A/N: This chapter is actually less about Levi and Mikasa (though fear not, they do have a really lovely and paradigm shifting moment) and more about Eren and Mikasa, and what's become of their relationship.

It's one of my favorite chapters so far, and it's also incredibly sad, especially if you've read further in the manga. No spoilers here, but knowing what happens certainly casts a different light on their conversation.

Please review and thank you all so much for taking the time to read.

Also HOLY MOLY over 30,000 words! If only I could write my own novel at such a pace!

Disclaimer: I do not own AOT/SNK or any of the characters used in this fic.

CHAPTER 11: A DANGEROUS PLACE TO BE

Mikasa loved the feeling of the wind in her face. Loved the feeling of being out with the Scouts, feeling untouchable and free. It hardly mattered that they were deep in titan territory; this was the most at peace Mikasa had been in months.

She thought back to their very first excursion outside the walls. Back when things made more sense. When they felt more hopeful. Back before she knew they were but a small island in a world that saw them as monsters and wanted nothing more than to see them dead. Back before her two best friends had become instrumental weapons in whatever war was sure to come.

And before she knew that even if they won, she would have to say goodbye to them sooner rather than later.

Even though the world was more cruel than even she could have imagined, she still believed it was beautiful, and that beauty could be found in simple things like this.

This was her first time outside the walls since the effort to retake Wall Maria, and she'd hardly been in the state of mind to enjoy the return journey from there. In fact, it was the first Scout venture beyond the walls since then, period. The regiment's numbers had been padded somewhat with new faces fresh out of training–soldiers who had never seen a titan before, much less fought one.

Regardless, Mikasa felt it was high time the Scouts got back in action. Personally, she hated just sitting around behind the walls, letting Hange's weapons do all the work and listening to the bickering of beaurocrats on what the next move was to be. Every day, Mikasa had grown more and more restless, and even the copious amount of time she spent soothing her malcontent alone with Levi eventually lost the ability to ease her agitation for long. Not that she didn't still enjoy it plenty…

Still, the day the order came down for the Scouts to prepare to ride out, Mikasa couldn't have been more relieved

"As you all know, the pace at which the titans have been coming to the walls has slowed dramatically," Hange had explained to her eight veteran subordinates. By simply surviving, they had all essentially been promoted to minor positions of command. "This likely means their numbers are dwindling, but we can't safely release people back into Wall Maria unless we know all titans are dead. That's our job. To hunt down the stragglers. For this mission, we'll be splitting into two groups/ I'll lead one group west and Captain Levi will lead the other East. If all goes as plan, we'll meet in the middle in this village in a few days."

"But Commander, our numbers may be better but they're still pretty sad. Wouldn't it be safer for us all to stay in one group? Where we can overpower bigger titans?"

"No, she's right," Armin chimed in. "Yes, our numbers are small compared to just about every other journey beyond the walls in the history of the Scout Regiment. But that may be our advantage. Titans are drawn to large groups of people, so the smaller our teams are, the more likely our chances of finding them are, as opposed to the other way around."

"Precisely!" Hange clapped her hands together.

So there they were, finally, racing across the expansive countryside, Levi iding silently beside her in the vanguard. Mikasa wasn't sure how she had ended up on Levi's team—stacking the two best titan killers together seemed unnecessary—but Hange had her reasons and Mikasa wasn't disappointed. In some ways, it made sense. Their team was stacked entirely with new recruits to the experience level stacked on Hange's team more or less balanced Levi and Mikasa's combined skill.

She noticed his eyes sneak sideways toward her but quickly snap forward when they caught her looking. Mikasa suppressed a giggle. For such a harsh and heartless man, some of the things only she could catch him doing were downright childlike. Now, she loved finding them, learning what she could do to tease them out.

Suddenly, a red plume of smoke arched through the sky one hundred meters to their left. Then another.

Two titans.

Or former people, as it was hard not to think now. Former Eldians, just like they were.

