A/N: This is the final real chapter. HOWEVER, there will be an epilogue which I highly suggest reading. Petra will be involved. Anyway, here you go...


"You're kidding! He listened to you?"

"He prayed with me."

"Unbelievable."

Erwin sat at his desk, back to the window, tired eyes trained on Hanji.

"So what did you say?" she asked while leaning forward on the chair she had dragged from the table to sit across from the commander.

"Before I prayed with him I told him the story about the rich man and the afterlife," he said, and then motioning towards his bookshelf continued, "I looked for my documents first but then I remembered that you were borrowing them." Erwin knew that Hanji was going to ask why he had chosen that specific story so he hastened to answer it before she interrupted.

"Why that one?" Apparently he hadn't hurried quickly enough.

"I was about to explain that."

Hanji nodded and touched a hand to her mouth while casting her eyes down to the floor. "Woops," she mumbled, "go ahead."

Erwin smiled. "I told Levi that one because he wouldn't be able to relate to it very well. I wanted him to feel removed from the characters while at the same time being interested to hear what happens to them."

The commander surprised himself sometimes with his ability to intuit things. He hadn't consciously been thinking those thoughts while he conversed with Levi last night; in fact, he had been able to keep his mind quiet, serene even. Maybe it was this ability that allowed him to make quick decisions in combat that almost always seemed far more thought out than they actually were.

"One of the attributes that makes Levi, Levi, is that he hates being manipulated. He can smell it five kilometers off. If I told him a story that applied too directly to him, then even despite his trust in me, he would shut down immediately."

Hanji snorted in agreement.

"Wealth and religion have never been of much interest to him…" Erwin paused for a second, turning over the idea that maybe they had and Levi just hadn't said anything "…at least, to my knowledge." He paused again, this time looking toward Hanji, his gaze asking if she had anything to say.

The scientist felt his eyes and without removing the long chunk of hair she had shoved inside one of her goggle lenses she replied, "Keep going, I wanna hear the end."

Erwin sighed as he noticed the goggles but decided not to make a comment. Hanji had never been very good at sitting still and listening to other people talk but she really did try. It wasn't that she wasn't interested in what other people had to say, either, it was just that she was a bouncy person who had trouble focusing on things that she couldn't touch and feel with her hands. This attribute of hers bothered a lot of people and had caused several conflicts and quite a few hurt feelings, but the commander knew that this was just the way she was. It was fortunate that she liked working with the titans so much; she could say or do anything to them and they'd just smile on with their stupid, hulking grins.

"My thinking was that if I told him a story that he couldn't easily insert himself in, he would be more likely to take it to heart. He has never been someone who cares only about what people do; he wants to know why they do it."

Hanji began nodding slowly as a slight smile inched across her face.

"So if I'm right," Erwin continued, "and I'm almost certain that I am, Levi wasn't moved by the decision that the rich man made. He was moved by what motivated him to doubt himself in the end."

"I get it," Hanji said while tipping her head back to look at the wood ceiling, brown hair still in one goggle, "I think."

Just then there was a knock at the door, neither soft nor hard but a surprisingly neutral tap for anyone in their squad to be giving.

Erwin stood up from his chair and walked over to the door in his usual brisk manner while Hanji followed him with her one unobstructed eye.

"Hey," a worn voice murmured.

"Hanji," Erwin asked, turning around to face the scientist, "can you pull a chair up for Levi?"

She nodded and stood up to drag another table chair over.

"Tch, I don't need a chair. I'm not staying."

"That's fine. What do you need?"

"Well can I come in for a second? You don't have to talk to me through a crack in the door for goodness sakes. I have legs, I can stand."

Erwin didn't smile but his face softened as he opened the door wide for Levi, ushering him in then shutting it behind them with a click.

"Hi Levi!" Hanji beamed.

"Did you stab yourself in the eye with a fire poker or something?"

"No, I can only handle so much of your dashing looks," she laughed exaggeratedly while pulling the hair out of her goggle. "That can get annoying after a while," she said, pointing to the long, brown strands that now hung limply from her head.

"I would imagine so," Levi replied sarcastically and then turning to the commander quickly added, "Hey, Erwin, I need to talk to you."


Levi squinted and rolled over, one of his legs twisted in the sheet and the other hanging off of the bed. The sun was streaming through his windows and he really wished that he had let Armin put those canvas drapes up a few days ago. He had been too depressed, though, and had pretended he wasn't there when Armin knocked on the door.

"Mmph." Levi muttered as he fumbled for the wristwatch he kept on his nightstand.

