never mentioned.

“How can you…?”

But Hange didn’t let him finish. 

“I’m researching titans again.” They pulled their hair, shifting their attention back to the pile of books rising from their desk. “Mikasa. Armin. Eren fucking Jaeger is in my fucking class.”

Levi looked around uncomfortably. 

“You’ve told me about this…”

“No, Levi, you don’t get it.” They straightened their back, trying to put themself together, and failing. Whatever mixture of feelings Hange was experiencing at that moment, it was foreign to Levi. “We are alive.” They said it as though they couldn’t believe it, fully in awe of their own breath. “And he’s in my class. The brat. The bastard.” Hange’s tone changed from amazed to angry. “Eren Jaeger. Son of Grisha Jaeger. Brother of Zeke Jaeger. You remember Zeke, don’t you, Levi?”

“I…”

He fell to the ground shaking, struck by lightning. He had never been in this much pain before, and he’d been through a lot of pain alright. It was impossible for him to hold his own weight anymore. Hange kneeled next to him, but it was too late for them to stop his fall. Levi held onto their coat like his very life depended on it. It’d at least keep him from fainting.

“There. It’s fine, it’s alright. Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“That fucker’s not dead?”

Whatever shred of consciousness he was clinging from was fueled by a rage he didn’t know himself capable of. 

“I don’t know!”

He was in two places at once. Firstly, he was laying on the floor of a laboratory he had just been cleaning. He was in the middle of the woods, being held by Hange wearing an all black uniform, drying him up and closing his wounds in the darkness of a moonless night. Being held by Hange wearing a white coat beneath the blinding light of the LED lights. The blinding light of an explosion followed the frozen embrace of the river, smelling of bleach and detergent and sanitizing spray.  

“We are alive,” he concluded, still unable to understand his own thought process. “We are all alive.”

Moblit. Mike. Eld. Oulo. Gunther. Petra. Isabel. Farlan. Hange.  

Erwin.   

Levi never cried. He had nothing to cry for since he was a child. He had grown numb to the pain of being alive. Or at least he thought he did. The grief of a whole lifetime spent repressing his emotions came over him at once. Time turned meaningless as he held onto the person besides him, scared and confused and joyous, bleeding senseless, disconnected words from his throat. He didn’t know what those words meant. He only knew to cry. And so he did. 

“We are all alive,” Hange repeated, bringing him close to their chest. “I’m here with you.”

-.-.-.-.-

“I need to call my mom.”

This was the first thing he managed to say once he came back to his senses. He searched his pocket desperately while still on the floor. 

“Your… mom?”

“I only call her once a week. I should be calling her daily. What an ungrateful son of a whore I am.”

“Did you just…?

“It’s still early in Marley. She has to be awake.”

Hange smiled tenderly, holding his hand tight. 

“I always knew you had a soft heart.”

Levi rolled his eyes, world-shattering sorrow giving place to regular annoyance. 

“Shut up, glasses.” But he didn’t move his hand away. 

Hange helped Levi get up, which he was bitter about, but didn’t complain. He was well aware he wasn’t able to get up on his own. He was too hurt. Just as he promised, he called his mother. Hange had a hard time containing their laughter, hearing her very eager, loving voice through the speaker, and how much Levi was blushing about it. 

“I still think you are adorable,” they told him, the moment he hung up. 

“If you call me that again, I'll cut your throat.”

But Hange couldn’t bring themself to take his threats seriously after hearing him talking to his mom like that, and they suspected Levi wasn’t serious about it either.  

“And about moving in with me, were you…?”

“Of course I meant it, idiot. Someone's got to take care of you, and it's not going to be yourself.”

“Hey, I'm a fully capable, independent adult.”

“When was the last time you cleaned your apartment?”

It had been months. 

“Fine. Maybe I do need help. But you do so as well. If you don’t feel comfortable getting the treatment you need from my backdoor, I’ll get you a doctor who will prescribe it. I’ll drag you to their office if I must.”

“Sure you will.”

Hange was glad to carry Levi, who was still struggling to stand up on his own, outside the faculty, letting him lean on them. They called a taxi that ended up being ridiculously expensive to get to their apartment. They were quiet on through, each thinking their own thoughts, holding each other’s hands for comfort and warmth. Winter would arrive soon that year.

When they arrived, Levi let himself fall on the couch like a rag doll. 

“I still have tramadol, if you—”

“Get rid of that shit already.” Hange did so. They went to their room and threw it away before coming back to the living room. Levi nodded, content. “Now, get your ass here,” he said, leaving space for Hange to sit in. As soon as he did, he laid his hand on top of theirs, somewhat shyly, and rested his head on their shoulder. “I missed you.”

He looked so tired and so hurt. Hange had only seen him like this before once. Now that he wasn’t Captain, now that the fate of humanity didn’t depend on him, he could finally allow himself a moment of vulnerability, even if it was small and fleeting. 

“Did you get the job done?” they asked, unable to keep their need to know to themself any longer. 

“We did what we could.”

“I’m proud of you.”

Levi shook his head. 

“I barely did anything.”

“Liar.”

“I killed Zeke. That’s about it.”

Hange could tell that he was somewhat fond of that memory, bloody as it was. His lips curled upwards ever so slightly, not quite enough to make it a smile. 

“What was of you?”

“Not much.”

Hange’s voice turned somber, stricken by a realization.

“Did you—”

“No. I didn’t die. I wasn’t so lucky.” He sighed. “I lived with Falco and Gabi in Marley. They took care of me. They were nice kids. It was not a bad life, all things considered.” There was a hint of nostalgia to his voice. He had genuinely cherished that life, Hange realized, but he didn’t stop there. He went on, his voice shaking just barely noticeably. “But you weren’t in it.”

“Oh.”

“I missed you. For fifty years I bore your death. I missed all of you. Then I got pneumonia and died too.”

“Levi…”

“But you are well now.” He was telling this more to himself than to Hange. “You’re well.”

The honesty had taken a toll on him, for he didn’t speak again. They just sat there, floating in a dream-like silence, comfortable and at peace. A kind of peace that not even death was able to grant them.

“It’s getting late,” he said, any anguish vanished from his voice. Like a puzzle piece finally finding its place. “We should go to sleep.”

“Do you mind sharing a bed?”

“With you?” He considered it for a few seconds. He looked at the couch, and then he looked at Hange. “As long as you are clean, no.”

Hange beamed. They hugged Levi, careful not to hurt him, and helped him get up.

“Welcome home, then.”

For a second time, Levi smiled back. 

-.-.-.-.-

Levi was the first to wake up. It had been the fullest night of sleep he had gotten in the entirety of his lives. Yes, both of them.

Hange rested by his side, hugging a pillow beneath the colorful blanket like a child would with a stuffed animal. 

“Hey, shitty glasses,” he said, gently patting their head, ruffling their soft brown hair with his cold fingers. “You’re late to work.”

“I’m not going,” they replied hoarsely, lazily, still half asleep, leaning into his touch like a house cat. Levi could almost imagine them purring. 

“Do you feel bad?”

“No.” They very slowly managed to sit up, stretching their arms and their back. “I feel great.”

“Then?”

“I just want to spend the day with you.”

Levi groaned. 

“That’s selfish. And disgustingly corny. Gross.”

Hange shook their head, cuddling up to Levi like they didn’t have a single thing to worry about. Like the world could end, and they would die content and regretless. 

And, truth be told, Levi felt like that too. 

“Just let me be happy this once.”

He didn’t have the heart to deny them that. 

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, academics were not serious people. They talked shit about each other with the same frequency and enthusiasm as any other self-respecting member of society. University professors, however, seemed especially keen on gossip. 

“Hey there, Hange. How’s it going?”

While being a professor had its perks, Hange still thought that anyone willing to spend most of their time with people in their early twenties, a population known for their teen-like recklessness and full legal autonomy, had something wrong with their psyche. 

“I’m doing well, Mark.”

“I heard you have a new boyfriend.”

Hange rolled their eyes, as they opened a bag of instant coffee, pouring the dark powder into a hot cup of water. They fought the temptation to throw the water at his coworker, once again choosing words over violence.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Levi, isn’t it? He seems pleasant to be around.” They didn’t miss his overt sarcasm. They held the cup tightly. “I hope he lasts you longer than the last one.”

Calling Levi their boyfriend was not only entirely inaccurate, but also juvenile and unserious. 

“He’s my partner . And we are not dating .” They made sure to emphasize their words, making clear what they were, and what they were not. “But I’m afraid you’re too dumb to know the difference.”

“Oh, come on. I’m wishing you good luck.”

“Sure you are, Mark.”

Then again, it was the first Monday of exam week. Partials were as harsh on teachers as they were on students. Perhaps, to some, a bit of gossip was the thing they needed to brighten up their day when the promise of winter break wasn’t enough to keep them going. And whether they liked to admit it or not, Hange relished the bit of small talk they could get before the arrival of the storm. 

“How old is he, anyway? Seems like ten years younger than you.”

“He’s a year older, actually.”

The shock on Mark’s face was priceless. It shut him up for a good ten seconds. 

“No fucking way. You’re lying.”

“Now, now. Stop bothering our Hange with your silly questions.” That was Miriam, an older, soft-spoken woman who had been imparting lectures at the faculty for the better part of her life. Suddenly, Hange wondered what their occupation had been in her previous life, if she even had one. “Why don’t you ask about their research? That always cheers them up.”

About their research. Well, that was going to be an issue. 

“I’m doing great.”

To call that answer the truth was to stretch the definition of the word. 

On the one hand, they had just recovered a lot of knowledge regarding titans that she didn't know she had. Based on her own memories, and Levi's testimony, it was clear that the hypothesis they had been workshoping about Eldian genetics and cell division was at least partially correct. For what they were able to gather, in the past, Eldians had been capable of transformation thanks to the influence of a parasite called Hallucigenia. Levi had described it as a sort of floating jelly-worm-thing. He had also said that in the end, Ymir commanded the power of this creature to rid Eldians of their ability to turn into titans by changing their biology somehow. 

Hange suspected that they achieved this by blocking the cells’ capacity to coordinate the construction of a proper titan form, without fully erasing their tendency to multiply quickly. The result was a population of people that were, as a result, more susceptible to cancerous growth. 

They had also learned other things that were beyond the scope of their original research, like the fact that a special kind of spinal fluid was needed to achieve this transformation, about the way the transmission of titan powers through cannibalistic rituals mimicked the transmission of prion disease. Perhaps it was through the hijacking of the mechanisms by which proteins folded that a chain reaction would occur, that would result in what they came to understand as titan powers. 

