I had a revelation that made me course with a sense of melancholy, I apologize, I'm still feeling it. Apparently I am feeling exactly how both Alais and Levi are feeling in this moment. I can't seem to shake off an impending doom.

Why did it hurt? His chest was aching and his body felt as if it were shaking-but he wasn't shaking. The pain in his ankle didn't feel like the constricting pain that he felt looking down at the ground.

Milk blue, ice pale; a painted red masterpiece. How much did it hurt? He couldn't see himself in this moment, past thoughts clouding his vision. If he had been someone like her, would she have been alive now? Levi's gaze fell cold against the sight of the tethered limps and the smile-less face. He'd thought she would be someone to smile at death, smiling because she didn't need to force herself to become someone for him.

But the frown-the frown was clearly on her face but she never frowned. Never. He'd at least never been granted her frown, he'd always been the one with the frown but not now all he was, was blank.

He's sorry.

What could have he had done? He'd be lying if he said he was sorry. Maybe it was better for her to resent him in the afterlife. He wanted to hear her curse him, curse the breath he breathed because she couldn't do the same or curse the very existence he held because she was deprived of that. Maybe if he hoped it enough and called out a simple, 'Stay' she'd be there in the morning and none of this would have happened. His team would be alive, well and she could keep by his side.

He adverted his eyes just enough to catch the shake of his hand and the flinching fingertips that clicked together irritably. '...I love you.' He watched that hand shake and quiver as he brought it up to eye level, trying to hold it back with his other hand but found that one shaking even more. Clenching his hands together he released a single breath, shutting his eyes before opening them again.

"Levi," Erwin called out, "I know this isn't settling well with you but we can take her body back and bury her."

Strangely, he couldn't help but think that she'd rather be left here and buried in these lands away from confinement. Levi was a selfish man at times, at these times. He didn't want that.

"Levi," He repeated, "Do you want to grab it and bring it with the rest or would you like someone else to?"

It? She wasn't an it she was Alais, Alais would never and could never be an it, "No," He found himself hissing out as he crouched down to the ground, "Don't let their filthy hands touch her."

With ease he found his arms around her and the caked blood imprinting itself on his clothing, "It'll be alright."

How much times had it been? Three? Four? Maybe even Five? It'll never be alright. For the first time in his life he realized how great of a barrier there was between the two and he couldn't ever cross it. He thought for a moment if he could, what if he saw them?

He understood so much that it hurt. The swaying of her limp hair and the way her hands rolled off her stomach and hanged down lifelessly, the cold blue and purple lips accompanied by an overly pale-sickly pale flesh colour. He knew so much.

He saw the sympathetic eyes that flashed in his line of sight, the cold air that was warm once had caressed the air. Hange stood a while back from where he was as he held his sister in his hands; dead. Levi didn't have to look twice to see her gaze of sorrow and sadness knowing that the rest of his team was dead and the last of his family was cradled in his arms, a lifeless bag of skin and bone.

Crossing her hands over her chest Hange hesitated to speak, her voice softer than normal, "Short stack?"

He didn't even respond.

Levi had always talked back to her, yelled at her but this time it was too silent. Was it normal for his mind to feel so numb? No call of annoyance, no hit of anger, no glare that could kill a man and no scuff of 'shitty-glasses'. Where, oh where have you gone? They're all dead. It was as simple as that, he couldn't feel the drive he needed to do anything but simply walk with the dead in his hand. Two times in one day he ignored dirt.

I feel like a disaster.

In the span of his existence he had never given her anything, nothing maybe this was her payback, finally being gone for good.

He shook the thoughts out of his head and set her body down carefully with the rest, "Goodbye." A flash of a past shadow caught his eyes melting his vision, and held his attention for longer than he would have wanted.

Eld.

Gunther.

Oluo.

Petra.

Alais.

Only he and Eren remained.

The wagons carrying the loads began to move, slowly at first then increasing in speed as the distance traveled increased.

That lifeless body's hand twitched in the slightest.

Quick note, when the italics with the saying, '...I love you' shows up it is not Levi saying it to Alais, it's Levi recalling when Alais had said that to him in the flashback awhile ago.

Cheers.