Well this is great. They're probably half way through breakfast by now. Swinging his legs to the floor he stood up and stretched. Erwin probably won't care that I didn't show up…shit, he shouldn't since he was the one that kept me up so late. He shuffled into his bathroom and scrubbed his face with a rough towel, hoping to undo all the tears that he had shed. I look like hell.

He threw his crew neck shirt to the floor and stared at his reflection unabashedly. The cut wasn't twenty-four hours old but it already felt like a scar. Had he moved that far away from where he'd been last night? Was that really last night? He looked at his hands and imagined them holding the sword to his chest. That couldn't have really happened. But he had never been one for fantasizing and he knew full well that it had indeed happened and he had run to the commander, desperate and lost, and he had sat with him gulping tea and devouring shortbread, and he had listened to Erwin's weird story and he had…prayed with him.

Levi didn't like thinking about that.

Water began to gurgle and he realized that he'd left the plug in the drain and the sink was overflowing. Dammit. Even though he knew the water was fresh, he didn't revel in the thought of sticking his hand in the basin and uncorking the drain. Sinks always seemed dirty, even if they belonged to him. You can't really clean a sink because sinks are for washing dirty things. This had always bothered him but he usually could ignore it. Now, however, he could not.

He grunted, more in his head than out loud and plunged his hand into the cold. As soon as he pulled the plug the water rushed down the drain in a powerful whirlpool, taking the remaining soapsuds with it. He threw his towel on the floor and stamped on it, trying to make the fabric suck up the overflow. Leaning down to inspect the damage, Levi felt a steady stream of cool liquid dripping on the crown of his head and down his neck.

You have got to be kidding me.

The sink was overflowing again, this time with chunks of the baking soda he used to brush his teeth and other undesirable things cascading over the edge.

At least now he had a good reason for skipping breakfast and morning announcements.


Ten minutes later the sink was unclogged, the floor was clean, and Levi was dressed. After twenty, he had almost finished getting on his maneuver gear. The straps buckled more easily, it seemed, but it was probably just his brain trying to compensate for cleaning up that disgusting garbage.

He grabbed his boots from where he had strewn them by his bed the night before and wriggled into them. They were chilly like the rest of the room and he wished he had thought to leave them on the iron stove in the hallway that heated their corridor like he usually did. He shoved them on anyway, figuring that his body heat would warm them up soon enough.

He should have been walking out of his door by now, walking to the mess hall or to Erwin's office to see what he needed to do for the day. But for some reason, he wasn't. Something was making him need to check his hair in the bathroom mirror one more time, tighten the belt on his left leg, meticulously inspect his jacket for wrinkles. Something was making him stay in his room and he didn't even realize it until he had straightened his pillow and quilt for the third time.

Was he…embarrassed?

"Levi heicho!" A gargled scream rattled through the hall and bashed against the door harder than the hand that shoved it open. "Sunflower is really sick!"

Levi was only slightly surprised to see that the woman at the door was not Hanji but her younger counterpart, Sasha. They were pretty much identical. Fanatical obsessions, unearthly jubilance, and that annoying grin that they both seem to share when they're excited…

"Mm." Why did she come to me? I'm not some stable boy.

"Heicho, this is serious! I need your help."

"Why are you running to me? I don't know shit about horses."

Ha, I actually know quite a lot of shit about horses but Sasha doesn't know that.

"Yes you do!", she pled, "I've seen how scrupulously you take care of yours when no one is looking."

Nevermind, apparently she does.

"Like I give a shit if anyone is looking."

"Heicho! Please!"

Levi rolled his eyes and sighed, "Spill it."

"All of her water is gone. I filled her bucket last night to the top and now it's all gone. Normally she only drinks about a third of the bucket and there's plenty to last her the whole next day but this morning I went to groom her like I always do—"

"You groom her every day? Even when we're not going anywhere?"

"Umm, yeah? What's the point of having a horse if it's too filthy to ride anywhere?"

"Valid point," he said while failing to hold back a smirk.

"Anyway, I went to groom her and her bucket was tipped over and the water was gone."

"I don't see how that means she's sick."

At this point it was clear that Sasha was trying very hard to be respectful to her superior. "She probably has colic."

"Psh, no she doesn't. I was out there last night, she was fine. The water bucket was half empty and everything was cheery. Don't worry about it, Sasha. Bring this stuff to Hanji or Armin or Jean Bootface next time," he said as he made his way towards the door. "I have things to do," his voice was muffled as he threw on his jacket, "you should get a move on, too."

There was a pause, one that felt a bit too heavy for the discourse they had just shared. It was long enough for a finch to hop across the outer windowsill and pierce them with its beady eyes before chirping away. It was also was long enough for Levi to swallow just a little more thickly than usual and wonder for a second whether he should have said that about being outside.