This was all amazing to know. It filled Hange with joyous excitement the likes they had rarely ever experienced. 

They also didn't have proof of any of it. 

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The quote of their teacher lingered in their memory like a menace. 

Hange had no idea of how to prove their claims right, if such a thing was even possible. “It came to me in a vision” was not a valid methodology. 

“Is that all you’re going to tell us?”

Miriam looked at them worriedly, noticing their anxious apprehension, their uncharacteristic silence. 

“Oh, you know. I’d rather keep my progress confidential for now. It’s all very primitive still, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself in front of you.”

That was not to mention the moral implications of their work. Now that Hange knew what titans were actually like first hand, these ethical questions that hadn’t even crossed their mind before were becoming impossible to ignore.

They didn’t yet know if continuing this line of research was even possible, let alone if it was the right thing to do. But they would only be able to explore these daunting questions after the more pressing matter of exam week was fully dealt with. 

-.-.-.-.-

Levi got up that morning, barely feeling any pain. A strange occurrence, to be sure, but hardly something to complain about. He was well rested, well-fed, and ready to start his week, not really with a smile, but with the closest thing his face could reasonably manage.

Everything was going great. Until it wasn’t.

It was during the latter half of his shift when the comfortable sense of normalcy he had built for the last few days came tumbling down. He was happily mopping one of the main hallways, making sure every single marble tile was shining white. As he did this, however, a kid ran past him, stumbling and tripping, falling to the floor in a manner so surreal it was comical. His books and pens spilled out of his bag, as did the fast-food coffee cup he’d been holding and a half-eaten hamburger. 

“Idiot. Did you not see the signs?” Levi pointed at the bright yellow warning signs placed all over the wet floor, but the boy didn’t answer. He was starting to think he’d gotten seriously injured, when two fellow alumni kneeled down to help him.

“Eren!” She spoke with a voice all too familiar. “Are you alright?”

“We are sorry, sir,” the blond boy said at once, talking to Levi. “He’s clumsy like that, he didn’t mean to.”

Together they helped their friend to sit down. He had a bleeding nose and disgustingly green eyes, like radioactive waste. He turned to Levi as to apologize, but the moment their glances met, he felt quiet. 

The abstract concept of fear itself had personified before him as a nineteen-year-old boy. And it had an extremely punchable face. 

“You…”

“Sir?” But Armin’s shaking voice was weak and distant. Levi pushed him aside, kneeling next to Eren. He was breathing so chaotically, with such force, his lungs could’ve exploded. He pulled him towards him by the nap of his shirt. He didn’t try to move away, frozen like a fawn after hearing a gunshot. 

“I still had some words left for you, brat.”

He threw him to the ground and got up, but spoke no further. 

“Wait, Captain, please—”

He kicked his face with no hesitation, using just enough force for a tooth to break loose. The sight of Jaeger’s blood staining the marble below was almost as satisfying as a perfectly clean floor.  

He was about to strike again, but Mikasa wouldn’t allow it. He dodged her tackle, and used a broom he had nearby to put some distance between the girl and himself. She could’ve easily landed that attack, Levi knew, but she didn’t for a reason. 

“He hasn't done anything wrong yet, Captain! Don’t kill him!”

“What? Captain? Kill him?” Armin was still on the floor, too shaken and too confused to react to the scene playing out in front of him. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Levi replied, pulling the broom closer to his body, stepping away from Mikasa. They both kept their distance. “That’d be too generous.”

This calmed her down significantly. Around them, a circle of witnesses had formed, but Levi was too deep into his anger to notice. He approached Eren, who had clumsily backed away into a corner, just as far as his dizziness had allowed him. Laying on the floor like that, locked under Levi’s shadow, he could almost feel an ounce of pity for him.

Almost. 

All he needed were three, perfectly directed strikes of the broomstick. 

One to the knees. One to the hips. One to shoulder. If his victim screamed, or begged, if he so much whimpered in pain, Levi didn’t care enough to notice. 

“Tch. That’s all I needed to say.” He threw the broom away, like it was a filthy thing that could never be cleansed. Then he turned at Mikasa, who was covering her mouth, unable to look at anything but the struggling breath of her friend. “He’ll be fine. I promise.” Mikasa nodded, still horrified, but fully trusting of Levi’s words. Then he spoke to the crowd that had formed around them. “Don’t you fuckers have shit to do?”

He was met with complete silence. It wasn’t until Armin urged the spectators to call security that they reacted. 

What happened after he couldn’t quite recall. All he could think about, while being restrained and dragged away against his will, the heat of the moment vanishing, was that he had just ruined his own life all over again. And this time, he wasn’t even sure if it’d been worth it. 

-.-.-.-.-

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been detained. He was locked up in a small cell with a few other men, each miserable in their own way. One was almost passed out drunk. Another was crying, curled up in a corner. A third one tried to fall asleep on the floor, with no results. 

Multiple times they took him to another room to ask him questions he didn’t once answer, no matter their yells and their threats. Every time he was dropped back into the cold, dry cell of the detention center, lit by two cheap light bulbs struggling to stay on. 

He didn’t have his phone, his coat or his wallet. As far as he could tell, he was alone.

Or so he thought. 

“Erwin Smith. Criminal defense lawyer. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

He’d been determined to keep his silence up as a wall, but if anyone could break it, it was the man sitting in front of him. Just as blond. And twice as ridiculously idealistic. 

“Excuse me?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Let me see…” Erwin searched the binder between his hands, almost like he was having fun. “Levi… Ackerman. Is that right?”

“So you don’t know who I am.”

“Sorry, am I missing something…?”

This was unreal. Like the universe itself was conspiring to break him. But he had to act collected. If there was the slightest chance of him getting his life back, it depended on Erwin. 

“It’s nothing. You remind me of a kid from my high school days.”

“How interesting. Anyway, do you care if we start? We’re working with limited time here.”

“Can I call Hange first? Professor Hange Zoë.”

“Are you related?”

“No, but—”

“Then no.”

Levi sighed. 

“Fine. Whatever. Let’s start this.”

Erwin nodded, self-satisfied. 

“I need you to tell me what happened. I am not a cop, so anything you say to me will stay confidential, even if it incriminates you. So be honest.”

Levi was torn on whether to answer or not at first, but he knew the only thing keeping people like him out of jail was the goodness of the hearts of insane people like Erwin. 

A criminal defense lawyer. A public criminal defense lawyer. 

“I was mopping the floor. The brat fell. Then I decided I was in the mood to kick the shit out of him. That's all of it.”

“So, you are admitting guilt to the crime of violent assault.”

“Yes,” he replied, with no hesitation. 

“That's good to know. You can only be prosecuted for that if the victim decides to press charges. But the police think there's reason to believe you are actually guilty of attempting first degree murder, for which you will be prosecuted regardless of if the victim presses charges or not. In which case, you will be tried, and deported, and have your right to citizenship revoked.”

“This is stupid.”

“Levi.”

“I said I wouldn't kill him. Out loud. There are witnesses.”

“They say you acted as though you knew him.”

“I was just annoyed he ruined my floor.”

Erwin smiled, like he derived enjoyment out of his struggle. His smugness was starting to get on his nerves.

“While that wouldn't be out of character for someone like you, I'm afraid most people are not as familiar with your clean-freak tendencies as to swallow that, Levi.”

“What?”

“Levi.”

He despised it when he said his name like that. Like a disappointed parent lecturing his young child about the severity of his wrongdoings. Yet he couldn’t help but be glad. 

“You piece of shit.”

“Levi.” 

He was now teasing him. 

“Stop doing that.”

“Alright. Let’s start again. Do you know who I am?”

This was beyond unreal. 

Levi was using all his willpower not to instantly throw himself at Erwin and punch him. Or hug him. Or both. He clenched his fists on the table, as though to keep him safely attached to it. 

“So you know you can trust me,” he said, his face now serious.

“With my life.”

“Very well, that makes things easier for all of us. Now tell me what happened.”

Levi sighed, equally annoyed and relieved.

“I was doing my job when the brat interrupted me by falling like a clown. Then I recognized him, and remembered there were a few things I forgot to tell him last time we saw each other.”

“And what was that?”

“Fuck you.” In Levi's opinion, he had delivered that part of the message pretty effectively. Yet, it was still incomplete. He looked away, ashamed of what his next words would be. “And I’m sorry.”

Erwin raised his eyebrows. 

“You had no intention to kill him.”

“I already told you I didn’t.”

Erwin wrote something down, but what it was, Levi couldn’t see. He leaned back in his chair, leaving his notes on the table. 

“Right. Look, here’s the deal. The police’s case is flimsy at best, and they know it. They want to throw people in jail just so they can say they’re doing their job. But they rely on the assumption that you won’t put up a fight. If you do, they’ll drop it. They can’t be bothered to deal with an actual court. Either that, or they are looking for a bribe.”

“So?"

“So here’s what we do. You keep your mouth shut. I go to the police, tell them you are innocent, and that I will represent you in court if they decide to prosecute you. They usually backtrack after that. If they don’t, look forward to a few months of endless bureaucracy spent in detention.”

“Exhilarating.”

“This won’t happen, of course. They only double down when they can ensure a conviction. And in this case, they hardly can. Now, the other issue here is with Jaeger. We don’t know if he’ll press charges. Most people don’t but if he does, you’re fucked. There’s no denying your guilt there. That’d be anything from a hefty fine to a year in prison.”

Levi shrugged. The punishment wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it’d be. If the law was truly fair, he would be getting at least two years for each bone broken. But then again, if the world was fair at all, Eren would be burning in his own, personally tailored chamber of hell. 

“I can take that.”

“You can also strike a deal with Jaeger outside of court. Which is what I think we should do, if he ends up retaliating.”

“Whatever you say.”

Erwin sighed.

“Levi, you don't have to agree with everything I tell you. I'm not your commander anymore.”

“No, but you have a law degree, and I'm a high school dropout who is not in the mood for arguing. So you figure it out.”

He took great offense at the implication that he always did what Erwin said. Levi was very glad to tell him to fuck off and call him an idiot when he deemed it necessary. Erwin might have been smarter, wiser, more well-read than him, but he was also childishly selfish, cruelly optimistic, and a stubborn son of a bitch. 

It was that cruel optimism that ultimately killed him. 

