Chapter Text
The Story So Far
After successfully fighting off the Armored Titan’s attack, the surviving scouts of Squad Levi had found shelter in an abandoned cabin within Wall Rose. Although shaken by the many casualties at first, the remaining soldiers quickly collected their strength once more and focused on the main task ahead:
The seal of Wall Maria.
The conditions of the cabin had been ideal for setting up a camp; close enough to nearby districts for accessing supplies and still far enough to experiment with Eren’s Titan abilities undisturbed and hidden from the government.
As the only doctor of the survey corps, the team had always been heavily dependent on your work and support. And especially at times like these, where any casualties were absolutely disastrous, your help was of great importance.
Usually you had stayed within the headquarters of the survey corps where your office was up until now, but the recent circumstances had required you to constantly move between districts, and sometimes that even included travelling outside the of walls.
After the attack Commander Erwin Smith had returned to the district of Trost, where he received the urgently needed medical attention from you.
Once his condition was stabilized, he had asked you to join Squad Levi in support of the experiment.
You were hesitant at first, considering he had lost a limb and needed your care. And even though you had initially refused to leave him in a state like this, Erwin had been persistent, and in the end convinced you to support the team instead.
You had left for the camp on that same night.
As soon as the news of your arrival had reached Squad Levi, Hange had set up a tent for you to work in just outside the cabin. It was small and your supplies limited, but even the slightest bit of medical care could sometimes decide over life and death.
A few days had passed since your admittance to the squad, and you slowly accustomed to the work outside of your office.
During the day the team made efforts to kill the remaining titans within Wall Rose. Most of them had gone after the Armored Titan, although a few had found their way back to the outskirts of the camp.
But at night, concealed by the cloak of darkness, the squad tried hard to work on Eren’s hardening abilities.
Retaking Wall Maria was a top most priority, and you were set on doing everything in your power to assist the survey corps in that mission.
The rustling of fabric made you momentarily tense up. A chilling breeze hit the back of your neck as the cool air of dusk wafted in like a silent intruder.
You suppressed the urge to shudder and focused on the presence behind you, relaxing your shoulders again after you felt its familiarity. Still, a feeling of uneasiness lingered, as people usually sought you out for medical attention or to have you confirm someone’s death.
Luckily, the latter had been a rarity these past few days.
But either way, visitors were bad news.
“I’m aware you can’t knock on a tent the way you can knock on a door, but just barging in is still considered rude, you know?”
You felt his sharp grey eyes burning holes into your back as he closed the curtain behind him.
“Shut up, I’m only here because Hange forced me to have you look at this,” Levi replied flatly and you could feel the crease between his brows becoming deeper.
Something about him was off, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it yet.
You finished your task of cleaning your instruments before turning around and looking at him. His uniform was torn in several places, and parts of it were stained with blood. Blood which hadn’t evaporated. Human blood.
You swallowed the lump in your throat. There was no way he would be that calm if something bad had happened. He wouldn’t, right?
You briefly studied his face, looking for something that would tell you otherwise. But his stoic expression remained, and that was enough to convince you that you had nothing to worry about.
Wiping off your clammy hands on your white coat, you composed your thoughts and instead tried to focus on his injuries.
There was a small cut on his left cheek. The blood seeping out had already dried and crusted, sealing off the wound rather messily.
“Wow, you look like shit. How the fuck did this happen?” you finally asked, trying to conceal the concern in your voice.
He was humanity’s strongest soldier, so to see him hurt like this after a fight was alarming to say the least.
“The brats were being careless and I had to step in,” he explained nonchalantly, his tone shifting into annoyance ever so slightly. “Now would you please stop asking unnecessary questions and do your fucking job?”
You chuckled at his remark, remembering his strong dislike for hospitals and everything remotely similar. Guessing it had to do with growing up in the Undergrounds, you didn’t take it personally.
Relieved to hear that he could prevent further casualties, your anxiety slowly subsided. And although you wanted to press him for details, you respected his personal space and didn’t ask any more questions.
“Alright then. Sit down over there, I’ll clean it and have a look,” you pointed towards the stretcher in the back of the tent before putting on a pair of gloves and a head lamp.
The sun had set not too long ago, stealing away the last bits of daylight. The oil lamp on your desk provided enough light to glaze the inside of your tent in an amber hue. However, it was not enough to see everything clearly like you needed to.
