A TRILLION THANKS to Heidi (erensjaegerbombs) for helping me out with the Engrish language once again. She's best hoe!

LAWLESS


Chapter 11. Survivors


The waning moon shone in the night sky like a shy smile that sometimes hid behind the clouds.

Dressed in black from head to toe, Mikasa reinforced the knot of cloth that covered her face. Only her eyes and her hair tied in a high bun were visible. Beside her, Levi glanced at his pocket watch. After hearing the galloping of some horses, he took stealthy steps toward the edge of the roof over which they had been waiting for more than half an hour, camouflaged in the darkness. The first wagon was a short distance from them.

Mikasa crouched down next to the stalking figure who wore the same attire as her. She squinted at the sight of an old woman who started crossing the cobbled street, leaning heavily on her walking stick. Her fragile and stooped figure was visible thanks to the light radiated by the lanterns at the entrance of some surrounding homes. The old woman was in the middle of the street when the wagon appeared on the road. As they expected, the coachman reacted and pulled the reins of the horses to slow down, trying to dodge her.

With his striking red hair hidden under a black woolen cap, Volker had already quickly approached the wagon and jumped on it. The coachman screamed and fell to the ground with a kick, while the burly Luther leaned out from a corner and hit the fallen man in the back of the head, pushing him out of the way.

From above, Mikasa and Levi witnessed how Volker took the first order. The second order, larger in size, didn't take long to go through the same route.

Levi jumped from a height of two floors and landed like a hungry panther on the men who handled the reins of the horses, cutting off their surprised moans with some swipes.

Mikasa followed him less than two seconds later. She landed on the roof of the car as a second feline shadow and went to the back where she could see the bundle of legs and arms lying on the cobblestones, bright by the light drizzle. They left the two coachmen behind so Luther could take care of them while the vehicle continued moving.

Crouched, Mikasa supported herself on one knee and the palms of her hands on the humid wood, continuing to watch the rear. A few irregular bumps that vibrated under her forced her to shift focus. To her bewilderment, she managed to perceive movements that weren't related to the normal motion of a wagon. She even believed she heard muffled groans from the inside where these merchants were supposed to be transporting salted meat, ham, sausages, and other high-quality cold meat intended only for the tables of some noble families of Mitras.

When Levi stopped the horses in an alley, Mikasa jumped down and began to eagerly remove the heavy locks from the cargo doors, except for one that carried a large padlock. She tried to break it by pulling it several times with all her strength, but it did not yield. When she heard noise from inside again, she leaned her ear against the wood and discerned sobs that sounded too human. Too feminine.

Mikasa gasped, opening her eyes wide, and looked for Levi in the darkness of the place where they were waiting for Volker's signal to continue advancing.

"Levi, please come here," she pleaded in an anguished whisper. "Quick!"

He approached immediately, watching her face in the dim light of the moon.

"What happened?" He asked in a low voice.

"I think... I think that..." Mikasa began to say, wishing she was wrong while her stomach shrunk and her brow furrowed. She nibbled on her lower lip shortly before deciding to reveal her suspicions in a trembling voice. "It seems there are… people inside."

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The first time Mikasa, only five years old, included him in one of her deformed and stained children's drawings done with a charcoal stick, Levi wasn't able to feel touched by it.

She had drawn some figures that, Levi supposed, were her parents: one had long hair and wore a dress, while the other wore a... stick or a rifle and a hat? Then there was her, the brat who was a copy of half the size of the figure that should be Miyuki. The thing that was supposed to be Levi, on the other hand, looked like a horrid grumpy goblin much smaller than Mikasa.

It had to be said that at least the brat had made an effort to make everyone look like they were holding hands. Everyone smiled in the drawing, except for the goblin, whose lips were no more than a straight line.

Mikasa, who looked like she was fresh out of a coal mine where she had to do forced labor, had been clearly impatient to hear his opinion about what was far from being a children's masterpiece.

"What's that thing supposed to be?" Levi dared to ask, knowing he was tempting his luck.

"It's not a thing," she corrected him, describing a circle around the character in question with her little finger, passing over the black lines and staining everything gray. "This is you, Levi. And look, we're all holding hands!" she said in an excited squeal.

"Yeah, very... uh, nice..." he conceded, not very convinced.

His lack of emotion was quickly perceived by Mikasa, who looked at him for a moment and then looked down at her work again, as if looking for what could be wrong.

"You don't like it?" she asked, frowning and pouting. "If you don't like it then I won't draw you ever again," she said, snatching the sheet of paper from him and gripping the charcoal stick.

Realizing her intentions, Levi covered the drawing with one hand.

"The only thing I don't like is that you made me so short, when you are way shorter than me, brat."

