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The relaxed atmosphere in the history faculty corridor evaporated at the snap of a finger, as soon as the calendar flipped to another page, heralding the onset of the torturous summer exam season.
Sunlight flooded the floor, washed just minutes ago, as if casually reminding everyone that today everything had to go off without a hitch.
"I gave you enough time to review the material, try not to waste it." Professor Levi Ackerman's strict words echoed in her head.
He was a strict teacher, but undeniably fair. Everyone who was ready to work hard got a chance. One thing you certainly couldn't complain about was his competence and his methods. In his classes, Levi always spoke quietly, never wearying anyone with excessive verbosity, and he had no patience for idle chatter or lateness. Nevertheless, he showed respect to those who genuinely burned with passion for his subject, willingly helping them search for primary sources and occasionally jotting notes in the margins of their term papers. The students understood: if you wanted to pass history, you had to study, he accepted no empty excuses, but he also played no favorites and never inflated grades "just because." If a transcript held an "excellent" under Ackerman's signature, the student truly had a deep grasp of the subject. Frankly, such individuals were vanishingly few in the current cohort.
Students huddled against the walls, afraid to stray from the coveted door of the lecture room, flipping through their notes in a last desperate attempt to cram dates and formulations into their heads.
"I can't remember a thing," Nifa moaned, burying her face in a massive brown notebook. "My head is total mush. If he asks about the chronology of the Reiss reign, I'll definitely fail."
Petra smiled sympathetically. She knew her classmate actually knew the material, she was just panicking, like half the group right now.
"Don't wind yourself up," said the redhead, gently stroking her impressively large belly under the stretched fabric of her dress. It was clear that walking was already difficult for her, but she held herself surprisingly sprightly for her third trimester.
Ral woke in the predawn twilight, when the first rays of sun barely touched the spines of textbooks scattered on the nightstand, and fell asleep well past midnight, when tiny heels began to exhaust her from within. Her memory constantly bogged down in a hormonal fog, where facts about ancient battles mingled with vitamin schedules, and dates of uprisings dimmed next to the pressing need to remember exactly which day the next prenatal appointment was.
Being a student was hard. Being pregnant was hard. Being a pregnant student trying to keep dates, names, and tactical maneuvers of ancient commanders in her head while someone inside her tossed from side to side, pressing on her bladder, was doubly hard.
"But you studied for this exam for so long."
"I did, I crammed for two weeks," Nifa nodded in agreement, "but the professor asks questions as if we're not students but academics defending a doctoral dissertation." She sighed, looking at her friend standing in front of her.
"Crammed?" Oluo snorted, adjusting the collar of his snow-white shirt. His self-confidence overflowed, fueled by a hundred sleepless nights spent poring over primary sources. "Cramming won't help when it comes to Professor Ackerman. I, for instance, already have the top grade in the bag—and do you know why?"
"Why?" Petra asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because Professor Ackerman requires talent and natural wit, not mindless cramming. He always distinguishes someone who actually thinks from someone who simply memorized a textbook chapter. I, for example, never stupidly memorize the text, I grasp the essence right during the lecture, sleep like a baby at night, and always get the top grade."
"Professor Levi values hard work, not boasting. He cares that we understand the essence of history."
The blonde crossed his arms over his chest, his smug expression unwavering.
"You, Petra, probably had no time to prepare at all?" he immediately deflected.
"I did my best," the redhead cast a quick glance at the lecture room door from which their professor was supposed to appear. "I read aloud to remember better. The baby kicked hard when I told him about the Great War for Paradis."
"If you're so talented, maybe Professor Levi will agree to test you without any preparation, right here in the corridor? Why waste time..." Nifa said, crossing her arms.
"Oh, I'd be happy to," Oluo immediately countered, not embarrassed in the slightest, "but I don't want to deprive the professor of the pleasure of a leisurely conversation with a knowledgeable student."
"Really now," Eld drawled, pushing off the wall and stepping toward their small group. "Your mother told a very different story last weekend. 'Oluo tries so hard, he's such a diligent student! He doesn't sleep until three in the morning, constantly cramming his notes...'"
Petra and Nifa burst out laughing simultaneously. Oluo instantly turned crimson to the roots of his hair, his smirk vanishing as if it had never existed, replaced by the expression of someone caught red-handed.
"W-what nonsense are you spouting, Eld?!" he hissed, eyeing his quietly giggling classmates.
"Yeah, I heard it too," Gunther joined in, studying the ceiling with an absolutely unflappable look. "She said you sat all night surrounded by textbooks, and you even spilled tea on your notes. Rewrote them three times."