He was paler than usual as you walked back over to stand in front of him.
As you examined his face, you noticed how almost ghostly white it seemed, and how the shadows underneath his eyes looked more prominent.
But you brushed it off as a figment of your imagination, considering your earlier anxiety, and started treating the cut on his cheek. It only took you a few minutes since the cut was mostly superficial and probably wouldn’t even leave a scar.
You were about to send him off again, when you noticed the front of his dress shirt was still wet with blood. But all the other stains had already dried.
“What is that?” you questioned him, looking at the fresh stain. The feeling of uneasiness suddenly returned to the pit of your stomach.
“Blood,” he deadpanned, already getting up to leave your tent.
Oh, he was testing your patience today and you weren’t having any of it.
“I see that, dickhead. And I’m not stupid. Take off your shirt, we’re not done yet.”
You could feel him rolling his eyes at you even with his back turned toward you. Levi paused in his tracks, carefully considering his next move.
He could just leave. He was still the captain; you couldn’t force him to do anything. You knew he wanted to escape and you couldn’t blame him, with all the shit that he had been through as a kid.
But in the end he did walk back to you.
Levi was stubborn, yes, but he wasn’t reckless.
Your heartbeat momentarily quickened as he unbuttoned his shirt, your eyes briefly glancing over his muscled chest. Oh how you hoped for time to slow down so you could savor this moment forever…
However, you hastily remembered that this was not the time to fantasize about your superior, and quickly banished every last one of your indecent thoughts from your mind.
Your breath caught in your throat when he took off the rest of his shirt. The flesh on his ribcage was torn badly, the wound so deep it must have bled for hours.
Anyone else would have already fainted by now, but he was the captain.
And his strength surprised you time and time again.
“Lie down, this one requires stitches,” you said softly, as if you were speaking to a scared child.
You grabbed the chair from your desk as he lay down on the stretcher facing you; then moved to sit in front of him.
A comfortable silence had settled around you as Levi let you tend to his wound. He didn’t flinch when you cleaned it with alcohol, and initially even refused the local anesthetic for stitching. There was no point in arguing with him about that though, as his stubbornness was unyielding.
You knew he would never admit to be in pain, but soon his expression had betrayed him. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and his knuckles were turning white with how tightly he gripped the edge of the bed.
He would have endured all of it, hadn’t you injected him despite his protests.
You just couldn’t stand to see him like this, even though he had probably gone through much worse in his life.
Levi rarely spoke unless he needed to, but you never considered his quietness to be impolite.
In fact, there was a mutual understanding between the two of you, even though you barely knew each other. Everything you knew about the raven haired man was either because someone else had told you, or through carefully observing his mannerisms.
He was both intriguing and intimidating, and you felt yourself drawn towards him.
You wanted nothing more than to solve this mystery of a man.
Even though he pushed you and everyone else away.
You also hooked him up on an IV, then leaned back in your chair as you waited for the painkillers and the anesthetic to take effect, while paying close attention to his body.
Soon enough his eyes were closed.
The muscles in his face relaxed.
His breathing became less labored.
That was your cue to thread the needle.
He perked up when you touched his skin, but nodded when you silently asked him for permission to start the stitches.
Halfway through, he suddenly startled you by breaking the silence.
“What,” he asked grumpily, his voice sounding hoarse.
You perked up and tilted your head in confusion, inspecting him curiously. His eyes were still closed and you were wondering where he was going with this.
He sighed when you didn’t answer him.
“I know something’s bothering you,” he said, turning his head towards you, “So just tell me now before it’s eating you up.”
“It’s a question, actually,” you murmured quietly, avoiding his gaze. And all of a sudden you were very conscious about how close he was.
“Then ask.”
You continued your task of stitching up his wound.
It took you a few seconds to carefully consider your choice of words, still contemplating on whether or not you should really ask what was bugging you.
“Why do you have such a hard time trusting someone?” Your voice came out a mere whisper, the sudden tension in the room almost unbearable.
He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by heavy stomping and a deafening shout from outside the tent.
“Oi, Levi! What the hell is taking so long? We’re about to start with-“
Hange’s head peeked through the curtain and a grin spread across her face when she spotted you both inside the tent. “Oh there you are! We were looking for you; Eren’s waiting outside.”
Beside you, Levi let out a sigh of annoyance when he heard the bubbly brunette; meanwhile you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.