"But I am a little girl," Mikasa explained, carelessly dragging the charcoal over Levi's hand and drawing several black circles that turned into a flower. "Dad says you'll not grow anymore and I can grow a lot. I'll be taller than you. As tall as dad or as Uncle Kenny," she affirmed without a hint of malice and very concentrated in her task.

Wow, the brats' frankness could be cruel.

And so that's the shit Kaspar was spreading. What a traitor. You couldn't really trust the Ackerman side of this family.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Levi removed the hand so the girl didn't continue drawing all over him. "Tch. You don't even know Kenny."

"Tch. Dad says Uncle Kenny is the tallest of all and that he's as skinny as a noodle, but a very weird one, with a beard and a hat," Mikasa said with an adorable smile.

Levi couldn't help it but get a bit infected with that smile. It was a good thing the attention span of children this age was brief and Mikasa already seemed to have forgotten her annoyance.

"A noodle addicted to tobacco."

"What is 'tobacco'?"

She had no idea what the word 'addict' meant either, for sure.

"Nasty shit that adults like that smells like burnt ass."

"'Shit'…" Mikasa repeated in a confused tone. Levi could bet her parents had only taught her the word poop for practical reasons, "and why do adults like nasty shit?"

"Because they're assholes."

Mikasa blinked and Levi knew Kaspar and Miyuki would later scold him for teaching their innocent little girl swear words. However, he'd never thought the girl would come up with the great idea of asking her mother if she also liked the "nasty shit" in addition to asking her to describe the smell of "burnt ass" and an explanation about what meant to be an "asshole". Thanks to that, Levi got himself a good tug on his ear at the age of nineteen and, as punishment, had to allow a super excited Mikasa to sketch his whole fucking face under the excuse of drawing Kenny's beard, guided by the harpy of her mother. Of course, in the end everyone cracked up thanks to his ridiculous appearance and his sulky expression. Kas had even choked and cried from laughing so hard. At that time Levi had barely managed to stifle his own laughter.

It was one of those anecdotes that could have cheered up even a bitter man like him if only things hadn't changed so much less than three years after that, just when the Ackerman family had been so close to growing again.

Laughter and joy from the precious memory were soon replaced by the bloody images Levi would rather forget.

The tears and last words of a self-sacrificing mother, surrounded by blood both foreign and her own.

The shattered and unrecognizable face of a father who had once owned the kindest smile and personality.

The brutal conscience that some wretches had just snatched everything from a little girl, except for the pain she would have to deal with for the rest of her life.

The candid gleam of Mikasa's eyes had gone out while she was still breathing. She continued to live only by reflex. Once Levi managed to get that frail, shattered existence to the hideout in Orvud, the insipid doctor at Kenny's service had examined her and had reported with indifference that she was "just in shock."

The shock lasted almost a full week. Mikasa didn't talk, didn't react and didn't move. She barely blinked. Her gaze remained fixed on an invisible point and her eyes were so opaque they looked like the eyes of a dead person. She surrendered to sleep only because at one point she was unable to stay awake, or because the doctor gave her a poppies' infusion.

As the days passed, the doctor conceded he didn't have enough knowledge in psychiatry and recommended that Mikasa should be admitted to a sanatorium in case she continued to be unresponsive. Levi immediately refused to take that alternative while Kenny only responded with an ambiguous "we'll see."

Levi had made sure Mikasa drank water and ate by force, while Traute had been entrusted with the task of taking her to the toilet a couple of times a day and bathing her on the sixth day, which was when Mikasa finally cried. She cried and screamed until she fainted in the bathtub.

Traute's chin trembled slightly when she told Levi he could now enter the room where the eight-year-old girl was sleeping with her eyelids swollen and red.

"I dried her. I dressed her. Her hair is still a bit damp..." Traute had said at that time, her eyes shining with the tears she resisted to spill while running her fingers through her blond curls. "I need a moment."

Levi understood her. Mikasa's weeping and screaming had also made him nervous and, unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last time it would happen. Sometimes it would be heartbreaking cries, others would be expressions of anger. Both uncontrollable and frustrating situations.

For a while they had had to put all their weapons, particularly the daggers, under lock and key, for on more than one occasion Levi had almost been stabbed by a fierce and unrecognizable Mikasa right after entering her room. When the poor girl was destabilized she became an emotional disaster. She bit, struggled, fought, kicked, screamed and cried whenever Levi tried to restrain her and make her see reason. That unpleasant situation became something recurrent for months and its frequency only diminished after Kenny suggested that maybe the best thing would be to allow the brat to hang around more freely, because no one liked being locked in the same place day and night.

"If we can't contain the little monster, there is no choice but to let it go before it gets worse," Kenny had said shortly after. "She would have to be taught one or two things, of course. To train her in the art of properly directed violence..." He smiled with satisfaction before adding: "To empower her."