But the man sitting in front of him was not exactly the same he had known back then. And Levi wasn’t the same, either. He wasn’t sure of what this meant yet, but he could at least hope it wasn’t death.

“Alright, alright. Look, I think they’ll let you go in a few days at most, when they realize how much an inconvenience you are. You will only need my help if that doesn’t happen.” He got up, straightening his brown suit.

“You are leaving now?”

“You are not my only client.”

Even though that made complete sense, Levi still found it jarring. They had talked a lot, yet not about anything that actually mattered. He tried to keep himself composed best he could, but he ended up sounding somewhat desperate anyway.

“At least give me your business card.” Erwin handed it over. It was really basic, like he couldn't afford a proper graphic designer to make him one, but all his contact information was there. “Thanks.”

He was taken out of the room and into the shitty cell once again. Levi realized that there was yet another man in there, just as pathetic as the other ones and as himself. Bored and tired and hollow. But these men were not hopeless, he said to himself, thinking of Erwin’s bright eyes. If someone was to bring freedom to the drunkards and the beggars and the street urchins, it was him.

Chapter Text

He woke up coughing, carried by a red tide beneath a bright, sunless sky. His body soaked in death, reeking of rot and rust. This nauseating nothingness extended as far as the eye could reach, and he was trapped there, alone with his freedom. Just as he had wanted. 

Except, this time around, he was not alone. 

“We did this.”

The being standing proudly on the sea of blood had no one face, but it grinned, and spoke to him in a choir of poorly coordinated voices. 

“Who are you?”

“Who am I?” It chuckled and turned around, walking towards him haltingly, inhumanely. “I am the truth of your despair. I am the eyes of the world, the memory of your wickedness. Do you remember me now?” 

“I…”

“Do you remember?” The teacher had a frowning face, holding a marker in one hand and an open notebook in the other. His classmates turned around, silently expecting his answer. He was at the center of that small world. 

“I…” He looked away from her severe eyes, angry at his incompetence. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Can anyone else tell me what a grammatical case is?”

No one replied. Just as the teacher was about to start explaining the concept to the class once again, Mikasa raised her hand, shyly. 

“It’s when nouns or pronouns change forms, depending on the role they play in a sentence. So, for example, if the subject of our sentence is an apple…”

She had a beautiful voice. He wasn't sure if he liked it. 

Eren wasn’t smart. He wasn’t strong. He wasn’t cool, or skilled, or well-behaved. Eren wasn’t much of anything, really. What he lacked in natural ability, he made up for with his unyielding, fierce determination. No one could tell him what to do, and even if he was insufferable, he always found ways to get what he wanted. His difficult personality and tendency to get into fights had earned him an awful reputation, and a well-established place as a social outcast. Armin and Mikasa were his only friends, and even then, he felt pitifully inadequate next to them. 

He wasn’t sure of what he had done to earn their respect. Perhaps it was because he was the only kid left to befriend, and neither of them were known for their charisma. 

When Eren came home, he locked himself in his room to play videogames, and pretend to be powerful enough to protect his friends from those that had harmed them. 

Later that night, he woke up crying. He crawled out of the bed, trying not to disturb Mikasa’s sleep. She hadn't gotten her own place to rest yet, and had insisted on staying in Eren's room because it made her feel safer. He tip-toed his way to the pantry, feeling the worn wooden planks beneath his bare feet, hoping that a piece of bread or cheese would be enough to ease this sudden distress. 

“Think of a small, reckless child,” his father said. “What harm can he do?” 

A dim light titillated from under the locked door of his parents’ room. He stopped to listen, unable to contain his curiosity. 

“Not much,” his mother replied quietly, after a few seconds of silence. 

“Now, imagine he is twenty now, and stays just as reckless. Is he dangerous?”

“Not much. But more than before.”

His father sighed. 

“Now give him a sword. Is he dangerous?”

“I don't know where you are going with this,” she said curtly. Eren could almost see her facing away from Grisha. “Eren is not stupid.”

“I never claimed he was. But he is reckless, Carla. And stubborn to a fault. That makes for a scary combination. If he keeps getting into trouble, he could get himself killed.” 

He left after that, unwilling to keep listening to his father complain about his choices. He had done the right thing when he saved the girl now sleeping in his bed from the evils of the world. When he told her to fight, instead of passively awaiting a dreadful fate. He had put himself at risk for a good reason, he thought. Though, his father didn't seem concerned about the safety of his son alone. 

He used a knife to cut a slice of bread for himself, spreading some butter on it to make it more palatable. It was chewy and salty, and even though it solved his hunger, it did not help him feel better. The knife glittered, lit up by the faint light filtering from outside, its cold surface weighing his hand. It was heavy, heavier than it had any right to be. Too heavy to carry. It fell, shattering into thousands of little shards, piercing his body, like a testament to all the injuries he had received in his life, that he had healed with a power that was not meant to be his. All the things that should’ve killed him came crashing down at once, the burden of guilt tearing him apart. 

“Do you think I’m evil, Armin?

“Huh? Why would I think such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” Eren replied from the upper bunk. They’d been living in a shared apartment for a while, sleeping in a same room, separate from Mikasa. “I feel like I should be dead.”

“Don’t say that, not even kidding. You deserve to live as much as anyone else.”

Armin was always so good. That bothered him, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He scoffed. 

“How much is a life worth, anyway? Back when we were fifteen, Armin. When I got in a fight with Jules. If they hadn't stopped me, I would’ve killed him, even though I knew I didn’t have to. I wanted to kill him.”

Most worryingly of all, he regretted not having finished the job. A part of him still fantasized about a world where that son of a bitch got to die. Where no one else would ever be subjected to his awfulness ever again. 

“Even if you had done that, which you didn’t, you still wouldn’t deserve to die. That’s not how it works.”

“Would you still be my friend then? If I had killed him?”

“Of course I would.”

That was not the answer Eren was expecting, but most importantly, it was not the answer he wanted . He needed Armin to tell him that he would hate him and abandon him like the scum he felt he was. 

“You’re just as bad as I am.”

“Maybe. We should go to sleep, Eren.”

Eren did not fall asleep. He shifted around in bed, trying to shut himself down to no avail, overridden by a sense of directionless grief. He looked at the dark sky, at the thousands of little stars shining above, teasing him, laughing at him from beyond the world. Forever unreachable. 

“Why don’t you hate me?” He told them, but they did not listen. “Why do you let me live?”

“That’d be too generous,” the Captain replied. “Mikasa might have loved you enough to grant you such mercy. But I don’t.”

He made his way to him, sitting down by his side. Eren wanted nothing but to run away from him, but his body was frozen in place against his will. But the Captain, it seemed, had no intention to harm him, instead choosing to look up at the sky silently, longingly. He couldn’t recall ever seeing him like that before.  

“It would be hypocritical,” he added, but now it was Armin talking, gazing at the sea with his hands buried in the white sand, the moon shining through his golden hair. Seeing him like that, it occurred to Eren that he was beautiful. “And I love you too much to let you go.”

“You are being cruel to me.”

“You were cruel to the world.”

“I must be punished for that.”

“If you really want to die, if you really want to be free of this burden, you’ll have to work for it.”

They were seated together in silence when a little girl approached them. Her hands and knees were covered in sand, and she was wearing a flowing white dress. 

“Where are your parents?” Armin asked, but the girl didn't reply. Her eyes were white and sad. 

“She can't speak.” Eren wasn't sure of how he knew that. The girl curled up between the two. “Ymir, why are you here?”

Just as he said that, she started to weep, building up little mounds of sand, a joyless form of child's play. He was compelled to help her, to lessen her burden. Soon enough, they were both burying their fingers in the sand and weeping. Every time they seemed to make any progress on their effort, a wave would come over it to destroy it. Eren started to fear that whatever it was they were trying to achieve was just impossible. Yet, he couldn’t take his hands away from the work.

“You never grew up,” his brother said, looking down on them both like a marble statue of a king.

“Neither did you.”

Zeke had always been a golden child. He couldn’t remember ever seeing him struggle. Their relationship was distant, and every time his brother tried to close the gap between them, Eren would make sure to widen it again. When he left for college, he did not miss him, or at least that’s what he forced himself to believe. 

“No,” he admitted. “We are both pathetic children.”

But Zeke did not kneel to help. He stood there, pitying the sight of his brother on the ground. So near to him, yet so far away. He bent down just a bit, grabbing Ymir’s pale arm, forcing her to stand up.

“It’s almost bedtime. We should go home.” 

But Ymir held her body stiff. 

“We should go home,” Mikasa repeated, with that same sweet voice, gently pulling her towards her, and this time around, the little girl complied. They started to walk away, holding hands, leaving Eren behind, still bent over the sad sand structure he and Ymir had been building. 

“Let me go with you,” he begged, but neither of them turned around. “I don’t want to be here.” 

Beyond the waves, the sun was rising, and yet, he was still tied to the night, to the sea, to that wicked beach. His own blood weighed down on him.

“She’s not coming back,” the being said, when the two figures were nothing but two tiny dots on the horizon. “She won’t be the one to free you, this time around.”

He could still feel the edge of her blade cutting through his neck, the genuine pain of her lips touching his. It was a disgusting scene, impossibly brief, and yet he craved it. Not for her sake, he realized, but for his own. Killing him was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but Eren wanted nothing else than to come back to the very moment he was finally relieved of his burden. 

“I’ll kill myself then,” he resolved. 

The being grinned. “You will be made to live again. You will be made to live as many times as it takes.”

And so, he was back at the hospital, alone, and born again.

Chapter Text

Just like Erwin had predicted, they let him go four days after. He spent that time isolated from the outside world, unable to contact Hange directly, and only allowed to talk to Erwin as his lawyer for short periods of time. Luckily for him, Jaeger had refused to press charges, even though the incident still ended up in his newly opened criminal record in Paradis. It was not a fault severe enough to revoke his right to citizenship entirely, but it would definitely make the process harder, if he ever wanted to go forth with it. 

Hange picked him up outside the commissary as the sun set, instantly wrapping him in a fluffy brown cape. Even though it hadn't started snowing yet, the thin coat the police returned to him was not enough to protect him against the newly arrived winter.  

“Are you feeling well?”

He’d spent the last few days sleeping on a small bench and eating nothing but packaged sweet bread. 

“I can walk.”

