Author's Note: Okay, so I added a few things to chapters 2 and 3, as there had been a few careless mistakes on my part when I was first fleshing out this AU. Thank you SO much TigerHeart20 for pointing them out to me, your review was extremely helpful, and very much appreciated! ^^
I own nothing!
Enjoy, my fellow ~Dreamers!
Levi was the first one to wake the next day. It was before dawn, and the first thing he did in his conscious moments was look around the room, making sure everyone was accounted for. It was a habit, one that could not be broken so easily.
Levi had been jumped before in his sleep, several times in fact.
One time had been by Titans, who had slipped into his apartment unnoticed.
He had been recovering from a knife fight from the night before, and had downed an entire bottle of Scotch he had stolen on one of his smuggling jobs outside of the city, in order to dull some of the pain. The feeble amount of alcohol he consumed hadn't been nearly enough to get Levi drunk, but gave him some relief and helped him ease into a deep sleep.
That deep sleep had gotten him within reaching distance of three Titans, which he had to take out on his own, as there had been no one there with him to watch his back.
He hasn't had a drop of alcohol since then.
The second time had been by people, way back before the world was plunged even further into hell by the epidemic, when he had only just started living on his own.
Levi had been sleeping in a damp alleyway, laying on a flattened stack of cardboard boxes, and trying to keep warm enough so that he might see another morning. Four men that he had gone to high school with had grabbed him by his hair, throwing him face first into a deep puddle of water on the side of the road.
They had attempted to drown him.
One of the punks had made fun of Levi for his shorter stature, and earned himself a jaw broken in several different places, along with some missing teeth.
The fight had not been on school grounds, but in a park after sunset, so there were no witnesses, and the kid was too terrified of what Levi would surely do to him if he ever ratted him out.
The guy had been too scared of Levi to so much as look at him the wrong way in the crowded halls of their high school, even with plenty of witnesses and teachers present to break up the fight. However, the second the bastard had heard that Levi was living on the streets, he suddenly had the balls to challenge him, but only with some help, to cowardly to pick a fight on his own.
After both instances, Levi had quickly become a light sleeper.
He looked around him now, and make sure everyone was where they should be. Farlan was asleep across from where he sat, slumped against a wall with a blanket covering his body. Hanji and Isabel were cuddled up together in a sleeping bag, despite the warmth the fire pit provided, though the coals still burning had begun to smolder, requiring more firewood.
Petra was nowhere in sight.
Levi stood up quickly, yet quietly, so as not to wake the others. His ice grey eyes scanned the gym, coming to rest on the small room where Petra had stored all of her food, weapons, ammo, clothing, and medicine. The door was slightly ajar.
Silently but swiftly, Levi crossed the length of the gym, and strode up to the opened door.
Readying his knife in case it who he found was not Petra, Levi peered into the room.
Thankfully, what he had found had not been a Titan, or even a burglar.
Inside, Petra was sitting in a chair, and had unwrapped her bandages, her back bare of any articles of clothing. Her skin was pale, and her ribs visible. It was obvious to anyone that her body had known hunger, though Levi had to admit that he'd seen much worse. She still had a bit of muscle on her.
She was wincing, her body doubling over in pain as she disinfected her wound with alcohol, which she had poured onto a cloth. By the way her body appeared to tremble, she was either crying, or shivering violently, as the frigid autumn air hit her skin.
"Oi, what the hell are you doing up already?" Levi asked from behind her, causing her to let out a little squeak, startled by his sudden appearance. "You should be resting."
Levi watched as she furiously tried to compose herself, struggling to cover herself with her arms, reaching for her shirt on the floor. Wordlessly, he walked around her, and bent to pick up her dark shirt, and handed it to Petra so that she could cover her chest, not bothering to try and sneak a peek at her breasts. He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her.
"Don't worry, I won't look," he told her as he grabbed a fresh roll of gauze, noticing the tears in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill onto her face, which was beat red. "You came in here so that you could change your dressing, right?"
