Hi Guys. (Big wave).
Firstly, If your still reading my work, thank you. I adore you.
I'm sorry for not updating in... well years. You see what had happened is I decided to pursue self publishing. So, hey if you want to support an indie Author, you can check out my latest book Priestess by Tiffany Easterling. (It's on Kindle). There's a bada$$ female, a hot J-rocker, monsters, action and sexiness.
Publishing has kept me busy, but then I realized I have abandoned my characters, so here I am to finish telling their stories.
TBH, when Erwin... yeah you know what happened. I kind stopped reading AOT. I know spoilers and I may go back to it but for now, I've put it aside. Truth be told, I expected Erwin's outcome. It was just heart breaking. But, but, but, I can finish this little fanfic, and maybe give some happiness to Erwin.
I did not put this through the five stage editing ringer, so there may be errors.
I do not own AOT or SNK, i'm just a girl who wants the sexy guys to have a happy ending.
Erwin sensed something was off. He couldn't say what or why, but he quickly pulled himself out of his bath, dressed in a pair of pants and slid on a shirt. He made his way back to Lena's room. Halfway there, screams echoed down the hall. They were wild and angry, reminding him of a titan's scream. He shouldered passed a crowd of people, only to find Amara standing outside Lena's room while Levi slid a locking bar into place.
"Levi?" Erwin asked relaying an unspoken question of 'what happened?'
"Your pain in the ass has gone bat shit crazy," Levi answered.
"She read me," Amaura whispered, wide eyed with shock.
"Lock the door behind me," Erwin said, stepping do the door. Levi would lock him in the room and not allow anyone to follow.
Amaura stopped him with a soft touch. "I can give you some Ryget, but for her it may be just as addictive as an opiate."
"It won't be necessary." He slid the bar back from the door, opened it and stepped inside Lena's room. Though it was cold, it was still humid, and the stench of sickness still hung on the air. The candles that had been placed on the table had been knocked over, so the room only had the light of the torch that hung on the wall. Its flickering flame made the room glow eerily, as if the light knew something dark was in the room, in Lena.
Lena was standing on the bed, facing the corner. Her long night gown hung from her body allowing him to see the toll the last days had taken. In places her bones stuck out and her skin looked pallid. After all she'd been through, she now had to battle her own ability. His heart nearly broke, wondering if their last encounter had caused her newest episode. For the first time in a long time, Erwin said a silent prayer, for her.
If she knew he was there, she gave no outward sign. She held onto the wall, banging her head against it. Crying between soft screams. He took a step forward, his feet slapping against the floor. She turned, jumped off the bed and came at him. Her beautiful face was distorted by the lust to kill, kill him. Quickly, he slipped off his shirt. When she attacked, he used it to wrap around her hands. It wasn't an easy task with one hand, but he managed to wrap the shirt around her arms. Still holding the shirt, he twisted her into him, with her back pressed into his chest. He could hear the popping of her teeth when she snapped them at his exposed flesh. Luckily, he had control of her and kept her mouth away from his flesh.
She still managed to kick, buck, and slam her head into him. An instinct he couldn't explain, told him he needed to touch her skin, so that she'd sense his presence. More than that, his presence seemed to calm her mind and her ability. He was certain his touch would calm and help her regain control. She was flailing so wildly, he couldn't let go of her hands, lest he suffer bites, and whatever violence she could manage to inflict. So, he did the only thing he could think of. He pressed his lips to the side of her neck just above her collarbone.
She stilled immediately. Her heavy pants echoed in the empty room for several seconds. "Erwin?" she asked in a hoarse voice.
"Lena," he answered, reasserting his hold on her.
"Let me go, pervert." She lifted her feet off the floor kicking out at his shins. "Stay away from me," she screamed. "I don't want to be rescued by you."
"Lena, you're only going to hurt yourself," he said harshly lifting her and throwing her on the nearby bed.
"As opposed to hurting you." She backed away from him, placing herself in the corner. Violently shaking her head. "Stay away." He could see the battle she waged within her mind in her tearful eyes.
He took step toward her. "Lena, let me help you."
"No." She slid off the bed, traveling along the wall to another corner. "I can fix this myself." She started banging her head against the wall. "I can stop it. I can." She kept repeating, "I can," between small high-pitched noises.
Erwin wasn't sure what to do. Although, for reasons he didn't understand, he had a sense of her feelings. Just then she was desperate to escape the torment of her empathic ability, and desperate to find a way to control it. He could feel anger, even if he could not tell why. Deep in her despair and anger, he could feel loneliness. A loneliness that went deeper and was more profound than his own. Above all, he could feel love, her deep love for him. It both awed and overwhelmed him. He didn't understand how such love and such loneliness could exist in the same person. More than a tiny part of him was elated at knowing that she loved him. At the same time his elation confused him.
