Chapter 21

Levi didn't let me do much the next couple days. Even when he wasn't around Lily was magically there to make sure the furthest I went upon getting out of bed was the bathroom. It's not like she understood why I was being treated like a spindly glass figurine but she babbled on about how Levi was going to help clean her house. It seemed to be an efficient bribe.

At first I was surprised that my friend was not angry at Levi for his comments when he first entered her room but I eventually took it in stride that I wasn't the only one who saw through the asshole tendencies he had.

Friday night smoothly slid in with this deluge of inactivity still flowing more than it ebbed and Erwin was still waiting at the train station for Levi's family. Meanwhile the resident jerkwad that I happened to love dearly was wearing a rut into the carpet with his incessant pacing. Truth be told I couldn't remember a time when Levi openly fretted like this.

Of course, the instant I tried to get out of his bed he was right there pushing me back down. It was a delicate push and I was still trying to get used to my usually rough boyfriend being gentle, even with so much reasoning behind it, so, partially out of shock, I didn't resist his touch and instead allowed him to pin me down. The lack of resistance to that was a huge improvement despite how little I accepted anyone else's nearness.

"Are you finally going to let me kiss you like I want to, Shitty Woman?" His voice conveyed frustration and there was a lacing of dissatisfaction for the current lack of skinship between us but his eyes, always far more expressive than any other part of his being, only showed genuine concern.

I felt a smile curl my lips. "Scared?" The question would have been unfair if not for the teasing lilt in my voice. Even so his eyes flashed darkly for the barest of seconds.

"More that I don't appreciate how much it hurts when you flinch away from me." His reply ended in a snort but it was all too obvious that he wasn't joking and for the first time in a little under a week I initiated an attempt at intimacy.

I shook one hand free from his grasp and reached to caress the short bristles of his undercut. Then, slowly, nervously I pulled him to me. Levi, being the impatient little fuck he always was, leaned in on his own and placed his lips against mine with only vague concern for gentleness. He took the soft moan that escaped my throat as a go ahead to slid his tongue past my lips. My body went rigid, a clear warning that he was going too far too fast, but as he hungrily licked the roof of my mouth all the fears cropping up melted back into the recesses of my mind for a short time much like a swarm of cockroaches avoiding a dying flash light.

"Hurry up and go back to normal, Shitty Woman." I couldn't figure out what his tone implied; whether he was annoyed, concerned, impatient or anything else. It was so chock full of feeling I couldn't separate anything and his eyes hid behind that too convenient fringe of hair. The words themselves were enough to scrunch my nose in something like distaste.

It wasn't like I wasn't trying to quickly get over my anxieties. It wasn't like I didn't reprimand myself every time a ghost of Levi's touch made me jump out of my skin. It hurt me as much as it hurt him because I knew that Levi was safe and I knew nothing terrible would come from his touch. I also knew from the light dimming slowly from his eyes that my reactions were devastating, that when I jolted he knew it was because I thought, even if for only a second that he was as much a threat as those men had been. I was subconsciously lumping him, the person I trusted and loved most, in with rapists, with people who hurt me.

"I can't help it!" I snapped because that was all I could think to do. I got angry because I didn't know how else to feel. "Go back to normal? What's that supposed to mean? How am I supposed to do that, huh? Would you write a guide for me? Because I sure as hell have no idea what your idea of normal is!"

Levi's face grew dark and it took me a minute to realize I had just insinuated that Levi didn't know me as well as I knew he did. I was waiting for him to snap, to use his acid tongue to punish me because I knew full well that I'd been acting unforgivable and that now I had definitely gone too far but he just leaned in until we were nose to nose. This close, I could see the stress and worry and hurt pooling on his usually stoic and unmoving features. He was tired and he was sad and he was still blaming himself. It was so clear with him this close.

His voice, when he spoke, was calm but distant and it was still full of too many things to determine much of anything. "Then actually think about it. Think about how well I know you and all the things we've been through and then think about everything you know about me and the reasons you love me. When you're done thinking about it actually realize what the fuck I am saying."

At first I didn't want to comply with his instructions. I was being belligerent and petty but Levi just curled up next to me like a cat the same way he always did after we had sex. He wrapped a hand around my right arm intentionally brushing his thumb against the scar there and as he sighed an 'I'll wait' kind of sigh I couldn't help thinking about things.