"You two are just jealous!" he shot back, jabbing a finger at Eld and then at Gunther. "You lot don't have the guts to get an excellent from Ackerman!"
"And when did we say we weren't preparing?" Gunther asked without shifting his posture.
"Exactly. We at least don't pretend to be geniuses who grasp everything on the fly," Eld said. His gaze lingered for a moment on Petra's profile, noticing a new little wrinkle between her brows as her palm rested on her belly again.
"Petra, how are you, really?" Eld asked, somewhat worried. "You look a bit pale. Maybe you could ask for a postponement? In your condition..."
"Everything's fine, Eld. I'll manage," the amber-eyed girl insisted, shaking her head. "There's always time to sit at home later. I'll pass the exam and then go rest."
Measured footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor. Conversations died instantly, as if someone had turned off the sound, and the students straightened up like ramrods. Professor Levi Ackerman approached the lecture room, dressed in black trousers and a light shirt with a jacket over it, carrying a stack of grade sheets. His face expressed not a single emotion, apart from a slight distaste for the surrounding dust and noise.
"Don't crowd the entrance," he tossed out, turning the key in the lock. "Come in and have your record books ready."
The exam had begun.
___________________
The silence in the lecture room was so profound you could hear the cleaning lady moving her bucket of water at the end of the corridor. Professor Ackerman sat at his desk, his wristwatch placed before him, the one he always used to time answers, though he never told the students that. To his left, a stack of record books with already entered grades was growing; to his right lay the group list, where neat but somehow disheartening marks of "fail" adorned several names.
The first few people returned to their seats with lost expressions. One guy grew so flustered on a follow-up question that he started spouting some nonsense in hopes of scraping a pass. Levi didn't even bother commenting, simply made an entry in the grade sheet and calmly said, "Retake on Friday." The number of such candidates kept increasing, and the tension in the room gradually thickened.
Nifa sat a row away from Petra, silently mouthing the answer she had prepared on a piece of paper. Ral caught her eye and gave an encouraging nod, but only got a nervous twitch of the corner of her friend's lips in return.
Now Oluo was in the hot seat. Listening to him, one might truly believe the tales of natural wit. He freely jumped from one topic to another, seasoning his answer with little-known facts that he clearly hadn't dug out of Ackerman's lecture notes.
Levi paused, then jotted something briefly in the grade sheet.
"Sit down. Excellent."
The student turned around and strode to his seat with the air of someone who had just conquered Paradis single-handedly. Passing Petra, he threw her a short triumphant glance. The redhead merely rolled her eyes almost imperceptibly.
As he plopped into his chair, Gunther, sitting behind, leaned forward slightly, whispering:
"I think you forgot to mention the uprising in the southern provinces, the one precisely provoked by decentralization."
"The professor didn't ask, so it wasn't important," he cut off without turning around.
Levi raised his eyes from the grade sheet and swept his gaze over the room.
"Next."
A barely perceptible rustle ran through the rows; students ducked their heads, hoping the professor's choice would not fall on them. Petra intercepted Nifa's hunted look and realized her friend was currently incapable of uttering a single coherent word.
Ral slowly exhaled. A minute ago it had seemed to her that she could sit here until the end, waiting for the main wave of volunteers to subside, but the baby inside began stirring again, and she understood that if she didn't answer now, she would simply have no strength left later. Her palms grew slightly sweaty. Suppressing the urge to adjust her dress for the hundredth time, she carefully rose, leaning on the edge of the desk, and stepped into the aisle.
"I'll answer, Professor Ackerman!"
Several heads turned in her direction; someone breathed a sigh of relief, glad for the reprieve. Ackerman raised his eyes from the grade sheet, and his pen paused momentarily over the paper.
"Go ahead," he said, indicating the chair in front of his desk.
The student walked unhurriedly to the professor's desk, slightly cradling her belly. She approached, placed her sheet of paper, covered in neat handwriting, and settled onto the chair opposite Levi. He appeared entirely absorbed in studying some notes in his notebook, giving her a few seconds to get comfortable. Petra shifted slightly to the edge, finding the only position in which she could exist for the next fifteen minutes. The man took the sheet, ran his eyes over it, and nodded, interlacing his fingers.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Then begin with the first question."
Petra drew a breath and started speaking. The topic drawn in her ticket covered the formation of the Survey Corps and its role in exploring the outer territories beyond the Walls of Paradis, and she knew it thoroughly. Back in winter, when her belly had just begun to round and could still be hidden under a loose sweater, she had spent hours in the library, surrounded by books brought to her by someone who knew the collection better than any librarian and who brewed her tea in the department office when other teachers had already gone home.