"You're such a self-righteous bastard." Lena started hitting her head against the wall harder. "Go away. I can't sort out your feelings and mine."
Erwin stepped to her, prepared to physically hold her down. "I only want to help."
"How can you?" Lena screamed, finally looking at him. Her eyes were swollen and red, and there was a trickle of blood at the side of her mouth, making her pallid skin look that much paler. Welts had started to appear on her forehead. "Right now, I hate you so much I want to taste your blood and feel your bones crack in my teeth." She took a step toward him, then took another wobbling step backward. "Get out."
"I know your fighting with your ability. Lena, I know I can help you." He held out his hand to her. "Just, let me touch you."
"No." She turned away from him and started banging her head on the wall again. "I don't want anything from you." She said between pants. Though he could sense her emotion, he could not understand why she would refuse his help. Why was she willing to send him away even though she was likely to lose her mind?
She started pounding her fists on the wall she leaned against. "Why is everything with you a battle? I don't want to be at war with you. I don't want to love you. I don't want anything from you. Not your sympathy, your help, not even your protection. I was happy before you brought me here. Now I have nothing, not even myself. This is your doing. You know it and so do I."
Words had never been so devastating to Erwin. She was right. All of this had been his doing. He'd seen the cabin she lived in. It was sparce, but it was cozy. It was a home. She'd made it one. He thought of that morning, when he'd discovered the cabin with its shining lake and millions of stars reflecting on its surface. In truth he wanted such a home for himself, and he wanted a woman like Lena waiting for him in it. Such a life would be heaven.
"It would be," Lena agreed in a voice tinged with tears. "But you've made a choice for both of us, and that dream is lost to you and me."
"Lena, you can have a home. Colony…" Erwin started.
"Colony will never be my home. I will never be accepted there. I will never be accepted anywhere." She stopped. "You should have let the poison take me." Her despair flooded into the room. It was so profound it made the air thick. She felt utterly alone. There was no hope left in the despair, inside Lena. Her pain and misery tore at his soul and he was loss for words.
"I wish I could hate you," she whispered so softy, he almost didn't hear her. His mind took a moment to process what she'd said. Then his already suffering soul nearly shattered. There was a thin line between love and hate. By circumstance, he was driving her to hate him. Hate was the last thing he wanted from Lena because he knew that he was deeply in love with her, more than he'd ever loved anyone in his life.
He thought the realization would be more profound, but it wasn't. It was familiar, like a yearning that had been filled. It was like his soul found a home.
"Lena, listen to me," Erwin said softy. "Don't listen to my words, listen to my heart." He took several steps toward her. "You are not alone. As long as I live, you will never be alone, regardless of where you are, or where I am."
She shook her head. "You lie."
"Listen to my heart not my words," he said softly, reaching out and caressing the side of her face. "Tell me if I'm lying."
Lena sucked in a sharp breath, as her mind focused and cleared of all the voices and feelings that weren't her own. All that was left was her feelings, and Erwin's. He wasn't lying. He didn't know when or how it happened. Between his exasperation, respect and attraction for her, he'd developed profound feelings for her. She felt the same emotion in him that she felt inside herself.
"Erwin?" she questioned raising a hand to his face, wanting to confirm what she felt. "You love me," she whispered incredulously. For a moment, she was filled with joy so profound she felt hummed with it.
He looked at her intently, with raw emotion showing on his face and pouring from his soul. "I'm not lying," he whispered, his voice raw with emotion.
The next instant she was held tightly against him. The heat and feel of his body warmed and comforted her. His bared soul and powerful love wrapped itself around her, connected to her, and she was so happy that new tears formed in her eyes. "You're not lying." She said into his chest, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I love you too."
They stood in her room entwined in one another for a long time. Lena basking his love, and his calm mind. Until a singular thought tore away at her happiness. Nothing had changed. It didn't matter if he loved her, or she him, he'd never allow himself to be with her. As soon as he found a place that he was certain she'd be protected, he'd leave her.
Lena jerked away from him, stepping back. "You should leave," she said more harshly than she intended.
"Lena," he started reaching out for her.
"It doesn't matter if you love me or not. In fact, an argument could be had that you don't. You'll leave me behind and bury your feelings. Your selflessness to save humanity is also your selfishness. You don't know how to love someone."
His face hardened into a frown. "You know who I am. I have to fight for a better tomorrow."