“Oh, that’s great,” they said, not really convinced by his words, but starting to lead him through the street and to the nearest bus stop. He was very clearly struggling to hold his weight, and relied on Hange’s body to support him. “Here, stay close to me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he replied, while doing as he was told. Hange put their arms around him, as though to keep him safe from the cold, and even though it was awkward, he didn’t oppose them. 

“I got you an appointment with a rheumatologist next week, by the way.”

“A what?”

“He’s a very good doctor, I’m told. He can help you with your pain.”

“You know I can’t afford that.”

Hange giggled. 

“No, but I can.”

He groaned, furrowing his brows in frustration. He wanted to tell Hange to cancel the appointment, to scold them for signing him up without his consent. That he was able to manage well on his own, that the economic burden was not worth it. As a non-citizen Eldian, he did not have access to public medical insurance, let alone private one. It was unfair for Hange to take it upon themself to cover the expenses of his perpetually shitty health. 

But he was too tired to argue, and so, he kept quiet. 

“Also, Nile came to our apartment yesterday with a warrant, just like you said.”

This piqued his interest. 

“And?”

“They made a mess, but found nothing. When they were gone, I called Pieck, and she told me that she wasn't going to be able to keep providing for me because her boss was going to be watching over her closely to make sure nothing went missing again.”

“Is this Pieck…?”

“Yes, it’s the same Pieck. Pieck Finger.”

Levi sighed, his breath forming into a cloud. He could not even start to properly process that information, his brain too foggy to think of anything other than his pain. 

The bus arrived. Even though it was full, a woman was kind enough to give her place to Levi when she realized he had trouble standing up on his own. He thanked her sheepishly, taken aback by her sudden act of kindness. Perhaps it was due to his exhaustion, but without meaning to, a realization struck him. The woman did not know him. She saw him struggling, and gave up her own comfort, expecting nothing from him in return. It was such a small thing, so common and yet so strange. He was unable to make sense of it. Hange stood next to him with their hand on his shoulder without interrupting his thoughtful silence, seeing the cars pass by through the window. 

They still had to walk a few blocks before finally getting to their apartment. It was already dark by then, though the city was just as lively, the noise still filling his ears even after entering the building. 

“Do you want me to prepare a bath for you?” Hange offered, as they unlocked the door. 

“I’ll just take a shower.”

The apartment was just as messy as he’d been told, things carelessly scattered across the floor and on the tables. He had to gather all of his willpower to ignore the urge to start tidying up the place and care for himself first. 

His showers didn’t typically last more than a few minutes, but this time around, he relished the warm caress of the water over his hurting body and the soothing vapor filling his lungs. He sat there for longer than he knew was strictly necessary, and for once, he didn’t judge himself for that. Then he went to Hange’s room (their shared room, he had to remind himself) and got dressed. His clothes were neatly folded in a drawer Hange had cleared up for him. His other belongings, like his collection of newspapers and knitting supplies, were safely guarded in his own section of the closet. 

“You organized my things,” he said, walking into the kitchen to meet Hange. They were putting the pots and pans back into place. 

“I knew you’d be angry if you came home to find your stuff all over the place, like the cops left it.”

“Thank you.”

He sat at the dinner table, trying to figure out if he had enough energy to help Hange with the cleanup or not. 

“Oh, I also made you tea while you were showering.”

They took the kettle off the stove and served him a cup. It was a light tea that smelled of lemongrass and mint, with the slightest hint of honey. He took a sip. 

“It’s not terrible.”

Hange smiled, leaving the kettle on the table, just in case he wanted to drink more. 

“I’m taking a shower. I’ll be waiting for you in bed, alright?”

But before they left, Levi felt the impulse to hold them back.

“Hey, wait.” Hange turned around, questioning him with their eyes. He thought of all the things they did for him that day, and the many days before. All he had done for them. He knew what he wanted to say, but the motion to form the words came hard to his rusty, clumsy throat, like a skill gone unpracticed for many years. “I love you.”

Hange turned around to face him. They took his right hand bowed, lifting it to their lips, leaving a faint kiss in the back of his palm like a fairytale prince would. Then they ruffled his hair playfully, just like he liked to do with theirs. 

“I know.”

Somehow, even though he had never liked kisses, that made his hand a bit less hurt, and his sorrow a bit less heavy. He could get used to that. He very much wanted to.

-.-.-.-.-

There was something deeply disturbing about the way doctors’ offices were set up. Like they were deliberately designed to make anyone who entered feel small and ignorant. Levi hated the way their diplomas hung in the wall behind their desk, the many anatomical diagrams, tangled with arrows pointing at parts of the human body he didn’t even know existed, that had names too difficult to read out loud. 

Last time he had been to a doctor, more than a decade ago, he’d been diagnosed with an “unspecified neuropathic chronic pain disorder,” deemed “too unreliable to be deployed on the battlefield,” and sent home with a prescription for eight hours of nightly sleep, regular exercise, and a healthy diet full of fresh vegetables, none of which he could afford at the time. 

He had resigned himself to this fate of pain, refusing to seek help. In that time, he only ever stepped in a hospital as part of his waste disposal job. 

Seeing his discomfort, Hange held his hand. This didn’t help him feel any less powerless. 

“Name of the patient?” the doctor asked. He was a middle-aged man with gray hair and a clearly foreign accent. 

“Levi.”

“Your full name, please.”

“Levi Ackerman.”

The doctor typed this down.

“And your partner?”

“Hange Zoë.”

Since he didn’t have a hospital record, the doctor had to open a brand new one for him. He went through some routine questions about his health history and that of his family while taking his vitals. He could only speak on his mother’s side, and as far as he knew, none of his relatives had the issues the doctor was listing.

Then again, he only knew about his mother and his uncle. Not a particularly extensive sample size.  

“Are you currently on any medications?”

“No.”

“Do you smoke? Drink regularly? Currently or in the past.”

“Neither.”

“Have you done drugs?”

He looked at Hange, hesitant. “Be honest, you’ll be fine,” they told him with their eyes. 

“Meth,” he said, if only because Hange was paying for the consultation, and it’d be selfish of him to let that money go to waste. “Only ever in small doses, sparingly. I stopped four or five years ago.”

The doctor typed this down, too. Levi shifted in his seat uncomfortably. 

“Have you had a psychiatric evaluation done before?”

“Yes. Eleven years ago.”

“Anything of note there? Depression? Psychosis?”

“Antisocial Personality.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows, looking away from the monitor to stare at Levi, surprised and confused, but most of all skeptical. 

“Really?” 

Levi shrugged. 

“Something like that. I wasn't paying attention.”

The doctor told him that he would have to write it down only as “having potentially antisocial tendencies,” because antisocial personality disorder wasn’t a label to be taken lightly, and unless he was given an official document he was not going to write that down. Levi wasn’t sure how that made a difference, if any. His mental state wasn’t the reason he had gone there at all. 

“Are you sexually active?”

The doctor’s questions could seemingly only get worse. 

“No,” he replied, clearly irritated. He could not understand how these questions were at all necessary. 

The doctor finished up filling all the paperwork needed for a first consultation. He leaned back on his chair, appearing more relaxed. 

“Now, tell me about your symptoms.” 

Finally. 

“I feel like shit.”

“Can you please elaborate?”

“It all hurts. Always.”

“What hurts, exactly?”

“My flesh.”

Hange chuckled. “You need to be more specific, Shorty, or the doctor won't be able to help you.”

He groaned. If he really had to be specific, he would.

“I feel like I was just blown up by a thunder spear, fell into a freezing river, and was clumsily dragged around on a shitty cart through the wilderness for miles.”

“Hey, I did my best.” Hange whispered, mildly offended, but Levi stroked their hand gently, as to tell them, “I know. I’m grateful,” which calmed them down somewhat. The doctor was too busy writing his description down to notice. 

“Is the pain you are describing fluctuating? Or does it stay the same?”

“I’m always feeling like shit, but some days are definitely shittier than others.”

He kept giving the doctor details about his symptoms as he requested them. He asked about variables such as stress, traumatic injury, infectious disease, diet, and a lot more he hadn’t even considered. At some point, he looked down at his own monitor and nodded, satisfied. 

“Your symptoms are not specific enough to diagnose yet,” he stated, to Levi’s immense disappointment. “We will have to run some tests first. Blood tests, mainly, though I’ll need an x-ray, too, and maybe a CT scan.”

Hange beamed. Levi did not. Before he could even ask for a price, Hange was already discussing the specifics of the procedures with the doctor. They threw around words like “endocrine profile” and “antibody count,” and lengthy acronyms he couldn't hope to comprehend the meaning of.

“Oi, oi, four eyes,” he interrupted, “we don't know how much I'll cost.”

“Well, that doesn't matter, really.”

“You don't have to—”

“I don't care,” they said, before he could finish. “It’s my money and I do what I want with it.”

Levi knew that at the end of the day he was the patient, that he could refuse to partake in these tests, that as a legal adult no one could force him to do something he didn’t want to. But he also knew that Hange would not let the topic rest, and now that he had moved in with them, and was fired from his job, he would have to listen to them bringing it up over and over again, with nothing he could do to prevent it. 

The x-ray was done quick enough, yielding no noteworthy results, and they were told they would receive the results of the blood tests in about a week. A date for an MRI scan and a brand new psychological evaluation were left in the air. In the meantime, Hange spent their time occupied with an entirely different kind of tests: the ones submitted by their students. They had to finish grading them by the end of the month, yet they somehow managed to make time to research and speculate about Levi’s mysterious condition. And he had no option but to listen to them, because he was currently unemployed, and spent most of his time taking care of their apartment, reading and knitting.

He had not yet gathered the courage to call Erwin. 

He was starting to get annoyed with it when the blood test results finally arrived in the mail. What Hange most feared had come to happen.  

“I think they are normal,” they said, passing through the pages a second time, and then a third time, looking for any abnormal values and getting increasingly desperate when they didn’t find any.  

“Is that not a good thing?”

“No!” They took a pause, adjusting their glasses, trying to soothe themself by rocking back and forth. “I mean, yes. You don't have cancer, or an autoimmune disease, or a hormonal disorder. You're not malnourished nor ill. You're fine .”

“I fail to see the issue.”

Hange sighed, exasperated. 

“The issue is that you are not actually fine, Levi.”

He frowned. “I manage well enough.”

“ Well enough doesn't cut it.” Hange was visibly upset, not so much at Levi, but in his place. “You said,” they went on, now with a softer, yet still concerned tone, “that it is because of people like me that people like you can't get the treatment you need. I want to fix that.”