Empowering Mikasa had been key, but it had not managed to eliminate the root problem. It was expected, of course, because no one could overcome such a traumatic event like the one she had experienced only by learning to fight, to defend oneself and to kill if necessary. However, there wasn't much more that he and Kenny could do.

Levi watched a grown-up Mikasa, who was pacing back and forth like a caged lion, her tense gaze went from the girls to the coachmen. She wielded and released her hands while Volker and Luther searched for information in the merchants' delivery lists under the light of the only lamp inside that cold clandestine warehouse.

"It gives the impression that these names and addresses are false," Volker noted, "or mixed. There's no street with this name in Mitras, but there's one in Utopia, and none of the nobles in the area is named Fischer, unless one of the Fischers on the pier has climbed socially in record time."

Levi nodded.

The three drivers who had been assaulted were tied up, gagged and blindfolded, while the four girls of different ages who they had pulled out of the second wagon remained blindfolded, hugging each other.

It had been an unpleasant surprise to find victims of human trafficking that night, particularly for Mikasa, who had run out of words at the sight of them and had been so overwhelmed in such a short span of time that she hadn't been able to do anything but vomit.

While Mikasa recovered, Levi and the others had moved the girls into the warehouse. After releasing them from their moorings and gags, they were offered water and something to eat. Levi told them that no one would hurt them and asked them to stay calm and silent. He also ordered them not to remove the fabric that covered their eyes at any time.

One of the girls, who must have been the age of his cousin, stirred in her place and cleared her throat.

"If you're not going to hurt us... If you're helping us... Why don't you let us see you?" she questioned, tightly hugging the youngest victim, a little girl under eight who breathed through her open mouth. "You were stealing the goods, right? Did you know that we were in there...? Are you... traffickers too? Criminals?"

Levi opened his mouth to answer, but Mikasa interrupted him and the girl who had dared to speak gasped in surprise at hearing her female voice.

"Yes, we were stealing and yes, we are criminals," Mikasa said between her teeth, "but not of the same kind as these fuckers." She approached one of the coachmen and kicked him so hard in the stomach that the guy rose a few inches off the ground, moaning in pain. "We have nothing to do with this scum."

With a brief whistle, Levi caught the attention of Volker and Luther who were watching Mikasa, surprised at her outburst.

"Take the drivers to the back and question them," he ordered in a low voice as soon as they both came to him.

Before Mikasa went after them, Levi grabbed her firmly by one arm and in a whisper asked her - no, he ordered her - to come with him. He pulled her until they were as far as they could get from the other girls.

"I know this is a complicated situation for you, but I need you to please try to keep a cool head," he murmured.

"That's a lot to ask," she snapped, trying to break free from his grip with brusqueness. Her eyes were half-closed with rage and her body tense. "Let me go. I want to kill them. I need to kill them."

"Do you realize what you're saying?" Levi asked, increasing the pressure on her arm. "You're not thinking clearly. If we kill them before questioning them, we won't get anything."

"Perfect," Mikasa granted. "You question them and then I kill them. Those damned depraved ones are good for nothing else but to ruin the lives of others."

"You won't kill anyone today, Mikasa."

"That doesn't depend on you!"

"Of course it does. I'm the one in charge," Levi said, remarking his words.

Mikasa pierced him with her eyes.

"You always end up saying the same shit..." she snarled, irritated.

"This is how things work. Our things. If you don't like it, go talk to Kenny and suggest changes," he hissed, letting go of her arm.

"You're not understanding!" Mikasa protested, shaking her head and giving him a look full of disappointment and reproach. "How...? How can you not understand it when you know better than anyone what I had to go through?" She took a hand to her chest, where she seemed to have lodged much of her pain.

Levi held her gaze, unperturbed by the helplessness and grief he himself was feeling.

Of course he knew it, although he would never know it as well as she did.

"You're the one who's not getting it," he corrected her with some harshness. "We're in the middle of a mission, a job, and we can't make it a personal matter. Our own shit should not influence these cases, much less when there's a hierarchy to respect and a team involved. We have no alternative but to focus on completing the task in the shortest time possible... You should have already learned that. I taught it to you a long time ago."

She looked away and pursed her lips. She seemed to maintain a relentless internal struggle for a long time.

Levi watched as Mikasa's shoulders slumped and her back slowly hunched, yielding under an invisible weight.

Mikasa shrinked and her face contracted, as if she was about to start crying.

"I need to do something, Levi. I feel so much... so much impotence and... anger... and..." Mikasa turned to the girls who they had rescued and hugged herself. "I can't stand it. If you don't let me kill at least one of those bastards, I won't be able to hold back the damn tears for another second... I feel like... I feel like I'm going to collapse!" she admitted with glazed eyes and a trembling voice.

Levi clenched his jaw and laid a hand on Mikasa's shoulder.