Sasha kicked at the floor with her boot. She almost said something but thought of the consequences too quickly and returned to her normal composure without saying a word. At least, that's how it looked to Levi. He never knew what was going on inside people's heads. Pretending he did had gotten him pretty far, though. This skill sometimes made him want to throw in something witty just for the sake of being able to do it; he hated that, and he hated people that relied on that to make a name for themselves. So now, as the silence grew more uncomfortable, he resisted every urge he had to say something clever and leave with his usual straight face and a whoosh of his cloak.

"I'm really glad you didn't do it." Her voice echoed everywhere except the room. Each one of those seven words bombarded him like bullets to an eternal heart, cursed to immortality but victim to pain. She had seen.

Do what?

What are you talking about?

I'm glad I didn't make you captain of the squad, too.

None of them worked. There was nothing he could say that could deflect her question. No, it wasn't even a question, it was a comment, a dead ender, a statement that held so much truth a lie would be like watercolour on black ink.

"Thanks."

He let the sentiment hang. She blinked, and a slow, whiskey warm smile that made her face glow spread across her lips. This one was different from her usual Hanji-inherited, possibly titan inspired smile; this one traveled miles from the bottom of her heart.

"You got it, Heicho."


Levi had barely made it into the office before Hanji jumped up to hug him. He expected to be crushed in one of her overly friendly, uncomfortable hugs, but to his surprise he wasn't. She didn't say anything as she wrapped her arms around his back, trapping his arms to his sides; apparently she didn't expect reciprocation this time; and she didn't hold him too long either, letting go after just a few seconds. She stepped back with a warm smile and tussled his hair.

"You're gonna have to tell me if it works." She didn't sound as maniacal as she normally did. In fact, she sounded slightly subdued. He could tell she was excited though, that glint in her eye that sparkled whether she was wearing glasses or not betrayed her even tone.

Hanji had a thing for uncharted territory. She loved learning and discovering things before anyone else and then sharing it with the world. It wasn't that she wanted to be in a position of authority over others; well, she did, but not for that reason. She was more like an eccentric Lewis and Clark combined into one person and minus Sacagawea. She just wanted to know.

"Ok?" she prompted after his gaze had remained blank.

"Yeah, yeah but you'll probably be disappointed. I don't think it works like that," he replied, deciding not to play dumb and ask what 'it works' meant, "it's not like medicine or something," he finished, but he wasn't entirely sure that was true so he shifted his eyes slightly to Erwin in a silent question.

"Right," came the commander's clipped response, which he immediately softened with a smile.

Hanji scoffed. "Bwah, you're no fun, Erwin. Don't be so stuffy," she said while waving a hand towards a chair for Levi to sit.

He sat down and faced both of them. "I have some questions for you," he said, eyes on the commander, and then turning to Hanji he continued, "and you too, if you're up on the history of this stuff. I want to know how it works," he paused not knowing if he should stop talking there.

"Sure thing, I'll be glad to tell you everything I know," Hanji drooled, obviously much more than glad to enlighten him with all of the facts and information she had gathered from Erwin's documents.

The commander leaned back in his chair more casually than usual and said, "I'll do my absolute best to ensure you have the fullest understanding of this that anyone can." He was always kind, even when he was serious.

The room was warmer, a lot warmer than last night. There were fewer shadows and more shafts of light that reflected gold on the dust floating in the air. It smelled more cedary than it had last night, too, probably because the temperature was making the floorboards expand. The clock was ticking but it wasn't nearly as intimidating as it was a few hours ago. Outside he could see Sasha and Connie in the fields splashing each other with water. It was still too cold to get wet, even in the sun, but those two were maniacs. He wondered what it would be like to be them, infantile and carefree, and for the first time since he could remember, he was glad he was himself. Maybe that's part of what letting God or whatever love you does; you're finally ok with admitting who you are, and maybe by that admittance you can become stronger, better. Those were all just thoughts, as always, but they released an intangible glow of hope in his chest.

He was glad that he had friends. He had friends. He had never really realized it before. And as Erwin sat at his desk organizing papers while waiting for Levi to speak, and as Hanji wiggled ecstatically in anticipation to tell him all about the manuscripts, he thought

I have so much more…than I thought I did.

And Levi couldn't help but smile.

The End


A/N: I'm dying to hear what you guys think of this. I, personally, adore this ending. I expected the story to go on for longer but as I was writing this chapter I realized that this is where it is supposed to end. That being said, as I stated above, I'm writing an epilogue. You should always read epilogues; they are essential to every story.