Levi and Mikasa exchanged a brief nod before veering their horses in the direction of the smoke. It felt strange riding toward titans instead of staying the course, but this wasn't a mission whose point was to engage only when necessary. This time, the Scouts were the ones doing the hunting.

Both titans appeared in the distance, one only about five meters and the other ten.

"I'll take the big one," Levi announced.

"Shouldn't the bigger one of us take him?" she teased.

"Fuck off," he growled, and rode toward the bigger titan. One moment, Levi was on his horse, and the next, he was sailing through the air. Were it not for the small plumes of smoke that indicate something was propelling him, it would have looked like he was flying. Mikasa may have been a prodigy with the maneuver gear, but she was no Levi. Even before they had been together, she remembered watching him was always a little breathtaking.

Mikasa snapped out of her reverie, finding the titan was now right in front of her. She squeezed the trigger on her own 3DMG, sending her flying off her horse. The grapple sailed through the air ahead of her and embedded itself with a dull thump into the meat of the titan's shoulder. A sharp jerk yanked Milasa upward from the waist, flinging her up past its ugly head. She released the grapple and engaged her gas canisters, a boost that sent her zinging toward the back of the titan's head. She raised her blades, tensing all the muscles in her body like a depressed coil, before releasing it all at once. In one swing, she clearly cleaved its nape away.

Her eyes immediately began searching for Levi. They found him standing triumphantly atop the now steaming titan's head. She fired a green flare into the sky, caught the reigns of her loose horse, and swung back in the saddle.

The others had caught up now, as per orders to converge at any point of red smoke to assist if needed and to reorganize the formation if not. Staying close was essential to the success of this mission, Hange had impressed upon them all. The fifteen members of Levi's team gathered around him, calming the horses prancing nervously beneath them in the vicinity of a titan.

Out of nowhere, something exploded out of the woods to Mikasa's left. It was a titan on all fours, barrelling with incredible speed right toward her and the rest of the Scouts. "Abnormal!" she screamed. "I'll lead it away!"

Mikasa reeled hard on the reins, digging her heels into its flank to drive her horse in the opposite direction of the group.

Levi's heart leaped in his chest as he saw the titan reach a hand with blinding speed and backhand Mikasa off her horse. She landed hard on her right shoulder, skidding several feet through a pile of brambles and rocks, and Levi found himself sprinting straight for her.

"Captain, no!" she was already on her feet, cradling a bloody arm into her chest, but alive, "Stay in formation with the others!" she screeched, but it was too late. His grapple had already latched into the abnormal's leg in just enough time for yet another abnormal to emerge from the wood on the other side of the formation. This one stood upright, swinging it's massive, club-like arms back and forth like a broken pinwheel, catching the outermost soldier and exploding him against his first in a spray of blood and guts.

Fuck! There was nothing Levi could do now that he was hurling toward the first abnormal. His blades sunk into its achilles tendons, severing them and making the titan's back two legs go entirely limp. Still, it continued moving toward Mikasa, albeit slowly, digging its hands into the earth and dragging its body forward.

Levi deployed his maneuver toward his head, wound up, and spiraled like a deadly tornado toward its nape. Once he had cleared the disgusting spray of blood and landed neatly on his feet, he felt the earth tremor as the titan collapsed behind him.

He looked back to the group, to find one of the new recruits making a sloppy cut across the second abnormal's neck. Shit! Not deep enough, he thought, already moving toward them.

From his peripherals, he glimpsed Mikasa, running ahead of him as if she had just been thrown twenty feet. She knew the recruits were in trouble as much as he, caught completely unawares by a titan of that magnitude. The ugly bastard spun his lumbering arms again, but not before Mikasa could sever one completely, mere moments before it collided with another soldier.

Levi had caught up by them, launching himself at the distracted titan's nape and felling it as well. It collapsed to the ground in a heap of blood, dust, and steam.