"Thanks to you, to us, those girls won't have to keep suffering at the hands of disgusting slaver swines," Levi began to say, struggling to find the right words. "So, today you've done and will do something more useful than getting your hands dirty with rotten blood..." he squeezed Mikasa's shoulder. "Hey. Listen to me well, brat, I have two orders for you: first, I forbid you to even touch a hair of those filthy motherfuckers."

"But—"

"Second, I order you to take care of the victims until we finish the interrogation and take them with Reiner. I think they'll definitely feel safer talking to another girl, even if they can't see her."

It was that or send her back home. If he sent her back to Orvud, Mikasa would feel humiliated and would think she had failed, and Levi didn't want that kind of idea to stay in the mind of such a self-demanding person like her.

At first, this shitty situation gave the impression of only being a cruel trick of fate, but it was more than that. While Mikasa was currently focusing only on the negative side of the matter, Levi hoped that soon she would expand her vision and learn a thing or two out of this experience, one of those things that neither he nor Kenny could teach her.

Violence couldn't be the only form of empowerment.

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Levi hadn't given her the time to say or to oppose to anything. He'd only walked away and disappeared through the door behind which Volker and Luther were coaxing information from the bastards, against whom she couldn't even retaliate. And it was unfair, so unfair...

Mikasa had to fight with all her might against the impulse to disobey Levi, to run after him and sneak into the room to kick the shit out of the coachmen.

Her body was so tense it vibrated. Her teeth squeaked because of how clenched they were.

Her misty eyes wandered through the dark, wide warehouse. Surrounding the area, there were wooden boxes and burlap sacks stacked on top of one another, arranged in an orderly way, while in the middle there was some free space. That little free space felt dense and oppressive, as if the oxygen was solidifying.

The four girls she had discovered inside one of the wagons were sitting near the only illuminated corner. Her mind fell back to the moment when Levi and the others had pulled them out, one by one, and her stomach turned again, though she had nothing to expel anymore.

Instead of advancing, Mikasa took two steps back and her back hit a huge wooden box. It was then when she realized she had stopped breathing. She curled and released her hands again and again as she breathed air in and out of her cramped lungs. A sharp pain pierced her chest. She could feel the rapid beating of her heart in her ears and her head muddled.

How did Levi expect her not to turn all of this into something personal, when all she could do was to see herself in each one of those girls?

To make things worse, one of the poor girls was so small she must have been the same age as Mikasa when the world had gone to hell for her.

She saw blood again. She heard ghost shots and a wave of panic swept over her.

Her sight got completely clouded and she had to cover her mouth with her hands to stifle a sob.

No. no.

Stop.

She shook her head, trying with all her strength to ward off the terrible memories that harbored in her mind. This wasn't the right time.

I need you to please try to keep a cool head

Levi was right. He was absolutely right. If she allowed her emotions to take hold of her, she would end up a mess and wouldn't be able to do anything useful. She wouldn't even be able to finish the job because one of those damned crippling breakdowns would come to her and spoil everything.

She had to stay under control. Not to give in to fear. Not to allow her emotions to disarm her completely.

"Breathe," she whispered to herself. "Breathe..."

Little by little, the atmosphere began to feel less heavy and Mikasa managed to slowly recover her composure.

Taking a deep breath, she wiped the tears that had slipped through her cheeks with her forearm. She clasped her hands, straightened her back and walked at a determined pace toward the girls. As soon as she was less than a meter away from them, she sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at the sole of her black boots.

She cleared her throat lightly and the two older girls winced since they hadn't seen her coming because their eyes were covered. Neither had they been able to hear her footsteps. Mikasa was used to walking with such stealth that when she moved, she didn't make any noise.

"I'm so sorry," Mikasa said all of a sudden, and her own voice sounded strange to her. She made an uncomfortable grimace, lifted her knees and hugged her legs, pressing them against her rumbling chest. She wasn't afraid anymore, although she did feel a little anxious. "I hate that... you had to go through all of this. I promise you that you're at least safe now."

The eldest of the group seemed to extend an arm in order to touch Mikasa, but she retracted it instead and placed it on her lap where the smaller girl dozed with her long blonde hair scattered in all directions.

"Are you really with them?" The girl asked, her voice tinged with concern. "How old are you?"

"Yes, I am with the men who took you out of the wagon," Mikasa said. Her hands had begun to sweat. She wasn't sure about what she was doing, but she also didn't know what else to do other than that she couldn't play her apathetic role. "I'm eighteen."

"Oh, you're younger than me... I'm twenty years old." The girl brought a hand to the cloth that covered her eyes and, just like when she had tried to touch Mikasa, she regretted it halfway and resisted the impulse to take the blindfold out. She slipped her hand through her coppery hair and cursed under her breath. "I know I can't get rid of this crap, so here I am, trying to imagine you and to believe that you really are eighteen and not fifteen years old. What's your name?"

"M."

The young woman giggled.