Levi knew all my quirks. My tendency to fan girl, my dorky dance moves while I cleaned, he knew my inability to keep my stupidity to myself and so many other things. There was a lifetime of information that Levi knew about me and how I reacted; how I squawked like a dying chicken when he pushed me off the bed and the irrational way I always figured him out even when he was terrible at just saying what he meant. We'd been through secrets and suicide. He knew all my demons and I knew a fair bit of his but I'd never been afraid of him and he'd never been disgusted with me. Levi, he was blunt and crass and had a cruel streak from time to time, especially when he wanted you to figure something out on your own. He had the glare of the devil and the voice of an angel and when all else failed he could always express whatever he needed through music.

Levi knew more pain, had been through so much agony so he was closed off and didn't let people in easily. He awkwardly displayed a destructive love that kept people at arm's length by his choice and the other party's. He took things on his own shoulders, grabbed responsibility and blame like it was a coat that, instead of keeping out the chill, kept his own coldness close, all while telling people that they should make the choices they least regret; and maybe Levi didn't regret anything but he still mourned his choices and he still shrouded his heart in funeral black for the lives he felt responsible for.

Yet, with Levi around I felt like I had something to myself. It wasn't the sun or a spring day, Levi wasn't a warm, bright person that brought happiness and light. Levi was like a freezing blizzard in the mountains, the calm silence of snow surrounding everything, muffling all else until it was just you and the storm. He was the small, barely sound cabin in that tempest that offered a hearth and the whistling music of wind between logs. He was all encompassing, cozy to the unstable, dangerous to the sane. Levi was everything. While some men were an island, Levi was the galaxy; a beautiful sea of cold darkness and pinprick lights shining from so far away they were most likely already gone.

As cliché as it sounded I loved Levi more for the bad things that were uniquely him than for the positives that everyone scrambled to notice. I loved that he was rude and mouthy. I loved how he called me Shitty Woman and never ever knew the perfect thing to say but ended up making everything ok because he was who he was.

Levi was the person who brought color to my darkness. It was because of him that the grey of his eyes appeared when I looked at the world from behind my eyelids. And I was the person who made Levi's sepia life beautiful. I gave the drab, lifeless photograph of his world meaning.

Hurry up and go back to normal. The normal me who, even after hearing his darkness, even after watching him fight, never ever jumped away from him or flinched as he came near. I don't even know how I changed from the girl who never turned my gaze from the door even when hell was upon me to this jittery creature that couldn't handle being around the man I spent that time waiting so diligently for.

Somehow in the aftermath, amidst the issues and fears and cries, I forgot the things that made Levi so important to me. Looking over at the curled up figure beside me I could see calm gray eyes calculating every move I made, every shift in my body language, every flicker of movement across the side of my face that he could see. He was just sitting there; waiting for my mind to clear the last hurtles in its mad dash for understanding.

Even if the world was going to shit and the fires of Hell were raging on Earth Levi would be my safe haven. And, in the rare case that Levi and I were separated he would move Heaven and Earth, split bone and sinew, carve through stone or armies to get to me once more because he loved me and I loved him and we belonged beside one another.

As effortlessly as blinking I lay down next to Levi, somewhat forcing him to straighten out so that we could lie chest to chest. Some small portion of my mind thought it might be a good idea to apologize for being a heinous bitch but that part was smothered in tar and incinerated by a hormone Molotov cocktail that insisted quite convincingly that I should kiss Levi and generally become a leech for as long as possible because all of a sudden my mind and body decided to remind me exactly how good it felt to be with him.

As things escalated I realized how hungry I was for his attention; I was desperate for it because God how I had missed it, all of it. The way his fingers caught in my hair and his weight pressed against me as he took control. The way he devoured me completely. The inviting way he pressed his hips against mine and the way his tongue slid against my teeth, begging for entry. I missed him and had been refusing what had been waiting so patiently to be let back in because of my own reckless abandonment of reason, because I allowed myself to sink into an unfounded fear. Not all men would hurt me and nothing dangerous would come near me, would get the chance to touch me, if Levi was protecting me.