Levi flicked the blood from his blade and surveyed the group. "Everyone alright?" he called, but his eyes zeroed in on Mikasa's, as if the question were really meant for her. The clothing from her arm had been completely ripped away, revealing a mangled mess of bloody flesh flecked with dirt and pebbles. Otherwise, she seemed okay. "Reform and move out!" he ordered.

As they rode away from the battleground, Levi cursed himself, knowing full well he had fucked up by thinking he needed to help her above the newbies. Even injured, Mikasa could have handled the first abnormal, but his stupidity had cost another his life.

They had survived the day, with only that single causality, and taken down an impressive number of titans in total. Levi still regarded the entire day as an utter failure on his part. A soldier had died because of his fuck up. There was no making excuses for that. He was just glad Hange and Erwin hadn't been there to see it.

Now, standing atop the watchtower they decided to camp in that night, on the first watch shift he had eagerly volunteered for, Levi brooded, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He always carried them on missions but only broke them out when he felt truly broken. Like when he lost his entire squad, or his best friend…or found himself steeped in self-loathing over his complete failure as a captain.

He had let his emotions overwhelm him again that day, had broken formation, and put his entire team in jeopardy for the sake of one soldier. And not just any soldier…her.

Danger was Levi's drug. He got high on being reckless with his own life, but never with others'.

Maybe you were right, Erwin, you damn bastard.

If he were a better, stronger man, he would order Mikasa to forget everything that had transpired between them and go back to being her superior. But he knew himself better than that. Even if it was safer for everyone, Levi was selfish and he couldn't give her up. Couldn't live without her. He knew, if it came to choosing between his whole squad—Hell, the whole damn island of Paradis—and her, he knew what his choice would be. Today proved it.

As a leader, that scared the ever-loving shit out of him.

"Smoking, huh?" a soft voice he had come to know so well came from the direction of the tower door. Immediately, it calmed his nerves like a nice cup of tea—despite the fact that its source was exactly why he was worrying in the first place. "I never knew you smoked," Mikasa said, leaning over her forearms on top of the wall beside him.

That wasn't entirely true. Sometimes, Mikasa would catch a whiff of tobacco clinging to his clothes when he pulled her close, or taste the faint, lingering char when she kissed him, but she had never actually seen him smoke. One time, she had asked Hange about it, who told her Levi only smoked when he was really upset about something. The fact that he was smoking now niggled in her gut, but she knew he was beating himself up for what had happened earlier.

"You're not due to take watch for another hour," he said, extinguishing his cigarette on the stone wall. He stole a glance at her, not wanting her to know he was looking. She wore a big bandage on her left bicep but that was it. The day may have been a shitty disaster, but at least she was okay.

"Couldn't sleep. So I figured I'd keep you company."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"What do you mean?" she asked innocently, moving closer to him.

"I mean," he said, taking a step away, "that as long as you're out here, I doubt I'll be doing much watching."

"Seems pretty quiet out anyway." She was behind him now, her arms curling around his waist.

"Tch. Always is until it isn't. And that's hardly the point," he bit out, getting a bit irritated at her. Keeping himself in check around her was hard enough without her making it even harder—in every sense.

Mikasa refused to yield. "So what is?"

"Never mind. It's not your problem," he snapped.

She turned him to face her and began kissing his neck. "You're a terrible liar, Levi," she purred, then gently began suckling on his skin in a way that made Levi want to explode, want to throw her down on the floor and make love to her right then and there. Even after several months of being together, the wild, crazed impulses she inspired in him hadn't faded in the slightest. All it took was one look, one kiss, one touch of her hand sliding down his torso...like it was now.

"Mikasaaaa." Her name raked sternly from his lips, part plea and part guttural growl.

"What?" she pouted after he gave her a gentle push away.

"For fuck's sake, you know damn well what. We can't behave this way out on a mission. I can't behave this way," he amended. "It's one thing when we're inside the walls, but it's different when we're out here. On the front lines. I'm in charge of lives here, Mikasa, including yours."

"You're not responsible for my life. I know what I signed up for, and I can take care of myself."

