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Gathered inside a ring of stones sticks and dry grasses were gathered. They were charred black and the remaining embers glowed against an inky sky dotted with twinkling stars. The moon hanging in the sky provided the only light and cast the ocean in a ghostly tinge. The whispered conversations had long burned out as the campfire did. The constant drumming of the waves rising and falling along the shoreline lulled the survey corp members lying by the fire to sleep.
However, Levi was wide awake and couldn’t sleep. He laid on a blanket covering the ground, arms propped underneath his head as he listened to the breathing of the kids around him: Mikasa slept like a soldier, rigid and quiet. Connie talked in his sleep and Levi could have sworn he heard him call out to his mother at one point. Eren and Jean snored – even while sleeping they seemed to be in competition with each other. However, lately the spark had left Eren’s eyes and it wasn’t as easy to rile him up as before. Everything was hitting him really hard.
It was hitting everyone hard. All the kids had been through so much – too much.
A lot had happened in a year. The survey corp had culled all the titans and had reached the ocean. It was a victory hard won, but the cost was huge. Nearly the entire military had been lost in that one battle. New recruits, veterans, Hanji’s assistant Moblit, and the Commander of the Survey Corps: Erwin. To top it off, after reaching the basement, they learned that unknown enemies lay across the ocean. The cage was bigger than they thought. And they were in more danger than they had ever imagined.
A gentle breeze carried the salt from the ocean in the air to Levi, which made his nose wrinkle. He looked over to where Hanji was perched on a rock, boots removed with her feet dangling in the water. It was her idea that they take shifts to keep watch in the case an abnormal titan found them that they might have missed during their purge.
Although he could not see her face, he could tell by the arch of her back and the way she leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, that she was deep in thought.
Mindful not to disturb the sleeping bodies he maneuvered between them, pushing arms through the sleeves of his jacket. His boots kicked up rocks as he approached the rock.
Hanji heard him come up behind her, but didn’t lift her head or meet his gaze. She already knew what expression his features would be wearing.
Levi stood directly behind looking at her back. He folded his arms. “If someone had told me last year that we would be sleeping outside the walls by the ocean tonight I would have told them they were full of titan excrement”.
Hanji nodded. Her eye trained on the horizon where the sun had sunk behind the edge of the water hours before. “They’re all sleeping soundly I take it?”
Levi grunted in confirmation.
Hanji moved her feet in circles watching the water ripple around her ankles.
Levi clicked his tongue. “Stop overthinking things. I can tell you’re holding all the responsibility on your shoulders.”
She straightened her spine. Those eyes always saw right through her. Levi never wasted any time getting straight to the point, but that was one of the things she liked about him after all. Still, she went for a casual tone in response:
“Carrying all the responsibility comes with the territory of the job I’m afraid.” Hanji tugged on the crest that hung around her neck that signified her position as Commander and allowed it to fall to her chest again.
“As stubborn an asshole he was, Erwin always had someone to talk to even if I had to kick down a locked door just to get him to tell me what was going through his mind.”
Hanji half grunted, half laughed. “Fine.” She shook her head, but still kept her back to Levi.
The emotionally charged scene on the roof came flooding back to her: The traitor Bertolt laying with his limbs reduced to steaming stumps as he cried for his life, pleading not to be eaten. Armin burned so badly he was unrecognizable as charred skin flaked off in the slightest breeze. His wheezing was burned into her memory. Erwin, her leader, and dear friend miraculously returned to the roof on the back of the new recruit but barely breathing. Somewhere inside his chest his heart still beating. Then there was Levi looking like a corpse himself: covered in dirt, sweat, and evaporating titan blood. In his hand, was the injection that could save one person’s life.
Hanji took off her goggles and combed her fingers through her hair before resting them beside her. She finally turned to face Levi, her voice low, pensive. “Why?”
“Why.” He repeated.
Levi knew what she was asking. It had been a year and they had never talked about what happened. Since that day, a tension slowly wedged between them, making it so they hadn’t talked like before. Before her presence was big and loud and the space at his side belonged to her. Since the roof, they looked the other way when their eyes met, and preoccupied themselves when they were in the same room. The quiet had been draining him. And he hadn’t even noticed. It was empty and pointless without her going on long winded tangents. Or fiddling with some trinket. Or reading a book, her mouth moving just as fast as the pages flipped by.
Hanji continued, ripping Levi from his thoughts. “Erwin trusted you with the injection, so by default I did – do.” Hanji pressed a palm into her good eye. “I trust your decision. I do. But because of that, I haven’t allowed myself to question it, but…” Hanji looked up and held his eyes and for the first time in a year, he couldn’t avert his gaze. Levi could only remember one other time when she looked like that – when she had told him about how titans had ruined her life – killed her family and her best friends.