"You know who I am." She said in a cracked voice. "You should have stayed away from me and kept your feelings to yourself. Congratulations Commander Smith. You've won another battle between us." She turned her back to him, because she could not only feel that she was right, but she could also read it on his face. She couldn't look any more.
For a several long moments the silence stretched on. She felt confusion. He didn't understand why she was rejecting his feelings. But she had to preserver herself. It was better for her, and maybe even him, if she refused him and sent him away before their love grew.
Make no mistake, the love they both felt had the potential to grow exponentially for the rest of their lives, if she allowed. If she nurtured that love even the tiniest bit, it would be devastating to her soul when he did leave. It was better if he left sooner than later, at least then she could try to put the pieces of her heart back into place. "Please just leave me alone and stay away from me. I don't want you or your selfish version of love. "
His confusion morphed into pain, then sharp anger that made her shiver. She heard his soft footsteps move toward the door. There was a hard knock, before the lock on the other side was slid out of place. The door opened and closed quietly in stark contrast to the rage she could feel. She was left alone.
She sat down on the nearby bed, put her head in her hands and wept. Wept for all she had lost, wept because she had no place in the world, wept because she'd dealt a nearly mortal blow to Erwin Smith's soul.
That wasn't the worst of her problems, the further away he got, the louder the voices. Her mind was slipping away to what she read from everyone around her. Her head started spinning and pounding all at once. The sense to hunt and eat humans was fast encroaching. "This is not who I am," she said to herself, placing her hands on either side of her temple. "I am not you. You are not me."
The voices and sensations got stronger, and she held her breath against the onslaught, trying to will it away. She could barely sense Erwin's presence and he was slipping away, so was the calm he'd gifted her with. How was his mind so settled with the hundreds of thoughts that passed through it at any given second? His mind was like still waters with thousands of stars shining in them. "Like looking at stars on a clear winter night." The realization of how to control her power was so abrupt she almost laughed. She always fought against the voices that she continually heard. Instead, she should have just accepted the voices, as if they were stars and she was the lake reflecting their light.
She took a deep breath, then welcomed all the thoughts and feelings she could see, hear and feel. Their roar got deafening and for a moment she couldn't see the room she sat in. The spinning in her head got worse, and she was aware of falling then laying against something gold. For a moment, it was too much the chaos of everyone's thoughts, and she felt like she'd be lost in them. Then she imaged herself as calm waters underneath. A still lake, in a meadow, reflecting their brilliance from above. The voices and feelings began to lesson and seemed to float away until they were a tiny static in the back of her mind. She took a breath and opened her eyes, only to find herself on the floor staring up at a stone ceiling.
She let out a bark of laughter, raised her arms and said, "I know I could do it." She continued laughing, hugging herself, feeling powerful and triumphant. The feeling didn't last long, because her heart break came roaring to the surface. Not just her heartbreak, but her loneliness, and her despair.
Not even thoughts of seeing her sister could lessen the pain. She knew she'd see her, and she was joyous for that, but she'd read the thoughts of the people around her. She knew how colony worked, and she knew she wouldn't be able to stay. The only friend she thought she had, wasn't. Izzy had betrayed her in the worst ways. No one wanted her. There was still no place for her in the world. Tears spilled from her eyes anew.
She was falling into hopelessness again, when she thought of someone who did lover her. "Nicholas." She quickly got to her feet and went to the door, pulling on the handle. Surprisingly it opened. On the other side, Levi, Amaura, Mike, Jean, Simon, and Quinn stood staring at her.
"Miss Larkin, is there something we can help you with?" Mike asked stepping forward.
"Where's the stables?"
"You can't…" Levi started.
"Yes, I can." She cut him off, pulling what she needed from his mind. Turned away from him and headed down the hall. A hand wrapped around her arm, she turned to find Mike standing next to her. "What?" she barked.
"Erwin said…"
She yanked her arm from Mike's. "Your hard-up commander doesn't scare me. For the record, all the things you all are afraid I'll find out," she motioned to all of them, "I already know."
"Lena, I know you've had a shock," Amaura stepped forward. "I really do think it's best if you stay in your room. The stables are just outside. It is safe to get there, but maybe not for you."
Lena looked at Amaura then bowed her head. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to learn your secrets." She shook her head as tears came to her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at them. "I've learned a lot today, and cried a lot, and had my heart broken today. I know you don't want to be around me. And that's okay. I need to be around the one friend that I know cares. Someone that I know will be happy to see me." She swallowed and stuck out her chin. "Besides, you need to figure out what to do with me, because you're not going to be able to take me to your colony, or if you do, you know I'm not going to be able to stay." She turned on her heal, leaving them to go find her best friend, her wolf.