"Like you did with the Female Titan?" he snapped, a little harsher than he meant to. Mikasa's face burned with shame but remained silent, having nothing to say in response to that. "Besides that's not the point. The point is I can't afford to be distracted out here. You make me feel impulsive, out of control. Which is dangerous for a captain. If it came to choosing whether or not to save you or the whole damn Survey Corps, I don't trust myself to make the right choice," Levi finally said, giving voice and therefore truth that had been itching his brain all day.

"So what did you and Petra do, ignore each other out on missions?" she said haughtily. There it was again: comparing Mikasa to Petra, even though the two were nothing alike. Petra, and her soft, promising gaze that was so different from the hard, bone-shattering look Mikasa offered that made Levi's insides turn to molten lava and ice all at the same time.

"It wasn't the same with Petra. I didn't love Petra."

"But you love me?"

She said it offhandedly, almost like a joke, but when Levi didn't hesitate to answer, "Yes," silence crashed between them like a 15 meter Titan whose leg tendons had been severed.

It was the last thing Mikasa expected him to say. She had expected him to evade her half-rhetorical question, or simply ignore it altogether, so when he didn't, she wrenched out of his arms and turned to look at him.

There was no going back now. They were here, and here was a dangerous place to be.

"Yes, I do," he repeated. "I am so goddamn in love with you, Mikasa Ackerman, that I don't know who I am anymore."

At that moment, Levi knew the truth of his words and felt the full magnitude of them. It was sorrow and anger and loneliness that had driven Levi into Petra's arms. He had wronged her for that, he knew, but there was no going back and apologizing now.

She was a device to soothe the aches in his soul, while Mikasa was something that lit his whole being on fire. He didn't just crave her when he needed to escape from everything else. He craved her constantly. She wasn't something to spite life, but a reason for it all on her own.

Finally, a reason for Levi to live.

He kissed her, deeply. He had kissed her plenty of times before, but something felt different now. More...essential. Like kissing her was the only way to complete some part of him he had never known he was missing. Their lips separated a few centimeters, just enough for Levi to grind out, "You are fucking dangerous, Mikasa Ackerman, and I don't just mean for the titans."

She silenced him once more with her lips, until a sharp creak split the night air, making the two leap apart as if the other were made of fire. In the doorway, a look of utter disbelief on his face, stood Eren. "Uh, I'll just leave. I'm sorry."

Eren disappeared into the dark doorway, but Levi called after him, "Get back here, Jaeger!" Eren poked his back out hesitantly.

"Well, there goes the secret," Levi muttered through the side of his mouth. "Sorry to hang you with early watch duty, but I'm assuming you two are going to want to talk." He gave one final quick kiss–the damage had already been done anyway–and spun on his heels. "Tell anyone and I'll make sure your tongue never gets the chance to fully regrow again," Levi said evenly as he brushed by Eren's shoulder and disappeared down the stairwell.

"What the hell was that?!"

"Eren, I know I should have told you and I wanted to tell you but it's complicated and we couldn't risk too many people finding out. Plus, we didn't really know where it was going and I just thought…" she was babbling, she knew. "I'm sorry," she finished pathetically and looked down at her feet.

Suddenly, Eren laughed, causing Mikasa to look up at him in surprise. "Why are you sorry?"

"I—I thought you'd be angry that I didn't tell you."

"Angry? Mikasa, I just came out to get some fresh air and found you and our captain eating each other's faces. Suffice it to say I was surprised, but why would you think I'd be angry?"

Mikasa didn't answer. Her face was flush with embarrassment and she instinctively shrugged her shoulders so the scarf hid her shame.

Eren sat down, beckoning Mikasa to sit beside him. She did so, but he didn't immediately acknowledge her. His eyes were instead focused on some distant horizon. She didn't have to know what he had seen when he touched Historia to know what they sought: Marley. The land beyond the sea he had spent his whole childhood dreaming of, only to learn it was yet another hellscape for them. Another cage.