"Feeling better?" Levi's mouth twisted into the all too familiar smirk he'd been hiding as I pulled away first and at the sight I burst into tears.

Really? I couldn't quite understand how I was suddenly crying but Levi just laughed. "Pfft, I missed you too, Love."

"That's new," I managed as I tried to stop blubbering.

"I figure it would be bad to constantly swear at you like it's your name. At least for the first couple years. Good parenting through example or some shit like that." The admission sent me reeling.

It wasn't that I thought Levi was going anywhere but that didn't necessarily mean I was aware that he would stay. Hearing a comment pertaining to years in advance…it filled me with joy. But, with the timing of some stupid romantic comedy, someone knocked on the door and I knew that my cruel lover wanted to have his fun.

Levi Point of View:

What was I gonna do with this shitty woman? It's like she completely forgot everything about me. I mean, yes I still struggled with reconciling that part of me that is wallowing in guilt, yes I still thought that if I were stronger, better, smarter I could have prevented Riley from being taken, but at least all along I knew I would get her back. And I knew that the safest place in the world for her was beside me.

I knew that. I knew that while I was a murderer and a fiend, while I'd hurt dozens of people, crushed countless hopes and desires, while I'd lived an amoral life of sex and death I would belong to her for as long as she would belong to me. She accepted me and loved me and I would be damned if the woman who repeatedly claimed that she wasn't going anywhere and that she wasn't afraid of me continued to treat me like I would ever do anything to hurt her.

And I get it. I've been around more than enough trauma in my life to know what it looks like and I will always blame myself for being a guy or being rough rather than blame her for cringing after what happened, that's really kind of a 'no shit' moment. But seeing this one woman who was more than my life to me hide under the covers when I came to check on her or turn her head to the side when she catches my eye actually hurt. It was funny because I thought even five months ago that there was no one in this world that could affect me. But here was Riley who'd wormed her way in and now, when I was should have been the comfort she needed, she couldn't stand my touch. It was agony even if I did understand why.

When I asked if she was feeling better she burst into tears; God damn hormones. Pregnant women were probably the only thing in the world that actively terrified me. Maman used to get incredibly angry over the simplest shit. Riley seemed to cry in varying degrees of hysteria with little provocation and she seemed quite willing to now that she knew she was carrying my kids. To think, she'd been holding it in for two months; the random strong urge to have a meltdown must have been confusing.

What got me is that, for some random reason, when I mentioned not swearing at her for a few years her face lit up like a gasoline soaked Christmas tree. Did the idiot still not fully understand I was staying by her or something? She was truly and completely a shitty woman.

I didn't get the chance to scold her though because there was a knock on the door and if it was Erwin he would walk right in. Of course the door swung wide and Maria came flying through to launch herself at me like a daft superhero taking a bite outta crime with Rose acting as interim sidekick right behind her. Sina walked in with more decorum and Maman stood in the doorway looking around thoughtfully.

"Ew, get a room!" Rose complained as she spotted me pinning Riley to the bed. Said pinned woman blushed a shade reminiscent of a glass of Merlot and seemed to be firing up a comment when Maria reminded the tom boy twerp that this was my room.

"It's so boring in here." Sina pointed out the lack of decoration bluntly as she scanned the bare walls and minimalistic, basic furniture.

"That's how I like it, this place is only temporary." I watched as she opened the cupboard above my sink and rolled my eyes as she laughed at the array of dish soaps therein.

"Levi," Maman's cautious voice convinced me to put in the effort to climb off my girlfriend. "You said you would explain everything… Your sisters have been hearing horrible rumors in school about Riley and also about you."

"Most of the stories probably have some basis in truth." I admitted heavily. I explained the events of the past two months starting with the an in depth accounting of what happened in Central Park with the deranged fan and all the notes left behind. I recounted each message and the attached screen name verbatim and when I found her. I told them the little incidents I was sure Riley didn't even notice where fans would throw garbage or send disturbing hate mail to the P.O box she listed as a fan mail address and then into the note that the fan group managed to get to the staff along with a description of the photo shopped pictures that came with the note.

"They managed to get it to the people that run this shit hole?" Rose asked, equal parts shocked and angry.

"One of the women behind the desk called me over and handed it to me." Riley admitted softly. "I didn't think anything of it."