You suppressed a chuckle, quickly finishing your stitches before answering her in Levi’s place.
“I’m almost done, Hange,” you responded, neatly dressing the wound with some clean gauze.
“But Levi can’t join the experiment tonight. He needs to rest,” you stated and to your surprise Hange nodded in agreement.
“Yes, I see,” she mumbled thoughtfully, before returning to her usual self. “That titan got you pretty good, didn’t it,” she joked which earned her a glare from Levi.
You smiled to yourself as you watched their bickering. After carefully removing the IV, you turned away to fill a small bag with supplies of gauze and antibiotics before handing it to Levi.
“Take one morning and night until they’re gone. You can re-dress the wound yourself tomorrow if you want to, or come to me and I’ll do it for you.”
He sat up and dipped his head, which was his form of thanking you, before re-buttoning his dress shirt.
Or rather what was left of it.
Then he left with Hange, who agreed to safely escort him to his quarters.
After they were gone, you wrapped up the mess and started cleaning up the rest of the blood. The spacious tent suddenly felt oppressing, and you couldn’t shake off the feeling that something had changed between you and Levi.
But you just had to wait and see to find out.
You stocked up on supplies before preparing the stretcher for your next patient, which assumingly would most likely be Eren.
Then you left the tent as well, just in time to join the experiment.
Groaning, Levi rolled over onto his back, hissing when a sharp pain shot through his side.
Straw was peeking through the sheets of his bedding, poking his skin and making it impossible to get comfortable.
It was past midnight already, but he had given up on sleep hours ago. His body was fucking exhausted, but it wasn’t the pain that kept him awake. It was his mind refusing to let him rest.
Not only was he wondering about the outcome of the experiment, he also couldn’t stop thinking about your question.
Well, why did he have a hard time trusting someone?
What a weirdly personal question to ask someone you barely know, he thought.
And Levi came to the conclusion that he couldn’t even answer this question for himself. And the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
No, your assumption was wrong. He did trust someone.
What about Erwin? Or even Four-Eyes?
He trusted them with his life. Not just him, but everyone else in the survey corps did.
His thoughts were interrupted once again when someone knocked on his door, telling him the experiment had failed.
Apparently, Eren had exhibited increasingly less control over his transformations, to the point his titan no longer appeared to its full size.
They would inform the commander first thing in the morning and then plan on returning to Trost.
He had listened intently, knitting his brows in the process.
They were running out of options.
Levi knew Erwin’s hopes of sealing Wall Maria would be crushed upon hearing this. But there just wasn’t enough time to further experiment, nor did they know hardly anything about titan abilities. And sooner or later the Military Police would find out about the Scout’s activities outside of the wall, which would have tremendous consequences.
Suddenly your smiling face flickered through his thoughts, and he absentmindedly brushed his fingers over the bandages on his side.
You weren’t a scout.
But you still belonged with the survey corps; you already did from the moment you had moved your office into the headquarters back in the days.
And Levi realized he didn’t want you to become tangled up in this conflict.
Because he trusted you as well.
You were the only one who knew how to breach his stubbornness. He hated you for it. But sometimes you knew better than he did himself what was good for him.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he needed you for exactly that reason.
Even though you sometimes irritated the fuck out of him.
“You look horrible,” Levi exclaimed as you joined him and Hange for breakfast in the kitchen the next morning.
“Good morning to you too, dickhead,” your voice dripped with sarcasm as you gave him a fake smile and sat down opposite him, then took a sip from your tea.
“No seriously,” he continued flatly, “You look worse than I do and I’m the injured one.”
You glared in frustration because you knew he was right. The shadows under your eyes were indeed worse than his, but it wasn’t your fault that you hadn’t gotten any sleep.
“Um, yeah, about that-“ Hange sheepishly scratched the back of her head while eating her food, before being cut off.
“Well, someone had to look after Eren growing back his face for the rest of the night,” you explained through gritted teeth, unintentionally causing her to choke on a piece of bread next to you.
After Eren had failed multiple attempts of turning into a Titan last night, Mikasa and Hange had been forced to cut him out of the last one, accidentally ripping off his face in the process. You had told them to take him into your tent, thinking Mikasa would stay by his side until he woke up.
But since you were the doctor, Hange had ordered you to keep an eye on his unconscious body while he regenerated.