“I did say that,” he recalled, a pang of guilt going through him. While he thought that what Hange had done was foolish and reckless, he could hardly blame them. Not without blaming himself in the process, too. He had not been precisely lawful about his coping mechanisms in the past, either. They turned to face him, holding his hands between theirs.

“Then let yourself be treated.”

-.-.-.-.-

“We are going to have to run some further tests,” the doctor said, going through the pages Hange had brought with them. Levi was already getting up to leave when he said that, but Hange stopped him, pulling his arm. He sat back down. 

“What kind?” they asked, unable to hide their curiosity. Levi found it both charming and somewhat distasteful.

“We already discussed the CT scan and the psych evaluation, but I think an EMG would be useful for us as well. We need to discard all our options if we want an accurate diagnosis.”

“This is absurd.”

“Levi.”

“I'm not doing all of that shit. Not even if I had social security, I wouldn’t.”

“How long would that take?” Hange said, ignoring Levi's concern. 

“At least a few months.”

Levi got up. This time around, Hange wasn’t able to retain him. He reached the doorknob.

“Wait, wait,” the doctor said rather hastily, raising his voice. “There are things we can do for you, even without a diagnosis.”

This did catch his attention. He turned around slowly, facing the desk. 

“Yes?”

“Can you sit down, please?”

He did not move. 

“Go on,” he said, still by the door, ready to leave the room at any moment, if he so willed to. 

“We don’t have all the evidence, but your pain is most likely neuropathic.”

“Tell me something I didn’t know already.”

“We can start you on Gabapentin. A low dose, see if your body reacts well to it. It might help you with sleep as well. If it doesn’t, we can try something else.”

Levi pondered his words for a moment, finally choosing to sit back down. Contrary to what Levi expected, Hange did not press him about the subject further, bitterly respecting his choice. “Whatever is best for you,” they seemed to want to say as the doctor wrote his prescription. 

The pills did little for him for the first few days, but after raising his dosage, he started to notice somewhat of a change. The pain was less prominent, if still very much present, muted just enough for him not to instantly consider jumping out the window when waking up every morning. Just enough to make him enjoy life slightly more. Hange must have noticed a change in him as well, for they started to invite him out more often, and he found himself more willing to go on walks across the city. He was fascinated by the ways it had changed, and by the ways it had remained the same. How the streets formed the same shapes, yet the buildings were almost all different from the ones he remembered. The underground had gone on to flourish, becoming known for its rich culture, its theater and live music, a safe haven for artists and performers of all kinds. 

There were no cops to guard the gates. No one to keep children away from the skylight. 

And sure, it wasn’t perfect. Most days, he still struggled to get out of bed. The crime lords, he was told, had never truly gone away. But the tiny quality of life improvement that Hange had worked so hard to get him, that Erwin worked so hard to distribute for all, was beyond what he ever dared to hope for before. For now, that would have to do. 

Chapter Text

He was still in the process of finding another job when he received a call from an unknown number. He picked up, expecting it to come from one of the many jobs he had applied to, only to be greeted by a vaguely familiar voice. 

“I am doctor Grisha Jaeger. Is this Levi Ackerman?”

“Yes,” he replied cautiously. “Is this a legal matter?”

“No, no.” Grisha’s timber was very similar to that of his son, though older and gentler, which Levi found somewhat disturbing. “We’re organizing a meeting.”

“For what purpose?”

“Eren wants to speak with you. As does Zeke.”

The mere mention of the name made him ill. “About what, exactly?”

“Erwin Smith will be there.”

“This still tells me nothing.” Others tended to call Levi distastefully blunt, but the real issue was, in his opinion, with people never direct enough. “Get to the fucking point.”

“We,” he said, making sure to include himself in the sentence, “wanted to talk about our shared history. Try to make sense of it.”

“And Erwin will be there?” The idea was enticing. While he wasn’t keen on discussing his past life, he very much wanted to at least attempt to understand it. The only person other than Hange he felt comfortable enough around to talk openly about this would undoubtedly be Erwin. 

“Yes.”

“When and where?”

“December 25th, dinner time, at our house. I’ll send you the location.”

That was almost a month away. Most notably, it was his birthday. He hadn’t seen it as a special occasion for quite some time, but knowing Hange, they would probably insist on taking him out to the teashop or the haberdashery to celebrate it. They would probably be disappointed if they found out Levi had already something scheduled for that day. 

“I’ll discuss it with Hange,” he said, surprised by his own concern for their opinions and desires. 

“Yes, of course.”

“Right.”

He hung up, returning his phone to his pocket. He had a month to prepare for this, and yet he wasn't sure if that time would be enough. 

-.-.-.-.-

Hange was the one to knock on the door. A long beige trench coat and tall black boots protected their body from the snow. Levi did not own clothes nearly as appropriate for the season, since in his home city was in southern Marley, and it rarely ever snowed. Hange had to lend him some of their own to make up for it. The way the oversized jacket hung from him was extremely embarrassing, sure, but not nearly as much as the second-best option (letting Hange buy brand-new winter gear for him out of pocket). 

A few moments later, Grisha opened. He was a middle-aged man with long brown hair, and eyes just as green as those of his son, but with a distinctive weariness and patience to them that the others lacked.

“You must be Professor Zoë. And your partner, Levi. It's a pleasure to finally meet you both in person.”

“I can say the same,” Hange replied, managing to stay formal over their anxious excitement. Levi only nodded in acknowledgement. 

They were seemingly the last ones to arrive. Grisha had to bring over two chairs from over the kitchen to make space for them in the living room. Levi easily recognized all the people seated, his eyes instantly shifting towards the Jaeger brothers, both occupying the same leather couch. The younger of the two was still covered in bandages, and Levi noticed a pair of crutches resting in the wall next to him. Zeke, on the other hand, had shaved his beard, and was wearing a white coat embroidered with the emblem of the NIPH. Sitting on the armchair next to him, and wearing the same white coat, was Pieck, looking just as drowsy and disheveled as Levi remembered her. She waved at him and at Hange almost shyly.

Armin and Mikasa were seated in a separate couch, holding hands, and beside them, standing up, was Erwin. He had smiled the moment he saw Levi and Hange entering, and that small gesture alone was enough to make him feel at ease in the crowded room.

“I think this is all of us,” Grisha said, serving two cups of coffee for them without asking. Maybe it was because of the cold, but Levi thought it smelled delicious. Then their host turned around, speaking to everyone at once, as though opening up a conference, or a teacher starting a class. “I need you to first promise that you will not physically assault each other during this meeting.”

Levi glared at Zeke, who recoiled in his seat anxiously, and then at Eren, who lowered his head in shame.  

“That’s easy enough,” he said, knowing that his mere presence was enough to keep the two in check. 

“Do we all agree to this?”

He was met with murmurs and gestures of agreement. Grisha nodded, satisfied by this response. 

“Good. Now, this is the first time I am meeting a lot of you. Just so we are all on the same page, I need you to tell me your names, what your current occupation is, and what it used to be in your past life. I am Grisha Jaeger, “he started, not only to introduce himself, but to set an example. “Pathologist and epidemiologist. In my past life, I was also a doctor, and led the Eldian Restorationist movement. Please, don’t hold those actions against me, as I will not hold yours against you. At least not yet.”

Levi wasn’t sure if he agreed with Grisha on that, but he figured there was no point in dwelling on it. None of the people gathered there that day were precisely moral paragons, and trying to hold each other accountable for their wrongdoings was hardly a simple task. It would take them years, if not decades, to atone for what they did. For some of them, he thought, there was no punishment great enough.

“I’m Eren Jaeger. You know about me.” The brat raised his head. He dragged his words like they were heavy on the tongue. “I was a mass murderer. That’s all.”  

He did not mention his history as a part of the armed forces, his pivotal role in the fight against titans, his foundational involvement in the Jaegerist movement. Those things didn’t matter much. So even though murder didn’t actually cover the full scope of his actions, it was the best word they had for him, and it would have to do. He nudged his brother, letting him know it was his time to speak. 

“I’m doctor Zeke Jaeger. Gynecologist and obstetrician. In a past life, a warrior and a traitor of Marley. I enabled the Rumbling, and was killed by Levi.”

“And I’m doctor Pieck Finger,” said the woman next to him, unable to handle the tension forming from that statement. “Anesthesiologist. I, too, was a warrior of Marley, and a member of the last alliance against Eren Jaeger. I died of gangrene.” 

“Erwin Smith. Public servant and criminal defense lawyer. In a past life, I was the 13nth commander of the survey corps and led a military coup against the then king of Paradis. I was killed by an attack of the Beast Titan.”

If Erwin felt any resentment from this fact, he did not show any. Either his acting skills were excellent, or he was genuinely indifferent about his own death. Levi could not tell. He gestured toward Hange. 

“I am professor Hange Zoë.” They said, in perhaps an overly formal manner. “Cell biologist and educator, and 14nth commander of the Survey Corps.” 

“I’m Levi.” He said right after. “Ex-Captain. Currently unemployed.”

Noticing he wouldn’t add anything else, Mikasa picked up. 

“Mikasa Ackerman. I killed Eren. I died in my sleep of old age.”

Armin was the only one left to introduce himself. He looked at Eren intently, almost like he needed his approval before speaking. “I’m Armin Arlet. 16nth and last commander of the Survey Corps. Member of the last alliance against the Rumbling. Diplomat and advocate for human rights. Holder of the Colossal Titan, and thus a mass murderer. Died of a heart attack.”

Grisha looked at all of them, trying to remember their faces and their testimonies. He sighed, and only then did Levi realize how old and exhausted he was. “I gather us today,” he started, slowly, hesitantly, “not only to discuss the past, but to discuss the present. I understand it is a puzzling situation for all of us, and for many years I have tried to make sense of something I could only describe as mystic in nature. We have been reborn, for lack of a better term. The continuity of consciousness, between now and them, seems unbroken, whether we are aware of it or not.”

“Stop beating around the bush,” Levi said, only to receive a dirty look from Hange, who was very invested in the doctor’s lecture. 

“I have met many people that share names and faces with people I knew in my past life,” he went on, as though he was never interrupted, “yet most of them seem wholly unaware of it. Carla, for example, is completely ignorant of it, as is Dina. But even though they are different, both in character and appearance, they somehow, fundamentally, remain the same. At times, Carla has told me about this recurring nightmare, in which she is devoured by a titan. I once saw her embroidering a design identical to one she had crafted in her past life, and when she kneads bread, she does it using the exact same motion she did back then. All these things— they are meaningless to her. She doesn’t know.”