"Only 'M'? 'M' for Mysterious, of course," she said, sarcastic, and one of the group's blonde girls laughed, only to cover her mouth as if she had just made a huge mistake. "The one that thought your name was funny is Heike and she's fourteen years old. The little one that sleeps on my legs is Vivianne and she's seven years old. The other little girl, who apparently is also sleeping somewhere, is Elsa, ten years old."

"I'm awake," Elsa whispered, nervously fiddling with the tips of her dark hair while leaning on one of the burlap sacks.

"I see... Well, M, as you know I'm twenty years old," she smiled to where Mikasa was supposed to be. "And my name is Petra."

Mikasa nodded even though no one could see her.

It struck her that Petra was so friendly to her. That she even smiled, especially considering the situation from which she'd escaped. Mikasa wondered if they had been saved in time. If in spite of having been used as human merchandise, no degenerate had managed to put a finger on them... Well, at least not to the younger ones, because it could be that Petra had been living horrible things for too long and still was able to smile anyway.

But maybe that grin didn't manage to reach her eyes.

"Petra..." Mikasa murmured, hesitantly. "How come you guys ended up inside that wagon?"

Petra's hands caressed little Vivianne's head for a moment before answering.

"After some very brief conversations..." she said in a whisper. "Poor Vivianne made me understand that she was sold by her own mother to an 'elegant' man. A pimp, for sure. I don't know how long ago that happened, but the kid ended up in the same cell as me about a week or so ago. The truth is I've lost some notion of time."

Mikasa's eyes had opened wide. A lump formed in her throat as she watched the little girl. She was so pale, thin and fragile she looked sick. If she was sick, at least Eren could help her. She would have to tell Levi that Vivianne had to come with them.

"I don't want to go into detail and I don't think it's necessary to," Petra continued in a low voice, "but a woman who does that to her own daughter doesn't deserve to be called a mother," she sighed, still caressing the sleeping girl. "As for the others, well... Heike and Elsa are orphans. They were taken to my cell shortly after Vivianne arrived. I don't know if Heike and Elsa want to say anything about their own circumstances..."

Still dismayed by Vivianne's brief story, Mikasa saw Elsa shake her head, while Heike moistened her lips, ready to speak.

"I..." Heike muttered, sitting a bit straighter and stretching her skirt. "I decided to work in a brothel a few weeks ago because I was dying of hunger. A friend had started before me and told me that at least she had a bed to sleep in and two meals a day," she said, shrugging. "One day, when my second week of work had just begun, a skinny, mustached man arrived and he examined us one by one. After he talked with my boss alone, he took me with him. I'm not sure what happened in between, I think he drugged me with something because I suddenly realized I was in a cell, stunned and confused, although I wasn't the only one there."

Mikasa observed Heike, curious about the way she had talked about her experience. It was as if she was telling what had happened to someone else and not to herself, or like someone who talks about the weather.

"Heike, do you remember the face of the man with the mustache?" Mikasa asked in a thin voice.

"I think so," she nodded.

"Well, I need you to please try to remember as much as possible about that man," it was a must to find that guy. "Someone could make a facial composite with your information. It's important."

"Alright."

Mikasa sighed. "Thanks... for telling me a little about you, Heike."

"You're welcome!" She grinned broadly.

The fact that someone who had lived a shitty life could smile in that way surprised her again.

It could be that despite everything Heike was an optimistic person. Like Petra, maybe. Although Mikasa doubted it was only a matter of optimism.

She scanned the visible part of Heike's face and then her gaze descended to Heike's hands. She noticed that her fingertips were somewhat swollen, perhaps reddened, but she couldn't exactly tell under the dim light of the only lamp in there. Mikasa leaned toward her and could see that her fingernails were bitten down so far that the skin must be in the process of growing around what little was left. Some fingers even had dark scabs of dried blood.

"What about you, Petra?" Mikasa asked after a moment of silence, not without some fear.

Petra's lips stretched into a small smile.

"I haven't led a life as complicated as theirs, quite the contrary," she said, as if it embarrassed her. "You could say that in general I've had luck in life, until a few months ago the military police took and imprisoned my father for alleged tax evasion. My father had always paid them, but I guess you already know how corrupt those guys are," Petra huffed, indignant. "It's obvious that the collector and the policemen kept the money. The funny thing is that the same policemen who had accompanied the tax collector every time he charged us were the ones who took my father. It was absurd! We showed them the payment vouchers, signed by the collector himself, and they didn't care. They ripped them off before our eyes and put them in their pockets."

Mikasa shook her head. She would have to talk about it with Annie.

"In what district was this?" She asked, curious.

"On the outskirts of Karanes," Petra replied and continued with her story. "As I only lived with my father, I had to do everything I could to keep our small farm and business running on my own. We sell eggs, milk and cheese. We have some chickens and goats."

"I like... goats," Elsa whispered in a sleepy voice, right before falling asleep.