Which took the whole. Fucking. Night.
At sunrise his face had been mostly back to normal, but he had still remained unconscious. You had decided to pass on sleep altogether, seeing as it wouldn’t be worth the effort now anyways. And with that in mind, you had followed the squad leaders into the kitchen.
You still glared but now at your tea instead of Levi. From the corner of your eye you could see his gaze switching between you and Hange, who was still violently coughing, until he decided it was best not to ask any more questions.
“He’s still knocked out by the way. You guys need to be more careful next time,” you added, half-heartedly poking around in your food.
Suddenly you had lost your appetite.
You were pretty sure there wouldn’t be a next time. Eren was doing his best, but sometimes even that wasn’t enough. He was still too weak.
“Well,” Hange spoke, voice still hoarse from all the coughing, “Hopefully he’ll be up in time when we leave for Trost. I suppose we should start packing up right away. The Military Police might already know what we’re doing and I don’t want to be here when they show up.”
Both you and Levi nodded in agreement, before the three of you continued to eat the rest of your breakfast in silence, then started gathering the rest of the scouts in the main hall.
Your feet were killing you.
You never thought you would miss being on horseback, considering how you always complained about it being uncomfortable as hell.
But, life was no bowl of cherries.
However, you made a mental note of never passing up sleep or food before travelling by foot ever again. That had been a mistake.
Not too long ago, you and the scouts had left the cabin behind and departed for your next destination.
The sun was already setting and soon enough you would reach the district of Trost.
“How are you feeling?” you ask while catching up to walk beside Eren.
You decided that distracting yourself with conversing was a good idea to take your mind off your aching body.
“I feel fine. Thanks to you,” he quietly mumbled, his cheeks turning pink ever so slightly.
“You’re welcome. But I just did my job, you know,” you smiled empathetically at him, sensing his embarrassment.
He seemed to be discouraged by the recent outcome of the experiment, and you couldn’t blame him for that. Eren was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders; you couldn’t imagine being in his shoes. He was still a child and the pressure had to be unbearable.
He nodded but kept his gaze locked onto the ground.
You really wanted to cheer him up. During your time at the cabin you had developed a soft spot for the boy, almost viewing him as the little brother you never had.
But you had never been good in finding the right words to say in a situation like this, and decided it was best to leave this to Armin or Mikasa.
Adjusting your backpack you fell back again, until you were walking in line with the captain.
He had actually come to you before departing for Trost, asking you to re-dress his wound. And you had happily obliged, failing to hide your enthusiasm. The wound had sealed nicely, and with luck the scar would only be a faint line.
“He really is our only chance, huh,” you sighed to Levi, studying Eren’s form, “Of taking back Wall Maria I mean.”
Levi glanced at you, and then dipped his head, “I believe so, yes.”
You slowly nodded in acknowledgement, absentmindedly chewing on your lip.
“Do you think he’ll be successful?”
Levi was quiet for a moment, as he took your question into consideration.
“I don’t know,” he replied eventually, narrowing his eyes at the horizon, “And it looks like we won’t find out. Not in the near future at least.”
You perked up hearing this. As he saw the quizzical look you gave him, he started to explain:
“The government demanded Eren and Historia be handed over.”
You momentarily stopped in your tracks, the graveness of this information hitting you like a flood.
“How do you know this?” you asked him in shock, the familiar feeling of uneasiness settling in the pit of your stomach.
He reached into his pocket, revealing a letter sent by Commander Erwin, and handed it to you.
You wasted no time and scanned its contents; a grim expression spreading over your face once you understood.
So the Military Police did find out, you thought, as you remembered your efforts of erasing all traces of experimenting with Eren’s Titan.
You wordlessly handed the letter back to Levi, who tucked it back into his pocket.
The chances of using the hardening ability to seal the hole in Wall Maria became slimmer each day, as new problems were thrown your way like massive rocks. Now even the government seemed to work against the scouts, and you suddenly felt extremely small in the midst of this chaos.
How could a mere doctor become tangled up in this political mess?
You were no soldier, not to mention you didn’t know anything about fighting titans either.
And you were set on keeping it that way.
Because your job was to treat, not to harm.
But as the gates of Trost District finally appeared in your field of vision, the atmosphere around you had shifted.
Soon you would find out that your part in this whole thing was much bigger than you had originally anticipated.