“As a kid,” Pieck said, “I used to dream about training as a cadet and turning into a titan. They were horrible dreams, but I never saw them as any more than that.”

“I had dreams of that kind all my life as well. Yet at some point,” Grisha continued, “we all came to realize that they weren’t just dreams. For me, it was after holding Zeke in my arms for the first time, right after he was born. I cried when I realized it was him. The nurses just thought I was really moved about becoming a father. I guess they weren’t entirely wrong.”

“I too recovered my memories while witnessing childbirth.” Zeke added, following his father. “I was still in med school. My professor thought I was too impacted by it, and that is why I passed out. I called dad when I woke up, and he told me he already knew.”

There was an odd irony about Zeke going on to become an obstetrician, Levi thought. Dedicating his life to assist the birth of new generations, instead of erasing the mere possibility of them. Using his hands to give others life, instead of taking it away. His father looked at him with great pride in his eyes, their love so disgustingly earnest it was sickening as much as it was moving. 

“I remembered when I met Eren,” said Mikasa. “I was quite young. It took me a while to recover everything.”

“I only remembered after Eren did, when he was still at the hospital. I still can't believe you knew about it all along. It must have been harsh on you, bearing that knowledge alone since you were little.”

“It’s not an easy thing to bear when you are a child,” said Erwin, talking to the youngest of his successors. “I was on a school trip to the National Museum of History, the kind of outing that only makes the weird kids excited. I must have been nine at the time. My parents had to go pick me up because I couldn’t stop crying. They say I became a lot more sober after that. How about you, Hange?” 

He addressed them nonchalantly, as though they just saw each other the week before, instead of having spent two hundred years separated. 

“I was taking notes in the lab when Levi suggested we should move together. I had been having panic attacks and fevers for a while before that, and he wanted to keep an eye on me.” 

“I wanted to make sure you threw away your tramadol so you wouldn’t go to jail.”

“Right, right. Either way, I ended up mentioning Zeke, and that alone was enough to make Levi remember.”

“It wasn’t so much about Zeke,” he corrected, “as much as it was about Eren. I killed Zeke, as I promised I would, but I still had unfinished business with his brat of a brother. I am done with that now.”

“That is a great way to describe it,” Pieck said. “Unfinished business. For most of my life, I felt incomplete. Lost and directionless. But after I recovered my memories, it was as though I also recovered my purpose.”

“You never told me how you remembered.” Zeke said, his curiosity getting the best of him. Pieck giggled, clearly flustered.

“I had a bad acid trip as a teen.”

“Yeah, that sounds very much like you,” Hange said, laughing. It took them a good amount of effort to compose themself and continue talking. “I always felt the same way. I think, and I know this sample size is quite small, but I think that the reason we are here, all of us, is because we all had something left to do that we weren’t able to in our past life. Like another chance at happiness. Of course, this is a nice thing to believe, but doesn’t quite explain the mechanics of it all. It certainly defies reason and scientific understanding. Doctor Grisha? Do you have a hypothesis about this?”

“I would attribute it to something titan-related. But that is about as useful as saying a wizard did it. It’s not like there are any titans left to prove that right.”

“Welcome to my world,” Hange replied, knowing first hand how hard it was to research a subject that had thankfully been extinct for two hundred years. 

“Still, it is worth writing down all that we know about the subject. This is the real reason I decided to bring you here today. I have a proposal for you. Our sources regarding the history of the world before the Rumbling are extremely limited. Even though some of you present could be regarded as historical figures, history books only mention a few of your names. Levi and Hange are nowhere to be found. Neither is Zeke. Armin was an important diplomat, and is said to have written an extensive memoir, but if he ever did, it has been lost. Of Mikasa I was able to find a few footnotes. The military regime of Queen Historia following the Jaegerist takeover had an interest in suppressing any information that opposed their Eldian nationalist ideology. Yet another mistake I can attribute to myself.” The doctor sighed. He took off his glasses, cleaned them, and put them back on, his pause uninterrupted. “What I want is for us to write down all that we can remember. It is our responsibility, as holders of this knowledge, to at least leave a record of our experience for future generations to access.”

“And have it published? No respectable editorial would publish such a thing.” Hange objected. If his collection of newspapers had taught him anything, however, it was that they were giving the so-called respectable editorials too much credit. 

“I don’t want it published. We would all ruin our careers. But this record, it must exist, if only for the purpose of it reaching our descendants. They deserve to know.”

“You may want to publish it posthumously. I am no copyright lawyer, but I know a few people that could get it done. The public deserves to know the truth. Keeping it to ourselves will do our consciousness no good.”

Grisha pondered this in silence for a few seconds, and then nodded, hesitantly at first, but eventually growing more secure in his gesture. 

“Those of you that agree with this proposal, raise your hand.” Everyone did, excluding Levi. If this came as a surprise, no one made a fuss about it, not even Hange, who had put their arm around him without either of them realizing. “Very well then. Zeke, come help me get dinner ready, will you?”

Levi had almost forgotten that Grisha had not invited them only to talk, but that he had offered them dinner as well. They were taken to a large dining room that, despite its size, was not too fancy as to stop being homely. As he waited for dinner, with Hange by his right and Erwin to his left, he started to wonder why Carla was not there to dine with them, and if this would be an appropriate thing to ask. 

“I’m sorry if the stew isn’t the best. I’m not as great a cook as my wife,” Grisha said, almost like he could read his mind. “She’s visiting her family in the countryside right now, and it wouldn’t make sense for her to be around to hear us talk about something it’s best for her not to know.” 

He and his oldest son served everyone a bowl of creamy vegetable stew with sourdough bread and a glass of wine. 

“You can have mine,” Levi told Erwin, looking at the beverage with disdain. He was not much of a drinker, and was happy to skip alcohol when possible. “You seem like the kind that would like wine.” 

“We didn't have wine back then, did we? It's easy to forget sometimes. But thanks, I do like wine.” 

Even though Hange was sitting right next to him, they were too busy talking to Pieck about a topic he didn’t understand much about to pay him any attention. He turned to Erwin, who was taking a slow, joyful sip from the fermented beverage.

“Is it anything like you expected?”

“What? The wine?”

“The truth you were seeking. What do you make of it?”

Erwin thought about it for a few seconds. 

It is greater than I could ever hope to grasp,” he finally said, putting his glass back on the table. “The world was so small back then. We could talk about a single truth to uncover, a single answer to a single question. Why must we suffer? Why do they hide it from us? But the world now, it is large. I know way more now than I ever did back then, and yet I feel ever more ignorant.”

It was Levi, who had denied him access to the absolute truth he was seeking. A clear answer to the problem of evil. They were made to suffer at the maws of the titans because Marley wanted them to. Because the people of Marley were selfish and cruel. Because their kind, humankind, was demonic, and inherently evil. But then, that supposed truth proved itself incomplete as well. 

He had let Erwin die against his best judgment, hoping death would at least set his mind at ease. That he would finally rest from his endless chase. And now he was here, still living, still chasing. And even though nothing made him happier than to see him again, he couldn’t help but feel there was something deeply tragic about him being reborn in a world just as cruel, just as unwilling to give people easy answers. 

“I’m sorry to hear that."

“You don’t have to apologize. You are not responsible for the vastness of the world. Any resentful I have for it is between me and God.”

Levi wondered if it was even possible to die without leaving something unfinished. To live, and leave satisfied. If they were doomed to wander the earth forever unfulfilled, carrying their wounds past in their bodies and minds. Freedom, it seemed, was fundamentally incompatible with life. And yet, people wanted to fight for both anyway. 

“Criminal defense. What brought you to that field?”

“Well, I went into law school hoping to become a lawmaker. To bring about change from the inside, as it were. To expose the turning wheels of political corruption and build a new system to the benefit of all.”

“Why didn't you?”

“There was nothing to expose.”

He didn't know what kind of answer he was expecting, but it was definitely not that.

“I don't get it.”

“We like to think of evil as inhuman, as something that only concerns the great. And perhaps, in the past, back when titans roamed the earth, someone could argue that it was. But even then, Levi, even then, people were just people. Look at Eren, for one. Does he seem like a great man to you?”

The young boy was carefully taking spoonfuls of soup to his mouth, careful not to burn himself with it, his hand trembling just slightly. His hair was messy, and his face was red from crying. 

“No.”

“The people that run the world, they are idiots, just like that. And even though politics is a game that is played behind closed doors, those doors are made out of a very thin glass. That carefully built facade of greatness, it’s see-through, and the only thing keeping the crowd from shattering it is a man with a gun and a hefty paycheck. 

“You still speak to me in riddles,” he said, daring to finally give his food a try. It was pretty good, all things considered, but slightly too salty for his taste. Together with the bread, though, it balanced out perfectly.

“I realized I didn’t actually want to be a part of that game. To bet on the lives of thousands like it was nothing, just so I could sit at the table with people that did not care. I realized I didn’t want the game to keep existing at all.”

“Do you really plan to overthrow the government again?”

Erwin chuckled. 

“Not quite. These days, the world is large, and no single man, however great, could hope to fix all that is wrong with it alone. It is a tempting idea, but it leads nowhere.” He pointed at Eren, as to illustrate his point. 

“So?”

“I can only be there for those I believe that will. Why do most people get arrested, Levi?”

“For stupid shit that doesn’t matter,” he replied, with no hesitation. He was starting to put it all together. 

“Exactly. Things no one should be arrested for. Petty crime. Drug possession. Protesting. Being homeless. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that someone does something seriously bad. A kidnapping, or a murder, for example. Now, that never really goes anywhere, does it?”

His mind drifted back to his newspaper collection once again. How incompetent most criminals seemed to him, and how despite this incompetence, the police were rarely, if ever, able to catch them. 

“No.”

“No. But it's easier to throw a homeless man in jail and pretend you are doing something than it is to actually solve the issues that led to that man being homeless. When people come to me, it’s because the world has failed them. Because other humans have failed them. But it is only through helping these people that we can hope to bring about real change. In short,” he said, his voice turning softer, “I chose to study criminal law because I was thinking of people like you .”

Levi groaned, rolling his eyes. 

“You're insane. You are such a good person it hurts. Joining the fight on crime on the side of crime.”

“To me, it’s a great honor.”