“I know I need to hear ‘why’ from you.”
On that roof, he had made a decision that she hadn’t agreed with. She had never hidden her opinion and even told Armin she believed Erwin should have been saved. He hadn’t saved one of her last friends. And right after losing her entire squad and Moblit. Could she ever forgive him?
Of course he knew why he had saved Armin instead of Erwin. Every day since it happened the whole situation had played over and over in his mind until it was raw. His choice. Why he didn’t regret it. He had to have a reason because on restless nights Erwin’s ghost wordlessly asked him the same question with unblinking eyes. Yet, confronted with Hanji’s question hanging in the air it was hard to articulate an answer, and all he had done so far was stall. So, he opened his mouth.
“You are completely right. Erwin,” the named weighed heavily on his tongue, “was a great leader and no one can replace him. Shit, I would have followed that man into the jaws of a titan if he ordered me to do it for the good of humanity.”
Levi’s mouth dried up, making his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Words came out in scrambled spurts.
“Erwin was tired, broken and because of that he wasn’t laying his heart down for humanity. To fulfill his old man’s dreams, Erwin wanted to reach the basement no matter the cost-” Levi paused, as words abruptly left him. They always did. He adjusted his sleeve cuff. “That bastard was a great Commander and deserved to pursue selfish desires more than anyone else.”
Levi intimidated people: his eyes too sharp, his words too rigid. But no matter how strict, crude, or uncaring he came off Hanji always understood exactly what he meant. Levi was completely exposed in front of her no matter what he said. So right now, he wouldn’t hide anything from her.
“In the last moments, I convinced him to give up his selfishness and give his heart once more to humanity. He died as valiantly as he led the Survey Corps.”
Ocean waves crested on the beach. Hanji’s hair blew about her face.
“Hanji, seeing him there on the roof, I saw an opportunity for him to escape all this. It was my. Fucking. Selfish. Desire. To finally let him rest in peace. I couldn’t bring him back to the front of this war. This shithole. To give him that burden again.”
“Fuck it all.” Levi had no idea if he made any sense, even in his own mind his words seemed convoluted, jumbled trains of thought.
Levi looked back at the campsite. He could make out the individual lumps of bodies that slept. “Armin is not a fighter, but he has given his heart for humanity. He has laid his life on the line many times. Erwin saw the potential in him to be a leader and I see it too. His brain, his intuition, and his dedication can be given in service to humanity.”
Hanji turned around to face the ocean, absorbing everything Levi had said. She thanked him, her heart lighter than it had been in a long time.
“No,” Levi thought back to the past year of them avoiding each other, “I should have talked to you about this sooner.”
“It’s alright Levi, I’m sorry about avoi-”
She heard a squeak, then a thud.
She swiveled around to see Levi meters away from the spot he was standing in mere seconds ago, a rock poised in his hand and aimed at that spot on the ground. She followed his narrowed eyes. In the sand, a small creature’s spindly legs poked out of a shell. Beside it was a rock lodged in the sand that she now realized was the source of the thud, which meant that the squeak had been…
“Levi! Was that sound you?”
His eyes wide he said, “it crawled over my foot!”
“It won’t hurt you! It’s only a horseshoe crab!”
“EXCUSE ME!? You’ve already named it?” His head jerked between Hanji and the vermin. He had never seen this creature before in his life, and neither had she.
Hanji burst out laughing then slapped hands across her mouth, he didn’t want to wake the kids. Between waves of giggles, she managed to say, “it had the nerve, no the audacity to touch Humanity’s Strongest!?”
“Are you shitting me right now shitty glasses? First, you are willing to touch those slugs that came out of the water, and now you’re naming these ugly things?”
By this point, Hanji had lost control of her laughing but eventually invited Levi onto the rock. “Come up. They can’t climb.”
“No way! I’m going back to stoke the fire, that’ll keep these water bastards away!"
Hanji sucked her bottom lip, “Levi, in your hand.”
The so-called rock he was holding sprouted legs and was wiggling. Levi dropped it faster than Hanji had ever seen the grown man move before. He leapt onto the rock.
“Welcome!”
Propped up on one knee, Levi leered over the edges. “Fuck, I’m stuck here now.” He narrowed his eyes, “They’re watching me.”
Laughter was bubbling within her again, but she pushed it away, instead she said, “they’re probably thinking that you’re their long-lost land cousin – you’re short enough.”
Levi’s features knit themselves into a full-fledged scowl aimed right at Hanji. He reached his hand towards his hip only to remember he wasn’t wearing his gear. “Hanji.”
“Yeah?” He was so serious, she could barely keep from bursting out laughing again.
“Kill them for me.”
“I would never!” She said feigning a gasp.
“Then throw them back into the ocean, or put that thing back where it came from, or so help me!”