She answered the first question, then the second, and then the third. Levi questioned her without a trace of leniency, and somewhere deep inside, Petra was grateful to him for treating her the same as any other student, not like a porcelain doll he was afraid to jostle with a careless word. She truly had prepared, and he knew it. Ral rattled off dates and names, rocking on the chair to soothe her tensed belly, while the professor listened, making some notes in his notebook, and it was impossible to tell if that was a good sign or a bad one.
"...Thus, the decision for the first expedition beyond the walls was dictated not so much by political will as by the pressure of the food crisis and the necessity of surveying lands outside the walls," she finished, catching her breath.
The professor, however, did not immediately move on to the second question. Instead, he paused, examining her filled sheet of paper, then raised his eyes, forcing her to internally steel herself, and asked:
"Good," he said. "Now forget the textbook. You mentioned the food crisis as a key factor. However, there is an opinion that the expedition would have been delayed another two years had it not been for a confluence of other circumstances. Name them."
Petra looked up at him, uncomprehending. This question hadn't been in the syllabus. She knew where he had taken it from and knew the answer only because one late evening, when her notes had already merged into one blurry spot before her eyes, she heard a familiar quiet voice behind her: "Pay attention to section eleven. It contains what isn't written in the required program. If you want to understand the command's motivation, start there."
"I thought you said no special treatment, and now you're giving hints?" she had asked then.
"I'm showing you what to pay attention to, not giving ready-made answers. If you want to understand the command's motivation, start there."
"The epidemic within Wall Rose territory, which began in the Trost district. It was closest to the Corps' first headquarters," she answered, meeting the pensive gaze of the grey eyes across from her. "Therefore, command couldn't dispatch troops on an external expedition until the quarantine was lifted."
The dark-haired man tilted his head slightly. She almost heard an unspoken "good," but he didn't voice it aloud, merely nodding to show she was heading in the right direction.
"That gave time to prepare the logistical chains, without which the first sortie would have failed..." She opened her mouth, trying to build a logical chain on the fly, but suddenly felt a sharp spasm in her lower abdomen, spreading in a wave and seizing her lower back. The child inside kicked up under her ribs, and she instinctively placed her palm on her belly, closing her eyes for a second.
Levi tracked her movement; his fingers, which had been rhythmically tapping his elbow, stilled.
"Miss Ral?" The professor raised his grey eyes, noticing that she had faltered mid-sentence. "Are you all right?"
Petra swallowed, catching her breath. Her belly tensed again, this time with such force that she had to surreptitiously grip the edge of the chair with her fingers.
"I... I'm fine," she squeezed out, trying to straighten. The smile she plastered onto her face resembled a grimace of pain more than anything else. "We can continue."
"You're whiter than chalk," he cut her off, rising from the desk.
"Professor, really, I..."
At that moment, a second contraction pierced her body with such power that Petra cried out, clutching her belly with both hands. The pain surged so suddenly that moisture welled in her eyes. Petra clenched her teeth and forced her lips into some semblance of a smile.
'Not now... God, not now!'
Silence hung in the room, broken only by her ragged breathing. The group tensed visibly. Nifa half-rose from her seat, involuntarily crying out her friend's name amid the general wave of alarm. Gunther and Eld exchanged worried glances, and Oluo froze with his mouth slightly open, forgetting his recent triumph.
Levi was already at her side. The distance between the desk and her chair closed in an instant, as if he had been expecting something like this since early morning. He crouched down in front of her. Petra raised her eyes to him, trying to breathe deeply, when suddenly the corners of her lips treacherously trembled upwards and she laughed softly. Ackerman stopped dead in his tracks, meeting the gaze of her shining amber eyes. She was in damn terrible pain, barely staying on the chair, yet she was laughing, looking at him.
'Seems your student miscalculated her strength a little.'
"Sorry," she breathed out with just her lips, baring white teeth in a smile with a light chuckle. The sound dissolved in the silence, not even reaching the nearest desks.
"Tch," he exhaled, his shoulders tensing. "Sit still. Don't you dare get up," the professor commanded, addressing the group. "Petra, can you walk?"
Petra clutched his sleeve with her fingers and nodded almost imperceptibly, still smiling. It seemed this situation frightened the professor far more than it did her.
"I think... I slightly overestimated my capabilities."
A subdued whisper rippled through the rows. Someone gasped when the professor stood and offered her his hand. Nifa jumped up from her seat, but Levi didn't even turn around.