Only now, looking at Erwin’s serious, yet bright face, did he realize how much he had truly changed. The man sitting next to him was not a dreamer, as he had thought. Forced to make peace with the impossibility of closure, he had given up any dreams of his own, instead choosing to dedicate his life to realizing the dreams of others. There was something admirable about that cold, resigned selflessness that Levi could not quite get, but that was nonetheless worth loving. 

“I can’t argue with that.”

-.-.-.-.-

The night was running late, and the wine was running dry when Eren Jaeger, who had previously mostly kept to himself, only occasionally talking to Armin or his father, clinked a spoon to his empty wine glass, bringing all other conversations to a halt. Having gained their full attention, he took a deep sigh, and spoke to the guest with a weary, yet earnest voice. 

“Before you leave, I need to tell you something.” He took a long somber pause. “I will not ask for forgiveness. I know full well I don’t deserve it. I would kill myself, but as the Captain said, that would be ranting myself too great a mercy. So I would like to start by thanking him for making my life a hell for the last few weeks.”

There was not a hint of sarcasm in his words. 

“You’re welcome.”

“I want to thank Armin, too, for staying true to his promise.” Eren turned to face him, as though he was about to say something else, but he shook his head, deciding it was better not to. “And to Mikasa for breaking hers. I am grateful, to all of you, for treating me with kindness and for treating me with scorn. I am grateful that you are willing to treat with me at all.” He closed his eyes, knowing that there was nothing he could do or say that would bring him inner peace. “Now you are free to go.”

Nobody replied. Levi decided that if he wasn't the one to break that painful, freezing silence, no one else ever would. He got up without much spectacle.

“You heard him. Let's leave.”

-.-.-.-.-

Hange arrived at their apartment drowsy and slightly drunk, but still sober enough to remember the date. And remembering this date, specifically, was something they had put a lot of effort towards.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” they said. “I got you a gift.”

“Really?”

“Nothing crazy. Wait, let me look for it.”

It was in a little blue box they had buried layers under layers of folded clothes, deep into their closet, hoping that Levi wouldn't be able to find it there. 

“Oh, I've seen that one before. I figured it could be embarrassing shit, so I didn't open it.”

But it was impossible to hide anything from Levi. He knew the exact location of every single object in the house, carefully registered on his brain like coordinates on a map

“Well, now you get to know what’s inside.”

Hange watched in anticipation as he opened the box, carefully ripping the envelope apart. It was a pair of black fingerless gloves. Levi stared at them for a while, before taking them out of the box and examining their texture. 

“These are weird, he said, putting one on, his expression brightening just slightly. “Comfortable, though.”

Hange smiled and clapped their hands, pleased by his positive reaction. 

“They are meant to be! On top of preventing your hands from getting cold, they can help with your pain by keeping your tendons protected. At least they claimed so on their site.”

“Thank you,” he said, putting them back into the box, and then carefully putting the box in his own drawer with the rest of his belongings. “It's a good gift.”

That's all Hange ever wanted to hear.

Chapter Text

She expected to be devastated. To be damaged, frustrated, resentful. To break down crying, kneeling and begging. At least, to feel something akin to sadness.

Instead, she was relieved to hear it. 

“I don't think I love you,” He told her in his room, after everyone else but his family had left the house. He said it almost like an apology. 

“I don't think I love you, either,” she replied, surprised by the levity of her own words. It was something she now realized she had felt for long, and yet wasn't able to admit, not even to herself. “Not like I used to when we were young.”

“Young when?”

“All the way back, before we were born.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“It was.”

“Over two thousand years?”

Mikasa nodded. 

“Over two thousand years. If you had told me this back then, I would have been heartbroken. And you did break my heart, many times.” She suddenly came to realize her own bitterness, shaking her head. “You were horrible to me.”

“I'm sorry.”  

“It doesn't matter anymore. It was a long time ago. And hurting me was far from the worst thing you did.”

“It felt just as bad as everything else to me.”

Mikasa thought about all the dead corpses turned to mush under the feet of the Colossal Titans, the way they flattened entire cities under their heartless march. Then he looked at Eren, laying cozily beneath the sheets, his head resting on a soft pillow. The same head she had severed from his body with her own two hands back then. The same head she had then kissed. 

“I did love you, back then. And when I met you, in this life, young as we were, I thought that maybe I could learn to love you again. Hoping to build with you the life we couldn't before. The one you showed me, in the cottage, remember?”

“Quite nice, wasn't it?”

“It was perfect,” Mikasa replied, the memory bright and cloudy, like a painting made with watercolors. “And it was a lie.”

“It was a lie I thought you would like.”

They stayed quiet for a while. 

“Tell me, Eren. Did you love me, back then?” 

“Yes. Back in the day. Now, though…”

Eren lowered his head, covering his bruised face with his hands in shame. It had been a long time since that fire had consumed itself to ashes. 

“I understand.”

And she didn't have to follow its light anymore. She could fly away on her own. 

Against her best judgment, at that moment, Mikasa forgave him. 

“I knew you would.”

-.-.-.-.-

“I've been considering dropping out of school” Mikasa told Armin the next time she saw him. He was packing up his things to visit his parents’ home for the holidays. “I don't think biology is for me.”

“About time you realized,” he said jokingly, though he'd be lying if he said the prospect of her absence didn't hurt. “What would you do instead?”

“Perhaps literature. But I'm not sure yet. I'm taking a year off to actually think about it. Try new things. Find something I'm passionate about.”

Mikasa was after something she could do for her own sake. She wanted to build a life for herself and no one else. It was something Armin had hoped to see for years, and that was unfortunately never realized. At least, not until now. 

“I’m glad you are finally letting Eren go.”

She kept quiet for a while, watching him pack his things without actually paying attention. She sighed, leaning back in the bed. 

“I think that's why I came here in the first place. To let go of him. To start again. That's what I left unfinished.”

Armin had been thinking the same thing as well. But right when he thought she had said everything she had to, she hit him with a question.

“What will you do?”

“Huh?”

“Now that you know about all of it. Are you still going to follow him?”

He knew the answer to that already. Even before remembering his past life, he knew it. It was engraved in his very bones. 

“Of course I will.”

Mikasa tilted her head.

“Why?”

Armin had made a promise. One he knew he couldn't break. Surrounded by a sea of blood, he had sworn by the weight of his sins to go to hell, and take Eren with him. 

But hell, it seemed, would simply not have them. Eternal punishment wouldn't be enough to redeem them. Instead, they were sent to earth. If they desired atonement, they would have to do all the hard work themselves. 

“Because that’s the thing I left unfinished.”

Chapter Text

It was a very common tradition across the world to celebrate the coming of the new year by blowing up fireworks. Levi was never very keen on this tradition. When he was a kid, he would curl up to his mother’s side all night long, clinging to her nightgown like a tick on a deer’s leg. As he grew older, he was forced to leave this habit behind, though that didn’t make him any less anxious, and he would retreat to his bedroom early every New Year's Eve, putting on earplugs to drown out the endless violent noise. 

It wasn’t the noise itself that made him lose his mind. He was completely fine about the occasional gunshot, as long as it sounded decently far away from his own house. It was the unpredictability of those explosions and their prevalence throughout the night that really got him. He had learned to tolerate them out of necessity, but there was always a part of him that begged him to run away, to bury himself, hidden beneath his indifferent facade. 

So when Hange invited him to see the fireworks on that day, he promptly declined. 

“I don’t like fireworks. I’d rather spend the night at home.”

“Are you sure?”

“If you really want to see them blow up the fucking sky, you can go. No one’s stopping you.”

Hange considered this, their mind already workshopping a schedule for them. 

“I think I’d rather spend the night with you, actually. We could get something nice to eat.” They were going to finish their sentence there, but an idea occurred to them that they were unable to keep to themself. “We could video call your mom.”

“You want to speak to my mother? Why?”

“I mean, she seems nice. And you know I won’t be calling my mom for the new year, that’s for sure.”

It was not a terrible idea, if only slightly embarrassing. It was fair, he reasoned, to let his mother know he was living with Hange, and that even though he was currently still unemployed, there was no reason for her to worry about her son becoming homeless, or worse. And bringing his mother peace of mind was always a good thing. 

“Fine.”

Hange had finished grading the tests of their students and reviewing their final essays by the time the 31th rolled around. They would have probably been able to finish it all with time to spare, but Hange had a tendency to leave everything down for later, until later ran over them like a truck. Even though Levi disagreed with their chaotic, often crushingly stressful system of doing things, he couldn’t deny that at the end of the day, they delivered results. Somehow. 

Even though their ability to improvise and remain calm under pressure was an admirable quality, he still thought it was detrimental. But that was a discussion he would have with them later. Right now, Hange was just relieved they had finally finished all their work.

What Hange really wanted to discuss was what they were going to eat in the evening. While Hange was an amazing cook, and claimed they would've loved to cook something for Levi (on the condition he did the dishes afterward, of course) they didn't have time for that, and it's not like they were inviting anyone over. 

“Maybe we should order something home.”

“We always order food, Hange.” Because regardless of their culinary abilities, Hange rarely had the time to actually cook. 

“I mean something fancy. Like, lobster, or whatever you like.”

“You never told me you were rich.”

“I mean, it's only a one time thing.”

Levi didn't like how reckless Hange could get with their spending, either, particularly when that money was spent on him. He sighed, pondering his options. 

“I’d rather eat something I'm familiar with.”

After what was, quite honestly, entirely too much time deliberating the matter, they agreed to go with Azumabitan cuisine, since it featured rice prominently and was regarded as somewhat fanciful. It was also very convenient that most people from Azumabito celebrated the new year on a different date than in either Marley or Paradis, and thus locations run by them were more likely to remain open. They were also known for serving some fantastic tea. 

Other than the food, which was great, and the bottle of liquor Hange decided to pop, even though they ended up drinking very little of it, their evening went not much differently than it did as usual. Levi did notice that Hange had put on makeup, which was odd, but not unheard of. He might not have really understood why holidays were so special for people, but if that made life bearable for them, he could respect it. 

He very distinctly remembered the way the new year was celebrated in the barracks. The soldiers would often organize a dinner with their own savings, spending that hard-earned money on something entirely unnecessary. They also came up with the dangerous tradition of buying a few pots every year, hand painting them in their free time, and filling them up with candy. It was a lot of effort, put towards something they would end up destroying. They hung the pots in a wire, one by one, and hit them with a stick until they broke. More than once a scout ended with serious injury from this event. It was ridiculous, dangerous and messy. A complete waste of money and resources, but despite Levi’s insistence, Erwin never got around to banning it. 