"Can I see the photos?" Sina demanded more than she asked so I just jerked my thumb to my dresser.

"Top drawer in the back," I told her grimly and the conversation stopped while my sisters gawked at the almost impressive picture and made note of the various details. "Almost directly after that letter was received Arlert called about a YouTube video someone sent to him. One of those bitches recorded audio of me and Riley having sex and put the file up with a black screen."

"Someone was complaining that that hacker friend of yours completely locked down the site for a couple days last week. The school blocks YouTube so I wouldn't know but it seemed serious. We had some guy come in asking if we knew his whereabouts but all I know is that he's blonde and short and that he goes to the yearly barbeque." Rose said listlessly. It was interesting to know they were trying to send a suit after Arlert and that they were asking high school students. I should tell him.

"That was Arlert's response," I told her calmly. "We went on high alert after that and I was the one to drive the Shitty Woman to an appointment she had to attend when a cop car pulled us over and allowed a set of those fan girls to drug her and drag her away." From there I explained the video that was also uploaded to the web and how we found my lover.

"They did what?" Sina's voice was foreboding, dark as a winter night without power and just as cold.

"Four of them tag teamed her and they recorded it." I repeated, the slight tremble in my voice the only thing belying my calm. When I finally explained what happened in that basement room and about Hitch basically giving us license to be vigilantes there was a silence wherein I could almost imagine the ticking my sisters would be making if they were bombs. I knew what was coming, planned on it in fact, because my sisters were far too like me in some respects; honor, pride and protection being only three.

"So, you didn't kill them?" Maria broke the silence and it was like ice had been given the ability to speak.

"I did not."

"You let them go?" Rose asked; a lesser trained eye would have missed her tremors.

"My mind was on something more important." It was so easy to egg them on and as predicted all three of them exploded. They launched at me in a much different way than before, all three set to draw blood. The Shitty Woman looked scared as hell, as if the trio was trying to hurt her and cringed in on herself reflexively, all instincts crying out to protect her stomach.

Maria was the first to stop and, on instinct, she snatched her sisters mid-jump and threw them to the ground. All three looked at my girlfriends peculiar behavior in confusion; Rose even had her head cocked to the side as she scratched her head.

"I have to ask that you kindly not stress her out; it is not good for the babies." Sina let out a high pitched 'what' and Rose leaned back in shock while Maria twitched forward a bit eagerly.

"She's pregnant?" Maman's tone was dead but her voice was deadly as she slowly but surely crept forward. I didn't need to answer that question though; Maman did not raise a man who would lie about such things. "By you?" I have to admit Riley wasn't the only one who flinched at that.

"Yes, by me," I answered simply. There was a small cowardly part of me that wanted to look to Erwin for assistance knowing that he was still in the room but I quelled that desire and kept my gaze locked on Maman.

"I raised you to know the consequences of your actions, Levi. I didn't raise you to bring a child into this world before you were ready; before you were married and had a job. Do you want your child to live in the same circumstances you did? For your child's sake I taught in the hopes that you wouldn't make the same mistakes I did." For the first time in longer than I can remember I was honestly and truly angry at her. For the first time in my life I yelled at her not to keep pace but because I was livid.

Standing up from where I was beside my lover seemed like the natural thing to do and, for all that I was shorter than my mother, I got into her face with a snarl.

"My children are not mistakes. Would you honestly dare call them that in front of Riley, who fought through Hell to keep them? Would you say that to me and act like I would desert her or them? I am not my father, nor am I Maria's or Rose's or Sina's. The only reason it's even possible for Riley to be pregnant is because I never planned on leaving her side to begin with. So what if we aren't married! With divorce rates so high can you really believe in the sanctity of a ring and a vow?" Stopping to take a breath, I glanced over my shoulder at Riley who looked nervous. "Riley's been family since we started dating. Remember, vous apporter la beauté et le sens dans mon monde sepia, she does bring beauty and meaning to something otherwise bland, dull and lifeless. And I'm the same for her. I was hoping that since she doesn't have family like we do she could be a part of ours; it just so happens she is carrying my kids at the same time. She's still my femme à être just not yet."

I wanted Maman to accept what was happening and I wanted her to accept Riley as my choice. Maybe when things got less crazy and no one was in immediate danger I could marry her, or maybe I would decide to marry her just to spite the danger we seemed to always attract, but for now it should be enough that she was the one who would always be by my side.