Levi rolled over and stretched out his hand reaching for Amaura. For a moment he was confused by the cold sheet he encountered and brought him to full wakefulness. "Amaura," he called out and sat up. Earlier their room was pleasantly cool, but without her to fill the empty cave, it was cold. He quickly through back the blankets, slid his pants, wrapped a blanket over his shoulders, and went on a search for his wife.
He didn't have to wonder at what was bothering her, but he hated that she hadn't woken him. Lena's ability to read all that had happened to her would have stirred her awful memories of her past. Carefully he made his way through the small compound and then headed up the stone steps that led outside. There he found her sitting on the ledge wrapped in a thick fur pelt with her hair blowing in the cool breeze. "Mon Calibri," he said softly as he climbed the remaining stairs. She quickly wiped at her face, before she turned to him and offered a small smile.
"I didn't want to wake you," she explained.
"I'd have to be dead to not want you to wake me up." He sat down next to her, pulled the fur off, pulled her into his lap then wrapped worm hide around both of them, and settled his blanket over their legs. "You could have woken me with a blow job."
She sniggered, then reached up and cradled his face. "I thought about it, but you looked exhausted and sated, I hoped."
He nuzzled her neck and ran his hands over her stomach feeling the warmth of her skin under familiar soft cotton. "My shirt?"
"It smells like you," she answered.
"And for the record not sated," he kissed her temple, "just resting for round three."
"Humanity's strongest… In bed," she joked.
He didn't take her bate, but instead prompted, "Mon Calibri, it wasn't your fault. That man was filth and I have to tell you I still have the boots I used to stomp his skull in."
She was quiet for a moment. "That really does make me feel batter and yet like a bad person, because I'm glad someone suffered like that."
"No," he kissed her neck, "It makes you the perfect woman for me."
She was quest as she ran her hands over his arms then folded her fingers into his. "It's not the memories. I was able to accept what happened and live with it. But Lena, she…She saw, she felt, like it was happening to her. I… I tortured her." She went quiet again. "I should have considered that she could have picked it up. Leezle warned me she was a very powerful empath."
"Amaura," he started and held her tightly. "Your instinct is to help people. It is a good one. Don't question it. There was no way you could have known she was that powerful an empath or what she'd get from you."
There was another stretch of silence and she sighed. "I do think colony is the best for her."
"As does Erwin," Levi said.
"You don't?"
"I think people are instinctively afraid of someone that can read their minds and know their secrets. I think she knows that."
"I had considered that too. But she's been through a lot." Amaura hugged his arms to her. "When she read me, I could feel her loneliness and hopelessness, and…" she stopped.
After a few seconds Levi asked, "What is it Mon Calibri?"
"I don't know if I should tell her secrets," Amaura said. "Things like this are very personal."
"She's in love with Erwin." he said.
She sat up, turned and looked at him over her shoulder. "You knew?"
"Erwin has the power to settle her." He shrugged. "She's been a pain in the ass since we met her, but she seems to seek him out to purposefully annoy him. She also seems to rely on him."
Amaura let out a sigh and settled back into him. "It's a shame he doesn't return the sentiment."
Levi remained quiet. He'd seen the way Erwin paced outside her room before she'd been cured of the poison. The look of contentment on his face when he'd found him next to Lena in her bed, and the tension in his body when he'd heard her screams. He couldn't say for certain, but he was pretty sure his commander had some strong feelings for Lena Larkin.
"Levi," Amaura's voice cut into his thoughts. "What aren't you telling me?"
Levi smiled and kissed his wife's temple. He loved that she could read him so well. "I did find them in bed together."
"What?" She twisted around in his lap. So that she was sitting sideways. "Tell," she prompted and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He smiled down at her. "There's nothing left to tell. He was in her bed."
"That is kind of a big deal. He acts like a chaste monk," she smiled. "If there's anyone that needs to be in a bed with a woman, its Erwin Smith. He's way to serious." She giggled, turning so that she could wrap her legs and her arms around him. He adjusted the blanket he'd brought to cover her. "Erwin needs someone like Lena in his life."
She rubbed against him, making him react. "Mon Calibri, I don't want to talk about Erwin anymore," Levi said taking her earlobe between his teeth.
"What would you like to talk about," she said, kissing the corner of his mouth then trailing her lips down his neck.
"I don't want to talk." He kissed her with all the pent-up fervor and longer he'd felt over the months of their separation. "I want to go to back to bed."