Petra nodded once, wincing again as Levi disinfected her wound, not convinced she had cleaned it thoroughly enough herself.
"I didn't want to wake Hanji or Isabel," she admitted, her voice shaking a little. "Besides, I've rested enough. I need to go water the plants in the greenhouse. If they die, I'll have nothing to eat but whatever expired food I happen to find around town."
"You think you're in any condition to go off on your own?" Levi reprimanded as he began to carefully wrap her shoulder in gauze.
Petra did her best to help him out, lifting her arms slightly so that he could maneuver around her upper chest, somehow managing to keep hold of her shirt and keep herself covered.
She felt cooler, he thought, no longer running a fever, and he wondered if the shower the night before had lowered her temperature, at least for the time being. Levi knew things would go much faster if she would just drop the shirt and let him get to her collarbone, but refrained, letting her have the peace of mind that he would not see her naked torso.
Once he had tied off Petra's bandages, Levi got behind her and helped her pull on her shirt, before returning to stand in front of her.
"Thank you," Petra told him, panting a little from the pain all of the movement had triggered. He only grunted in response.
Both of them were quiet for a moment, neither knowing what to say next, until finally, Levi broke the silence.
"How long have you been on your own?" he asked her.
"…About six months now," Petra answered him, leaning heavily on the back of her chair for support.
"This isn't the type of world a person can go it solo anymore, kid," Levi stated plainly, getting straight to the point. "What happened to your last group?" he asked, knowing she had to have been with some other people before her second group.
"We were separated when Trost fell. We said we were gonna meet up in district Rose, but I never found them. We were together for a year and a half. The family I was with before that only made it two weeks. And you don't look much older than me, so stop calling me kid," she told him, annoyed he had yet to call her by her name. "How old are you anyway?"
"Twenty eight," Levi answered boredly. "You?"
Petra knew he was probably older than her, but not that much older. She gestured to a pamphlet behind him, which turned out to be a calendar. The dates from the year prior had been scratched out, the corrections in day and number written over the incorrect, outdated digits.
"Today should be November eleventh. I'll be nineteen December sixth," she informed him, flipping through the calendar absentmindedly. Petra saw the dates of her friends' birthdays, sad she would not be celebrating another with them.
Closing the calendar, she tossed it back to Levi, who returned it to its place on the wall behind him.
"Where did you learn to fight like that?" Levi asked her, referring to the other day when she had defended Isabel from the bandits.
"I took a few self-defense classes way back when. Okay, so like, two and a half years ago. My parents were never really home, so at first it was just something to do. Being home alone all the time made me sort of paranoid," she admitted.
"What about free running?" Levi inquired. Surely there was no class for that.
"Two of the guys in my last group taught me. The third guy, was just sort of there for the comic relief, but he was huge. The two girls were in gymnastics, and helped me become more flexible and work on my balance. In return, I taught them all how to kick box," Petra explained.
Levi watched as her mood darkened, turning more serious.
"We were all orphans, either from the epidemic, or from before that, so we stuck together, like a big family. I..never had any brothers or sisters, so the kids were like family to me. We lost a lot of people in our group. Mostly the younger kids, either because they got sick or starved. The rest of us trained to get stronger, so that we wouldn't lose anyone else."
"…Is that why you went off on your own?" Levi guessed after a moment, processing everything she had just said. "Because you're afraid of losing people."
Petra nodded, her eyes dead.
Levi stood up, looking down at Petra, still sitting in the chair.
"…I may not have known your friends, or your family," he admitted. "But I do know one thing: that they would have wanted you to live, Petra," Levi told her, finally calling her by her name. "You spending the rest of what are sure to be your last days alone is not how any of them would've wanted you to go out."
He allowed her a few moments to process what he had just said. Petra's eyes were no longer dead, but burned with a sparkling fire, as she brushed the tears off of her face with the sleeve of her shirt. Nodding in agreement with him, Petra's looked down, as she studied her feet, not knowing what else to say.