"Eld!" His shout nearly made the students jump. "Run to the infirmary, get a doctor!" The grey-eyed man helped her up, steadied her by the elbow when she swayed, and swept a sharp gaze over the room. "Everyone stays in the lecture room. Nobody leaves."
"I'm sorry, Professor, I thought I'd make it..." she breathed as he led her to the door. Someone from the group handed her her bag, understanding that she was unlikely to return here today.
"You've already earned your pass. Everything else can wait."
The door closed behind them, and the lecture room erupted in anxious hubbub.
"Did you see that?!" someone from the back rows spoke up.
"He questioned even a pregnant woman on the full program..." said a fair-haired guy from the first row.
"And you can't argue," his neighbor agreed. "Ackerman is Ackerman."
Nifa collapsed back into her chair, pressing her palms to her pale cheeks.
"Just let everything be all right with her..." she murmured, not addressing anyone in particular.
"Let's not give in to panic. Petra was probably already prepared for this..." Schultz tried to reassure her friend.
"Yes, but..."
"Of course everything will be fine. There'll be a whole swarm of doctors fussing over her. You'll see, she'll give birth and then come charging back to the professor to finish answering questions," Oluo interjected, but then quietly added, "Where else would she go..."
"Oluo," Gunther called softly. "Are you actually crying right now?"
"Me?!" Bozado flinched as if stung and immediately sniffled. "As if! It's just allergies!"
The professor returned to the room fifteen minutes later, without Petra. His shirt at the elbow was slightly crumpled from someone else's grip. He walked to his desk, straightened the stack of grade sheets, and raised his eyes to the hushed students.
"We'll continue. Next."
The students exchanged glances, but no one dared say anything. The exam resumed. Levi asked questions as before, listened to answers, and entered grades into the sheets, but his gaze kept returning to the empty chair where the red-haired student had sat just half an hour ago.
___________________
A couple of days later, the same group—much thinned out and sleep-deprived—hovered around the retake schedule. Nifa stared at the list of names, feeling her jaw clench from nerves. There was little news about Petra, only a message from her consisting of a single word: "Gave birth!"
Oruo showed up out of sheer curiosity together with the others, to support Gunther, who had decided to bump his grade to the top mark on Ackerman's own recommendation, and Nifa, who had after all failed one of the additional questions and was now nervously twisting the edge of the sleeve of her blue ruffled blouse.
"Maybe he'll be more lenient today," she weakly suggested.
"More likely the Titans will shake the earth."
Minutes ticked by, and the professor still hadn't appeared. Students began exchanging glances. Strange... he was never late.
"Maybe something happened?" someone from the queue muttered.
A figure emerged from the neighboring office, but not the one everyone was expecting, it was his colleague, Furlan Church, a teacher with a perpetually friendly expression. Holding some folder, he was just locking his door and, noticing the bewildered students, smiled.
"Professor Church," Eld called out to him. "Could you tell us where Professor Ackerman is? We have a retake today."
The blond raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, as if they were supposed to know what he knew.
"Haven't you heard?" He smiled a mysterious and very warm smile. "Levi is on leave. I'm administering the exam in his place."
"On leave?" Oluo stared wide-eyed. "Why on earth? The professor has never taken leave. Even during the epidemic, he gave lectures over video link with a fever."
"But it's the peak of exam season..."
"Will you be testing us on the same questions?"
The professor shifted his gaze from one student to another, slightly bewildered by the flood of questions. Then his smile widened, and he nodded somewhere toward the city hospital visible through the window.
"He has a valid reason," Furlan shrugged. "He had a child born last night, so he took family leave. Come in, let's begin."
Furlan disappeared behind the door of the lecture room, leaving the students utterly stunned. The folder slipped from Nifa's hands, abruptly drawing all attention to her. What had he just said?
Glances darted between classmates as if searching for confirmation that they had misheard. Gunther choked on air. Eld, squinting, stared at one spot in front of him, clearly piecing together puzzle fragments that now fit together with frightening clarity. Nifa pressed her palm to her mouth, trying to hide a smile utterly inappropriate for a retake.
"Petra..."
Furlan seemed to realize he had said too much, but the broad smile on the teacher's face didn't dim in the slightest.
"Well then!" he proclaimed, slapping his palms on the desk. "Retakes. Who's first?!"
___________________
And outside the walls of the faculty, in a small room, Petra half-lay on pillows, gazing at the tiny bundle in Levi's hands. He sat on the edge of her bed with an expression of absolute absorption on his face, behind which he hid a boundless fear and delight that had flooded his entire being.
Being a student was hard. Being pregnant had been indescribably hard. Being the secret wife of Levi Ackerman and the mother of his child was a whole adventure.