"I hope one of these days you can meet mine," Petra grinned. "As soon as he heard about my situation, a friend began to help me almost every afternoon. He rode to the farm for almost forty minutes as soon as he finished his own job in the center of the district. I told the idiot that it wasn't necessary that he helped me," she clenched a fist and lifted it in the air. "Or that he didn't need to come so often at least, but he kept doing it until he got so exhausted he got sick. One night, a few days after Oruo could no longer help me, some guys came with the excuse that they wanted to buy a dozen eggs," she let out a bitter laugh. "It was a lie, of course."

Mikasa frowned.

"Were those the ones who took you against your will?" She asked.

"Yes. They put a gun to my head and forced me to write a farewell letter to Oruo. Clearly they'd been spying on me and knew of my close relationship with him. Even..." Petra hesitated. "They even knew that Oruo had stayed with me for a couple of nights. I think that was enough for them to assume he was my future husband or something... And well, they made me write lies, like that I had decided to try a new life somewhere else and more nonsense, they even made me ask Oruo to forget me because it was the best for him," she clicked her tongue. "If Oruo found the letter, I doubt he'll believe half of it. Or so I hope. And I also hope that he, or someone else, is taking care of my poor animals... If they are still there."

Mikasa could bet that this Oruo guy, since he had learned of the disappearance of his beloved Petra, hadn't stopped looking for her, and she was happy for them because soon the search would end. Who knows, maybe they'll meet again tomorrow, or in a couple of days. However, they would be together again, even if it was in a different place.

But for safety, Petra shouldn't return to her farm for a while.

It was in the midst of her ramblings that Luther and Volker left the other room carrying the three coachmen, who didn't seem to be bruised enough for her taste.

Levi came into the warehouse soon after, carrying a few papers. He approached her and beckoned her to stand up. Mikasa followed him to the same place where they had previously talked.

"We already finished. We've decided to take them all to the hands of one of the leaders of the Legion, who lives here in Stohess," Levi reported. "Luther will take all the guys tied in one wagon and you'll go in another one together with the girls. Volker will drive."

Mikasa nodded. It was better for the girls to go with the Legion than with any of their infiltrators in the military police, particularly Petra after her unfair experience.

"Where will you go?" Mikasa asked.

"I'll go get Reiner. See you later."

Before Levi could get away, Mikasa held him back.

"No, wait. One of the girls seems to be sick," she said. "Can we take her to Eren?"

Levi sighed, tired.

"You mean the smallest one, don't you? I doubt that Eren could be of help, at least as a physician..." He avoided Mikasa's bewildered gaze. "That girl reminds me too much of you after Shiganshina. I think her biggest problem is that she's sad. Disconsolate... for feeling that she lost everything."

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Eren realized his wait was useless when it was almost four in the morning and there were still no other signs of life in the house apart from his own. Staying awake had not been a challenge since he had difficulty sleeping after the encounter with the Legion and the fake corpse of Frieda.

The other nights the only thing that had helped him to sleep, and especially to remain asleep, had been sharing a room with Mikasa. Together, they carried his mattress from one side to the other. At night they would carry it to Mikasa's room and in the morning they would take it back to Eren's room. The hustle and bustle had been fun, like a game, because they had to always prevent Levi from catching them.

He only managed to sleep two or three hours in a row when fatigue won him over. Knowing he couldn't fall asleep again soon, he got up to get a glass of water at about seven in the morning and found Levi in the kitchen. The usual dark circles around his eyes were darker than ever and his general appearance indicated he hadn't shut his eyelids all night.

Eren greeted Levi, who responded with some sort of grunt.

Snippy, Levi told him that he had arrived at the hiding place with Mikasa at five something, at dawn. Eren asked some questions about it, but Levi hushed him and grudgingly told him that today he wouldn't be supervising anyone and so Eren would have to go downstairs to train on his own.

Levi also ordered him to go to Kenny's office once lunchtime was over, which was the place where Eren was right now.

He glanced around and sat on one of the chairs in front of the battered desk.

"I thought Kenny would be here, too," Eren said. "Is he coming later?"

"Kenny won't come," Levi drank all the tea that was left in his cup in a big sip. Eren had always thought he had a peculiar way of picking up cups and glasses. "I doubt he'll come back today."

Levi must have taken a nap and a bath, because his face looked a little less exhausted, compared to when Eren had met him in the kitchen.

"What about Mikasa? I haven't seen her. Did she eat with you upstairs?"

"No. Mikasa is still sleeping," Levi said, rubbing his eyes. "Last night's mission got complicated, especially for her."

"She isn't hurt, right?"

If Mikasa had suffered some type of injury, Eren had no doubt Levi would have reported it to him hours ago, however, he couldn't help asking anyway.

Levi huffed.