I was fortunate to have a mother that could, at times, be flexible, thankfully because she bowed her head slightly and said in very quiet French, "mes bénédictions," my blessings.

When she stood tall once more her eyes narrowed in confusion. "You kept saying children rather than child."

After being so mad it felt good to laugh. "Twins, Maman."

And of course the trio of terrors was all over that.

"Two?"

"Boys or girls?"

"Or one of each?"

"Are they identical?"

"Fraternal?"

"What names do you have picked out?"

"When are they due?"

It was only a matter of time really, but Riley burst into tears again which at least shut my sisters up.

"We don't know yet," I told them as they calmed down. "It's only been ten weeks. When Riley was taken we were headed to the doctor and only officially found out a few days ago."

Sina looked calculative and I figured she was counting back. "Ten weeks was around Valentine's Day…"

My woman's jaw slid open like she hadn't thought about it. "That…but we…then…"

"You hadn't bothered to do the math?" I was shocked. "Love, you really are a Shitty Woman."

"That's new." I swear Sina sounded like a parrot of Riley's response earlier.

"I can't call her 'Shitty Woman' in front of our children."

"So wait… you're not going to swear anymore?" Rose was staring at me like she had never seen me before.

Rolling my eyes I responded, "Fuck that! I'm just going to filter how I swear."

"Well that's going to be interesting." Erwin finally spoke which was oddly a relief. I think I was just as worried about his response to Riley's pregnancy as I was Maman's. "It's going to be weird, thinking of the guy who couldn't be bothered with relationships not even half a year ago as a father."

I shrugged as if the thought wasn't at all as horrifying as it actually was to me. "I wasn't planning to be a parent so soon but I can't say I'm not willing or disappointed in the situation. If it's with Riley then it's okay."

After a brief, somewhat awkward congratulatory hug, my best friend took a step back to smile at the mother of my children but she seemed overwhelmed with the cheerful faces my sisters were giving her and the slightly nervous glances Maman kept sending her, like she wanted to smile and hug her but didn't want to freak her out.

"Just get used to it." I told her firmly as I sat back down. "This is your family now." I expected her to break out in tears again but it seemed the Shitty Woman could still surprise me because she nodded delicately, still a bit unsure, and said almost formally, "I am in your care."

Maman bowed slightly and said in her quiet way, "And Levi is in yours."

"And the babies!" Maria cooed.

"But I mean is it really okay?" Rose asked. "Levi creating life I mean." Riley looked to her in confusion but I was trying not to laugh at this long standing family gag.

"I agree," Sina muttered. "Any spawn of his will be a travesty. The most dangerous genetic material on the planet will be unleashed."

"Definitely a tragedy. A horror. A child of the apocalypse." Maria joined in solemnly.

"Shouldn't it be plural?" Maman added smoothly.

Laughingly I joined in. "They will be born with Mohawks and a machete in each hand."

"What if they are girls?" Sina asked promptly.

"Girls can have Mohawks." Riley's inclusion into the conversation caused a small, nano-second of a pause and then everyone was laughing.

"It would give rise to the baddest bitches on the planet," Rose said it like she was toasting the occasion, she even had her hand in the air like she was holding a champagne flute.

Slowly, the room full of people that I would do anything for lay rest in a comfortable silence full of smiles and joy. The part of me that wasn't sure how I deserved such bliss was currently quiet though I knew the turmoil would rear its decaying head sooner or later and the fears that were running rampant since that bitch doctor delivered the news seemed to be at peace for the moment.

It was only in the very back of my dark crowded mind, in a place of horror and warfare and darkness, in a part of me that saw all the ways I could kill the people walking past me or exactly what part of a building I would need to take out to cause it to collapse, that I allowed a single morbid thought to devour and consume rationality.

I will protect this happiness. No matter what.

With that in mind I curled up beside the Shitty Woman long after everyone cheerfully huddled into Erwin's car and set off for the Hotel room I booked them. Tomorrow things would begin to move at an even faster pace.

A/N: Gonna try to get the next one up much faster. Unfortunately I haven't felt like doing much but I definitely want to get back to more regular postings. Cheers.