They finished their dinner early, ready to do the very expected video call. They sat in the living room, next to each other. It took Levi an embarrassing amount of effort to set up the call properly, since he wasn’t used to using his smartphone for anything other than phone calls, but eventually, with the help of Hange, he managed to get it done. 

His mother received him on the other side with the most excited smile. She was in the kitchen. Hange thought she looked surprisingly young. Maybe that was something Levi got from her. 

“Hi there, dearie. I was making noodle soup, the one you used to like when you were a kid, remember? With the tomato sauce, and all the nice dried herbs, and the little chunks of cheese. It is still on the stove, and I just have to wait till it's done.” She sat down, now in her own living room, which was small and cozy, still going on about what she had done to the soup, and how she was going to share it with the neighbors, all of whom Levi recognized the names of. She also made sure to mention some neighborhood gossip he did not care about, but he listened because he knew it made his mother happy. “But that’s enough about me. Oh, and I see you are sitting next to someone! Hi there! Is that your girlfriend? What is your name?”

Hange laughed while Levi rolled his eyes. Every once in a while his mother asked him when he was going to settle down and marry someone, and every time he had to tell her that wasn’t ever going to happen. 

“I’m Hange, but I’m more like his roommate. I’m not really a girl, either. I’m afraid Levi is not very popular with the ladies.”

“And I like it that way,” he replied, and he would’ve crossed his arms if it wasn’t because he had to hold his phone in front of him. “Either way, we’re living together.”

“Ah, that’s so sweet! At least you won’t be alone, you know? You have someone to rely on. And what do you make your living, sweetie? I hope it’s a good job. Something that will keep my son on the right path. You know he’s always been a handful, always getting along with all the wrong people.”

Hange found it delightful, how worried Levi’s mom was about the safety of her son, a grown man who was fully capable of defending himself. Levi, not so much. 

“I’m a scientist. I do lots of very respectable research, Mrs. Hanna. We actually met at work.”

“Oh, that’s incredible! Levi was really good at math back in high-school, weren’t you, dearie? He actually won a math competition that one time. Hold on, I think I have his diploma somewhere around here…” 

The woman disappeared from the screen for what amounted to almost a minute, a minute Hange spent making fun of Levi for being such a Mama’s boy. 

“You know, my mom kicked me out of the house when I was twenty-one. I’m like, so jealous.”

Hange didn’t expect Hanna to hear this, but she very obviously did, because she picked up the phone again instantly.

“Why did she do that? Oh, dear lord, do people really not have values over there anymore? Do they not understand the importance of family? That is such a cruel thing to do to such a lovely person! How could she be so ungrateful!”

“Well, uh…” Hange really was unsure about how to explain it, but Levi picked up slack.

“It’s because they are transgender, and their parents didn’t like that.”

Hanna stood there in shock. Hange stood there in shock. They weren’t expecting Levi to share this information so willy-nilly. They kept quiet, expecting the response.

“But that's such a stupid reason to kick your child out of the house! Look at me, I let Levi sell meth under my roof for years, and never did I once even consider kicking him out!”

“You knew about the meth?”

“Of course I did, dearie, unlike Hange’s parents I am not stupid. I know what a janitor’s salary can pay for and what it cannot. But you were always such a good kid, you know? And I knew it was not my place to judge you, because you knew how to control yourself scarily well, and you really needed something to drown out the pain with, and be productive, and help bring food to our table. I was so glad when you ended up dropping that whole thing, though.”

The genuine levity in which Levi’s mother talked about the matter was the scary thing, Hange thought. Levi could’ve been an actual murderer and she wouldn’t bat an eye. Coming to think of it, it wouldn’t even be wrong to call either Levi or Hange murderers. But that was knowledge Hanna had absolutely no way of accessing. 

“Anyway, here’s his diploma. Very fancy, no? He actually represented his district in a regional competition. What a bright young lad he was. But alas, he decided to drop out of school and join the army."

“So you are a nerd after all.” Hange nudged him. “Now I know why you like sudoku so much. You are a numbers person.”

“Whatever.”

They continued their lighthearted conversation for quite a while afterwards, though it was mostly Hange and Hanna talking. Their personalities were very alike, Levi realized while they talked. Enthusiastic and loving and weird in all the disturbing ways. When they finished the call, both of them had already become quite close, and were eager to maintain contact with each other. He was really glad to be present, even if he ended up not participating as much. 

-.-.-.-.-

The fireworks started right after it went dark, and since it was winter, that was quite early. Levi did his best to be unaffected, though he was unusually clingy, Hange noticed, which was for him very unusual. He didn't enjoy physical contact that much, outside of perhaps hand holding and very occasional hugging. 

After they finished the call, he put on earplugs. He said he wanted to go to bed early, but he didn't want to miss out on the coming of the new year either, which Hange was very excited about. 

“How about we go to bed early, and cuddle for a bit until twelve? I know it's not your cup of tea, but…”

“I think it'd be nice, actually,” he replied, to Hange’s surprise. “Just for today. Don't get any ideas.”

Even though they slept in the same bed with no issues, likely because they had been forced to do this while setting camp in the open for years, he still liked to keep some distance. At least most days. But today, it seemed, he was fully willing to share some very needed physical affection. 

Levi ended up leaning on Hange’s lap, having his hair very gently combed by their hands while watching a video on their laptop. He could see the screen from where he was, watching the pictures go through without understanding the context. It was really comforting. He could almost forget about the fireworks going on outside. 

When the video finished, Hange took off their headphones and set them aside. 

“You know, maybe we should marry.”

That made him snap out of whatever drowsy trance he had been locked on. 

“Marry?”

“I mean, think about the tax breaks.”

“Tax breaks?”

“Yeah.” Levi had no idea about what Hange was talking about. They had to be joking. But they weren't. “I talked to Erwin about it. He said that married couples can get up to a 20% reduction in taxation on their shared earnings.”

“You talked to Erwin about getting married, and you didn't tell me?”

“I mentioned it as a hypothetical thing.”

He groaned. 

“People are going to think we're dating.”

“Then what do you call…” They gestured toward the entirety of Levi resting on their lap. 

“This?”

“We're hanging out. Would you call it dating?”

Hange thought about it, and then shook their head. 

“Not really. People who date, they usually kiss and have sex. And I’ve thought about it, and I definitely wouldn't want to do that with you.”

“Thank God.” He said, relieved.

“But we do sleep together, like couples do. So there is that.”

“We do it out of necessity.” Hange giggled, still ruffling his hair. “And I guess it feels nice sometimes.”

“You really are like a cat, aren't you? Look, I'm just asking you to think about it. You will also get proper citizenship if you marry me, no caveats. If you get arrested again, they will have to let you call me because we'd be family. And you can change your surname too.”

All of those were good things, things too good to deny. He felt stupid for even trying to turn them down. And yet… 

“Levi Zoë sounds really dumb. I don't buy it.”

“Does Hange Ackerman sound better?”

He cringed. “No. That's disgusting. Don't suggest that ever again.”

“I was just making fun. You don't have to change your surname.”

He had a hard time rejecting this proposal. It was, from all angles, extremely convenient. He had to think hard to come up with a reasonable objection. 

“But what if you want to get a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”

“I mean, marriage is just a legal contract. I can still go out and fuck, can I not? Is the sex police going to detain me for that?”

Levi recalled all the times the police had cracked down on brothels, and how much trouble they had given his mother growing up. But he had the feeling that Hange wasn't the kind to go to brothels, and they were smart and kind enough not to report them. 

“As long as I don't have to see it or be the one to clean up your mess, then sure. Get nasty.”

“So, what do you say?”

The perks of such an arrangement were undeniable. But the most appealing part of it all, and the part he had the hardest part admitting to himself, was that of spending the rest of his years on earth with Hange Zoë by his side. 

No Titans. No war. Just them.

“Fine. I accept.”

-.-.-.-.-

“So, Hange, I heard you are going to marry.”

There was Mike again. 

The new semester had just started, but by the looks of it, the professors could not have a break from rumors. It was as though Mike had thousands of ears and eyes placed all around the building like the pervert he was. His innate ability to find out stuff about people was only rivaled by his need to share his knowledge with everyone. 

“If you wanted to know, you won't be invited to the wedding.”

It was a rude thing to tell someone something like that upfront, of course, but Mike never once cared about being polite. 

“You've only known him for six months. I knew you were impulsive, but this is too much even for you.”

Hange really wanted to tell him that they had known each other for over a decade, but had to keep it to themself because of how unbelievable the claim was. 

“You love talking shit about shit you don't know shit about. Guess that's why the review board keeps rejecting your papers for publication.”

“At least I'm not marrying a psycho.”

Levi was pretty much banned from university premises, so Eren didn't have to worry about being beat up ever again. But it was not an unknown fact that the fiancée of professor Zoë had at one point beaten up a student to near unconsciousness. There were legends forming around the incident already, that Hange feared would prevail for generations of students to come. 

“At least I am not divorced.”

Levi had eventually landed a job in waste disposal for a chemical company. It was, all things considered, a well remunerated job, and one he enjoyed greatly. Hange suspected that one of the reasons he liked cleaning in the first place was because it gave him an excuse to casually mess around with potentially dangerous chemicals. 

He was also given medical insurance. Which was an absolute win.

The more they thought of it, maybe the reason Mike was so invested in the lives of others was because his own life sucked ass. They almost regretted bringing up his divorce now. Almost. 

“Whatever you say.”

Regarding their research, Hange had decided to focus it less towards titans, and more toward the way certain pathogens can induce cancer. It was a much more socially productive research that could potentially grant them answers about titan powers in the process. 

Eren, who now used crutches to get around, and Armin, had continued to attend class, but Mikasa didn't show up again. Hange thought this was for the better. While it was awkward, he proved to be determined to do good by the world. Armin mentioned in passing wanting to become a marine biologist. Seeing Eren suffer was not nearly as satisfying as seeing him change for the better, and helping lead that change was something Hange was glad to do. 

The wedding eventually came, and Erwin and Pieck served as witnesses. With the wedding came a full citizenship for Levi, which took a great weight off his shoulders. While he couldn't be deported due to his nationality, he had no access to any public services beforehand or the right to vote. 

And sure, there were still loose ends to tie up. They had things left to do, like writing down all of their memories from their past life, which was of course a heavy task, and one that would bring them much grief in the future. But Hange was glad that, at least now, they could go about tying it all up together.