It was then that Levi had noticed that Petra had pulled on a pair of boots, though they were still unlaced. Kneeling before her, Levi tugged off her shoes, freeing her feet. Ignoring her weak protests, he stood back up, slipped one arm under her knees, and the other behind her back.
Levi lifted Petra up like a man would a bride, carried her out of the supply room, and returned her to her mountain of comforters that acted as her bed. He laid her back down, covering her with blankets.
"It's not even dawn yet, go back to sleep," he ordered her. "We'll wake you when breakfast is ready."
Petra nodded, suddenly feeling very sleepy again, wanting to hurry and escape the pain in her arm, if only for a few hours. Levi brought her a few pain pills, and some water to wash them down. He had told her that the others should be waking up soon, and that he was going to go get some more firewood.
But when he saw how fearful Petra looked when he had announced that he was leaving, Levi sat down beside her, promising to stay until she fell asleep.
She was out within minutes.
Levi returned an hour later, after filling a tarp with fallen tree branches he had broken apart in a local park. Farlan and Hanji were already awake, while Isabel and Petra continued to sleep. Hanji was trying to scrounge up some breakfast, and Farlan was looking intently at a sheet of paper,
"What's that?" Levi asked the man as he set the firewood down, leaving the revival of the dwindling coals of fire to Hanji.
"A map of the town," Farlan replied. "Found it in Petra's supply room. She's circled a few areas on the map: the fire station, this place, and this other building just off of Main Street."
Levi came up beside the man, so that he could see the map. "That building's near where we found Isabel and Petra during the fire fight."
"Think it's the greenhouse Petra mentioned?" Hanji asked.
"We can ask Petra when she wakes up," Farlan told them, their eyes traveling over to the still sleeping girls.
"I doubt that'll be anytime soon," remarked Levi, remembering how weak she had been earlier that morning, how light she had felt in his arms.
"Isabel might recognize the building if she saw it again," Hanji offered. "One of us can go with her later and collect more food."
"Go where?" asked the voice of Isabel, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with one hand. "To the greenhouse?"
"We're getting low on food again," Levi told them. "I caught Petra trying to sneak off this morning. She said the plants need watering or something."
"She what?" Hanji said, astonished. "Petra's in no condition to be moving around on her own!"
"I told her as much," muttered Levi.
"I can take Isabel to try and hunt down the greenhouse," Farlan offered. "We can stock up on food and take care of the plants, since Petra obviously can't."
Levi nodded, before uttering his next words.
"How do you guys feel about her joining us?" Levi asked seemingly out of nowhere, taking the four of them by surprise.
"Really aniki?!" exclaimed Isabel, already hyped about the idea.
"Do I ever joke?" stated the shorter thug bluntly.
"Well, I'm okay with it," Farlan stated. "She seems pretty cool to me."
"Hanji?" Levi asked, wanting her opinion as well, but the crazy way the brunette looked at him said it all. She was absolutely thrilled with the idea, and began ranting on how Petra could help her with her inventions.
The decision was unanimous. Petra would soon become the newest edition to the Corps gang, regardless of whatever answer she gave them.
Hanji snuck a peek at Levi, noting the way his eyes held a hint of joy in them, instead of their usual malice.
In the other room, pretending to sleep, Petra's mind was racing. These guys wanted her to join their gang?! It was almost too much to believe.
She looked up at the picture of her parents on the ceiling above her, and thought about all of her friends in her last group. When Petra imagined what all of them would tell her to do, the answer she came up with all amounted to the same thing.
Finding her resolve, Petra made her decision: she would join their gang.
Not only for the protection, but also so she could start to live again. Petra wanted to laugh again, have someone there to watch her back if ever she got herself into a sticky situation, something these people had already done for her, when they had shot the bandits to save her.
Relaxing, Petra fell back into what would be a deep, peaceful sleep, free of nightmares, knowing that her new friends would be there for her when she woke up.