"I guess she's always been hurt," his fatigue was reflected in his voice. "At least since what happened to her back in Shiganshina... That's why I summoned you here. We need to talk about your next trip to that place, about Mikasa and other issues."

"Can I... know what happened last night?" Eren asked, a bit unsure.

To his surprise, Levi wasn't bothered by his question and was even more than willing to talk.

"We had a shitty situation. We found four girls inside a wagon that was supposed to only carry cold meat and that, of course, affected Mikasa," Levi pinched the bridge of his nose, "but it was on the returning trip when she finished completely breaking down. After leaving her in her room, I talked to Kenny because I think it's the worst moment for her to go with you to Shiganshina... but everyone here knows the brat is more stubborn than a mule and will insist on going anyway. Now more than ever. In fact... in the middle of her breakdown, Mikasa demanded me the directions to get to her old cabin and to get to the place where I buried her parents," he pointed at a yellowish sheet on the desk that Eren hadn't noticed before. "I made a map with indications on how to get there from the center of Shiganshina. The only problem is that the cabin doesn't exist anymore."

Eren looked at the map. There were dashed lines here and there in addition to the name of some reference sites, the cardinal points and approximate distances.

"I don't know that area very well, but I think it will not be so difficult for us to get there," Eren murmured. "What happened to the cabin?"

"I burned it to the ground," Levi kept his eyes fixed on the map. "I'll explain to Mikasa the reasons before you leave Orvud tomorrow."

Eren nodded.

"Did you burn the bodies of Mikasa's parents with the cabin as well?"

Levi gave him an offended look.

"Of course not."

After a moment of silence between them, Levi explained he had not only talked with Kenny about the trip, but also with some of the members of the Legion. On the whole, they had decided that although it was safer to keep Eren in the lair most of the time, now it was more convenient to simulate that little by little his life was returning to normal, meaning to go back to everything he was doing before the Ackermans kidnapped him.

Eren's lips cracked in a bitter little smile.

"The only difference is that nothing will really be the same," his gaze wandered heavy towards the cuckoo clock and Kenny's wanted poster, whose paper forehead had a dark mark right in the middle, as if it had been pierced by a knife. "Not with what I know now."

It would be hard to pretend life was still the same as always, when Eren was sure Rod Reiss was behind the sudden death of his father.

If the king had even lied about the death of his own daughter - for reasons that were still unknown to them - then he must have many more secrets and lies on his behalf.

"There is something else..." Levi's expression suddenly tensed. "Obviously, you and Mikasa must continue with the farce."

Eren was disconcerted, not by what Levi had just said, but by his body language.

"Well, there's no problem with that," he said, lifting and dropping a shoulder. "It's what we've done since the beginning."

Levi frowned.

"I know, but now it will have to be seen as something that got serious. You should recognize her as your-" He grimaced. "Ugh, your official girlfriend. You'll have to introduce her in high society and all that crap."

Eren felt his face flush a little and hoped Levi hadn't noticed.

"I guess it makes sense," he cleared his throat. "It would be about time for the passi-, I mean the supposed th-things between us began to, I don't know, calm down?" What the hell was he talking about? He had to shut his mouth. "To regain our judgement and that the relationship... evolved into something more, uh... stable? Like what, uh… normal people do?"

"Your babbling is interesting," Levi scrutinized him with narrowed eyes. "I have no idea about how this kind of stuff works, but the four-eyes of the Legion tried to explain something to me about it. Besides, she made me understand that you have no idea either, because you're supposedly not interested in the matter... But maybe you know more than she thought. It's that or now you do care," he said in an accusatory tone.

Huh?

Eren felt a stupid urge to try to justify himself.

"Oi. I have had parents. I've seen a lot of people in love out there, especially patients. I have some idea about what happens with romantic relationships, okay?" Eren said, somewhat defensive. "And there is something called common sense."

Levi didn't seem very convinced.

"Whatever. I'll tell you what you should do to sustain the farce," he growled, raising his index finger to start an enumeration. "One: you must take Mikasa with you on all your trips, not only for the romantic nonsense, but for safety. Two: Mikasa will accompany you to all the social events you get invited to. Three-"

"Wait," Eren interrupted. "If I start accepting all those fucking invitations out of nowhere, then they'll see it as something suspicious, or at least weird. In general I've always made up excuses to not go to those boring, full of snobs meetings. They're not only annoying, they're a waste of time."

"I figure, but you have to go to some of those so the snob morons get to see how, ugh, 'smitten' you are for each other," Levi rolled his eyes at what he himself had just said. "It's fucking stupid but necessary so that fat guy doesn't try to capture Mikasa. After all, she used a fake identity to attend to the party. If several people apart from Rod Reiss find out and confirm how important Mikasa is to you, he would not want to put you or the other pro-romance suckers against him by putting her in a cell. Seriously, this is one of the most important points and the main reason why I'm spending spit on talking about all this shit."