She shook her head, sure to exaggerate. “I’m your overarching leader now. You actually take orders from me.”
Levi wasn’t listening. He was spiraling. “That water is fucking nasty, and the things you and the kids were pulling out of it! You all just jumped right in, splashing around! What if you contracted some disease?” His voice pitched on the last word.
“If that happens then I’ll just have you take care of me.”
“There’s something seriously rotten in your brain if you think that would ever happen.”
Hanji tapped the crest.
His mouth dropped. “That’s a blatant abuse of power.”
Another roar of laughter erupted from her and Hanji fell back on the rock, her hair splayed out about her face.
“What’s with that loopy grin plastered on your face?” Levi said into his knee as he drew one towards his chest.
And just like that. They slipped back into their usual rhythm. It was as if the past year hadn’t been spent evading one another or dodging conversations. It came easy as if that wedge of tension had never been there. Her smile was infectious, and the corners of his mouth pulled towards the sky as if controlled by strings held by her. Again, the space beside him was filled with her boisterous presence.
She was much more relaxed now, and it wasn’t like he had done anything for her, in fact-
“Hanji, I’m sorry about - everything.”
She boosted herself on her arms. “I trust you Levi. I always have. Always will.”
Levi’s eyes were trained forward, on the same horizon she had been looking at before.
“We’ll never know which choice was better,” she said. “You can only make a choice you will not regret. Isn’t that what you say all the time?”
Levi turned his head. She had forgiven him.
“Armin and the kids are the future.” She continued, “We have to do everything we can to make sure they see that future.”
The future. “What about the 13 year ultimatum for shifters?”
“I’ll figure out a way to reverse it. I have to.” She leaned forward.
Levi thought back to the night before the mission to Shiganshina to visit Eren’s basement. He overheard Armin, Eren, and Mikasa talking. They were filled with hope and love for one another. A makeshift family he didn’t want to see broken up.
“Those three.” Hanji poked his side gently. “Eren, Armin, Mikasa…they remind you of a similar trio?”
“Farlan and Isabel.” Levi unconsciously rubbed where she had poked, “I miss them."
Hanji touched Levi’s hand. “I do too.”
Levi gently wrapped his hand around her fingers and brought them to his face. He pressed her fingertips against his lips. Hanji reached forward with her free hand and traced her knuckles softly against the side of his face.
“You miss people too.” Levi breathed. He was still holding her hand.
Hanji shifted in her spot and rested her head on his shoulder.
She pointed at the stars. “My father told me that people we love watch us from the stars. As a woman of science, I don’t believe it true. But on days like this, I want it to be.”
“Why can’t it be?” His chin was lifted towards the sky.
Hanji stretched her hands out, releasing a kink in her back. “You’re right. They are watching us from the stars. Farlan, Isabel…” She pointed to a pair of shimmering silver stars.
“…Moblit…” Levi nodded in the direction of the brightest of stars.
“Pastor Nick.” Hanji pointed to a star that was surrounded by a cluster of others.
Levi scanned above. A light streaked across the night sky.
“Erwin.” They both said in unison.
Levi squeezed her hand.
Hanji nudged his neck with her forehead. He moved his free hand to hold her head against him and brushed fleeting lips to her forehead.
Hanji breathed in deeply his scent. His smell was one she never wanted to forget.
“You’re peculiar.” He said, his face stoic.
Into the dark hours of the night, Hanji and Levi named fallen comrades, family, and friends while pointing to stars that they must be watching from.
Hanji opened her eyes, the sun was coming up behind them. She had fallen asleep and her head was in Levi’s lap where he was absentmindedly working fingers through her hair undoing the knots then braiding strands together while watching the waves churn in the ocean.
Over the edge of the tall rock, she could see a swarm of crabs.
“They must like you.”
Without as much as a glance in the sea creature’s direction, Levi responded with his classic glare.
Hanji rolled her body and slid off the rock to move the crabs. She didn’t miss Levi’s look of repulsion and smiled to herself in spite of it. She stood before him as he sat on the rock eyes following her. Positioned like this he was a little taller.
“I removed all the unsightlies from your sight.” She took a shallow bow, “am I your knight in shining armor?” Levi responded by places the goggles back on her head.
“Screwball scientist matches you better.”
“I don’t know about that, I think Knight in-”
He leaned down to kiss her.
His lips tasted like the salt air. “Will we be ok?” Hanji spoke against his lips. They had promised each other to take care of the kids’ future, but what about theirs’?
“We will protect each other.”
Hanji kissed him back.
Hanji offered him a hand off the rock. He ignored it and landed on the sand beside her.
The sun was spilling pinks and oranges over the landscape when they walked back to camp, where everyone else was beginning to stir and greet the day.