Lena walked through the ankle-deep snow next to Nicholas underneath a clear winter sky. The full moon made the snow glisten and glitter. He'd been her constant companion for the last two days. At night, when she wanted to walk because she could not sleep, his presence gave her comfort. "I'm sorry," she said over her shoulder to MIke. "You don't need to follow me at night. I can walk on my own. The titans are asleep, and you need yours."
He snorted then replied, "So do you."
"Sleep would be nice if I actually could," she said softly trying to will the ache in her chest to subside or at least lesson a little. "I'm sorry," she apologized again. "You should go back to bed. I'll be fine."
Another presence invaded her thoughts just before she heard a harsh voice. "Go get some rest Mike, I'll take Lena's watch," Erwin's deep voice echoed against the snow.
"On second thought," Lena turned to head back toward to the room that her and Nicholas occupied. Amaura had arranged it so the room in the furthest comer of the complex they occupied had been given to them. Not because Lena wanted to be away from the others, but because she'd gotten a sense of their fear and didn't want to make them uncomfortable.
"I'm feeling more and more tired." She clicked through her teeth as she turned back to where they'd come from and Nicholas fell into step beside her.
"You should have considered that before you got up in the middle of the night. Rousing others before a hard day of travel is dangerous for them." Erwin's tone was sharp and harsh.
Despite her heartbreak Lena's temper was annoyed by his reprimand. "Coming from someone that has sent hundreds to their death, I will take your advice into consideration." She stared hard at him as she made to march past. The only sound was the crunching of snow under their feet. "Asshole," she muttered under her breath when she got next to him. The insult didn't make her feel better as she intended, but instead deepened the ache in her heart and it made tears sting at the back of her eyes.
A hand wrapped around her arm halting her movements. She stopped frozen in the silence of the night. Mike walked past her and stopped a few feet away. "Amaura doesn't want you more than fifteen meters away from the post. This area is the home of several wild creatures."
"Understood," Erwin replied. The two of them watched Mike walk several yards away, then descend into the ground.
"I don't need protecting," Lena spat as she yanked her arm away from Erwin.
"Lena, I didn't come to engage in another battle in our war." Erwin said in low tones from behind her.
"I didn't ask Mike to follow me." She turned and faced him. "Nicholas can protect me from any wild animals that might be around, so I don't need a guard and that includes you."
He took a step forward and her heart started to pound. She wished for the thousandth time that she didn't feel the way she did. She wished she didn't love him. She wished he didn't love her. He stopped next to her and offered her his arm. "I can't sleep either."
More than anything she wanted to take that arm, she wanted to be with him, but she was afraid. Her love for him felt like it had no beginning and no ending. It would be so easy for her to let her love for him grow, but in the end, she knew that when he left the hurt would cut too deep. She'd never be able to overcome it. Which was why she'd avoided him for the last two days and was irritated at his presence.
"I'm fine," she ignored the arm offered.
"I'm confused by you," he admitted to her before she could turn away. "What is it you want from me?"
"Something you will never be able to give me," she answered honestly.
"I'm not a man that can offer home, marriage, and family. I thought you understood that about me and why."
"I did. I do." She shook her head. "But what you think I want from you isn't what I actually want from you."
He shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Even if I explained it you wouldn't."
"That's your way of manipulation me. You've assumed what I want and therefore decided for me."
Lena's temper flared. "You think I want change you, take you away from your purpose, I don't."
She felt his confusion. "Then what do you want?" He asked. "What…"
"You! I want you!" He started to speak, and she put her fingers on his lips silencing him. "No, not in stolen moments before you leave me behind, and return to the cities, to your life's mission. I want you." His confusion multiplied because he knew he loved her. "Yes, you could be mine for the taking, and I could be yours, that is until you left me somewhere. You'd never return, by choice. I'd become a fond memory that sustains you for the rest of your life. The true love you had to martyr for your cause so that you can count yourself as magnanimous." She pulled her hand away; he didn't say anything or argue. He didn't even consider arguing, which proved her right.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be that woman for you." He stood over her looking for words to convince her that he really did love her and that she should accept the tiny moment in his life he was willing to give. "Erwin," she said softly. "If you truly loved me, you'd understand why what you're willing to give me will never be enough, and how painful it would be for me. If you truly loved me, you wouldn't want to inflict that pain on me." She again felt his pain at her rejection, and then heartbreak, not for himself, but for her. He finally understood. Sadness clouded his heart and mind. She tried to smile up at him, but knew it was a sad reflection of a smile. "Don't worry commander, you will always have my love. You just don't get to have me."