Eren nodded slowly. It seemed reasonable to him.

Since the news of the romantic flee had reached even the so-called pink section of the local newspapers, many people were aware of their supposed love at first sight affair. Surely more than some pro-romance sucker, as Levi had called them, was sighing while thinking it was something similar to what was told in typical love stories. Therefore, Eren and Mikasa would have an audience in their favor.

Public opinion was extremely important for a king like Rod, who lacked even more than charisma. If he all of a sudden decided to imprison a simple young lady in love, the public would see it as a completely disgusting act. In addition, he would betray Eren's trust and lose him as an "ally".

Eren bet that even Historia would depreciate something like that and take Eren's side.

For the first time, he appreciated being relatively well-known and popular with people because of the scope of his profession.

"I hope it works and that, if it doesn't, you have an alternative plan to not allow Mikasa to end up behind bars."

"We already have it," said Levi. "You just do what you have to do and pretend that everything is fine with the king. If you think it's time to visit the Palace, or if he invites you, then Mikasa must go with you so that the guy believes you still trust him, and for him to see that you both are a 'real' couple," he grunted, pulling out a folded paper from his pocket. "The crazy woman wrote some suggestions. This is the third point I was trying to say earlier, here."

Eren stretched the small sheet of paper and found Hange Zoe's chaotic but oddly readable handwriting. He took a quick look at the list of suggestions. He opened his eyes wide, swallowed and folded the paper again.

Levi pierced him with his glare.

"My advice is that you don't follow that list to the letter," he warned, coldly. "For that matter, if I find out you've behaved like a smart-ass, I'll slice your balls. Just devote yourself to behaving lovestruck in public, but always be careful where you put your hands and other things," he said between his teeth.

"Yeah…" was all Eren managed to say, nodding without blinking.

His answer only made things worse. Eren could swear that a huge vein had just swollen in Levi's forehead and that he looked at him as if all he wanted in life was to strangle him. But why? He had not done more than accept everything Levi had told him to do and no to do in order to follow in the best possible way all that justified madness.

"That 'yeah' sounded very weak," Levi complained. "I don't like it."

But what else could he say?

"Huh... Well, if you don't agree and you don't like what's written on this list..." Eren began to speak slowly. "Why did you give it to me?"

Levi's jaw was way too tense.

"I was just trying to prove something," he muttered once he seemed to calm down a bit. "But I suppose I already knew it. It was obvious it would happen sooner or later."

Eren raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

Levi gestured impatiently with his hand to dismiss the question.

"Forget it," he snapped, sullen. "The only thing that matters is that the fucking love charade has to be credible so both of you are somehow safe."

"Then..." Eren's tone was now as careful as possible. "Mikasa and I will have to talk about the things my teacher wrote on the list." Levi frowned and Eren continued, hiding his nervousness and praying that the damn burning of his cheeks wouldn't give him away. "Hey, I swear I won't do anything that makes her uncomfortable. The problem is that if we only reduce it to holding hands and grinning stupidly at each other, the most observant ones won't buy that we are a true couple. Especially Rod Reiss, that old man isn't stupid… And Mikasa and I aren't twelve, do you understand what I mean?"

Levi's silence seemed eternal to him.

"I know," he spoke at last with such a sour and defeated demeanor that it made him appear twenty years older. "I guess it really is inevitable."


A/N: I felt some sort of second-hand embarrassment - which isn't even second-hand - when writing the scene between Levi and Eren because of reasons sdfkjndfg. If you felt something similar to hehehe while reading, then mission accomplished (?)

It could be said that with this chapter the "first arc" of this story comes to an end. Starting from next chapter, called Shiganshina, the relationship between Eren and Mikasa will become deeper and, well, I guess you already somewhat know what to expect from this silly pair... Or perhaps you don't *insert Lenny face here*

I'll soon publish the extract of Levi's memories about smol Mikasa on Tumblr just for the sake of it. Also you can check Mikasa's drawing (lmao) in the AO3 version of the fic. I publish it there under kuchenackerman as well. If you want you can help me out with some kudos over there :D archiveofourown . org / works/ 14802566 (delete the spaces)

Random news: on June I published another eremika fic based off Terminator. You can find it in my profile in case you feel like reading it. The name's Remember the Future.

SPECIAL AND TITANIC THANKS to Guest (1), Jungianca6, Miourf, Beetolt35, Guest (2), Ackerpell, Shofishof26, Inuvai, Guest (3), ThatoneobsessiveOtaku, Whassup and PagingDoctor502 for their beautiful comments on chapter 10!

I get super glad whenever I receive, read and re-read reviews. To know that you guys enjoy what I write is amazing. I LOVE Y'ALL!

Thanks to every person that have left commentary about the fic. You have no idea how much I appreciate and how thankful I am for your support~