She'd have been lying if she said she hadn't been disappointed, too, even if only for Eren's sake.

He turned to her, his piercing blue eyes as intense as ever, but lacking something.

"Just answer me this. Does he make you happy, Mikasa?"

"Yes," she answered immediately, surprised by how fierce the word came out.

"Do you think…he could make you happy forever?"

What an odd way to frame that question, she thought and went quiet for a long moment pondering that notion. She tried to picture what a future with Levi would look like. Would they ever get out of the military? Were they the types who could settle down and raise a family? The thought of Levi dealing with messy children was such a funny thought that she almost started laughing.

Or had they both seen and done too much? Was the mountain of corpses they stood atop simply too high to climb off? It all seemed a little pointless to dream about something so far away when they could just as well die tomorrow.

Still, even without knowing what a future with Levi would entail, she knew in her heart one thing for certain. "Yes, I think he could."

Eren grabbed her hand in an affectionate, brotherly way. "Then I'm happy for you."

"So why do you sound sad?" Mikasa pushed.

"I'm not. I mean…I am but…Shit, I don't know what I am, but whatever it is, believe me when I say it's not because of you and Captain Levi. I've got a lot of other stuff on my mind."

Mikasa realized what it was that his eyes were missing: a spark. Eren's eyes no longer held that promising determination of the boy who swore to kill all titans. The thing that made her believe he very well could was no more. "You know you can tell me about it, right?"

He looked at her. Really looked at her, as if imploring her to understand. "It's not your burden to bear, Mikasa."

She was getting really tired of hearing that tonight. "That's a bullshit answer, Eren. You know that I have always happily shouldered your burdens with you. I joined the Scouts because it was your dream. I–"

"Exactly," Eren said pointedly. "Maybe it's time for you to finally live for yourself."

"Eren…"

"No, just hear me out. Mikasa, I feel like you've been living your whole life because you have this weird sense of being indebted to me. But you don't owe me anything for saving you that day. Besides, even if you did, you've more than paid me back in full by now." He bumped his shoulder into hers, attempting to lighten the mood. Mikasa didn't say anything, just buried her face deeper into the scarf. "Look, I just don't want to be a crutch for you or an encuse for you not going after what you want. I want you to be happy. To live for you, not me. Because I won't always be here."

The reminder stung, leaving a deep ache spidering through Mikasa's chest.

"Mikasa, promise me you'll try to be happy when I'm gone. Really try." Stubbornly, she refused to talk, or maybe she just couldn't. Maybe the tendrils of pain had wrapped themselves too tightly around her vocal cords to eke any sound out.

Finally, she managed to swallow the sob choking in her throat enough to answer, "I'll try. I promise."

Eren gave her a smile. On the face, it was the same goofy and optimistic smile she had grown up with, but underneath, she could see a dark cloud of sadness he was trying so hard to hide… for her.

"So Captain Levi, huh? I always thought you kind of hated the guy."

"Oh, I do. Love and hate aren't mutually exclusive," she said, one side of her mouth quirking into a half-hearted grin.

"Yeah, I know." There was something about the way he said it that made Mikasa shiver, and again, her mind gravitated to whatever he was keeping from her. But he had made it clear he wasn't going to talk about it, and she knew pushing the matter would only end in a fight. If she only had limited time left with Eren, she didn't want to spend it at odds.

The two sat there in silence, overlooking the idyllic valley just barely illuminated by a sliver of moonlight. It felt like when they were kids again, off exploring the forests outside Shiganshina, before titans were ever a concern of theirs. With her head resting on Eren's shoulder, she could feel herself growing sleepy, her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier until they finally drooped shut.

"Hey, Mikasa?" Eren said softly.

"Hmm?" she hummed drowsily.

"I wish it could have been me." He finally said the words aloud he had rarely dared think let alone utter. "But since it can't, I'm glad it's him." He braced for the fallout of his admission, but all he got from Mikasa was a soft snore.

Eren smiled to himself, believing for the first time that she would be okay when he was gone.