"Wherever you are, you can begin again."
-Dhiman
"Squad Levi! With me! Now!" Levi ordered as we entered one of the two-story buildings. The other squad members gathered in seconds, standing at attention as I fell into formation with them. My fellow squad members either glared at me with obvious disdain (Oluo and Gunther) or completely ignored me (Eld and Petra).
"Come with me. We have first watch," Levi informed in his normal apathetic tone as he turned and walked out of the building, quickly followed by the rest of us as we all walked in silence to the gathering of trees that Levi and I were in earlier. On the walk over, I fell back walking a meter or so behind everyone else, plagued by my own insecurities now that it was no longer just Levi and me.
When we reached the trees, we all went to our assigned positions with me being in the center, next to Levi, with Oluo and Gunther being to our right, closer to Levi and the other two being on the left, closer to me. Being next to Levi helped me relax ever so slightly until his baritone voice rang out through the trees.
-LEVI'S POV-
It was time for this shit show to end. My hand-picked squad had caused a cadet with great promise and determination to almost give herself up unnecessarily to be eaten by a damned titan. The thought pissed me off. It had absolutely nothing to do with how I had this inexplicable urge to protect the dark copper-haired girl. At first, I chalked up the connection I felt to the face that she and my mother were both prostitutes in the Underground at some point; however, that doesn't explain the realization I had when I went after her when she had recklessly broken formation earlier.
At the time, I had not been thinking as a Captain should. By leaving my squad without a second thought, I had left them, as well as our entire section of the formation, vulnerable, all for the sake of Emmryn Smith, an unranked, ungraduated cadet who was known to be unstable and, as far as we know, only joined the Scouts to avoid jail time. However, none of that had even crossed my mind when I went after her.
No, when I went after Emmryn, only one thought had crossed my mind. I am NOT letting Emmryn be taken away from me! All of the time we had spent together over the last several months had flashed through my mind. Her flinching when I scolded her melting to relief when I had taken her face in my hands instead of hitting her like so many had before me. That look itself could have kept me going for days. It was so innocent as her sky blue left eye and even her sightless right eye had widened before relaxing, filled with relief and hope. I can only imagine that it was a hope that her suffering might finally be over with this fresh start.
That hope stayed in her eyes for months and seemed to grow each day, and soon, it was joined by something that only seemed to make her eyes shine brighter: Confidence. I had grown accustomed to and had truly enjoyed seeing more of it each night that she came in to clean my office.
I had never been one for conversation, but Emmryn had never seemed to mind. Our occasional conversations were actually not so annoying. We talked about different teas and her interest in reading, especially poetry. Those conversations had quickly become my favorite, if only because her expression would change to a rare, large smile.
Unfortunately, all that had ended that day during training when Oluo had revealed her past. After my outburst at my squad following Emmryn running off, I had tried to pretend that Emmryn's change in behavior hadn't bothered me. It shouldn't have affected me. I'm Captain goddamned Levi, humanity's strongest soldier and known unemotional hardass. Emmryn could handle her own shit. She'd have to. It wasn't my problem.
Even though I knew all of that, I had found myself sleeping even less than usual and burying myself in work. The shine to Emmryn's eyes was gone, and I couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to punch something in frustration, whether that frustration was at the change in Emmryn or the fact that I was letting it affect me was a mystery even to me.
Then, when I had taken her to the lookout spot to scold her, the realization as to just how much what had happened with the squad bothered her sparked my anger towards my squad, and I had been overwhelmed with the need to protect and comfort her as well as a feeling I couldn't quite explain. It was driving me crazy as her scent of strawberries had filled my nostrils when I had leaned next to her ear. One thought had stood out to me above all the others: Emmryn Smith, what the hell are you doing to me?
All these thoughts had swarmed my head as my squad (Emmryn included) and I had walked to the lookout post. Once we had all gotten into position, I decided it was time to handle this damned mess before it got any worse and ended up getting one or more of my squad members killed. I didn't know why, but I did know that I could not lose the young Smith, especially to a stupid dispute like this.
"Alright everyone, listen up!" I called out in my usual authoritative voice as I looked to my left and right to make sure everyone was listening, "Your teamwork this past month has been deplorable, and frankly, I'm sick of it. Now do any of you care to explain to me what the damned problem is?" At my last question, I noticed Emmryn tense up, and I resisted the urge to growl in annoyance as Oluo voiced the answer she had clearly been anticipating.
"Cadet Smith, Captain. The greenhorn lied to all of us and also used her relationship to the Commander to be placed in a higher position. She's clearly lacking the skills to be on the Special Operations squad, and to top it all off, she put our entire squad in danger from her reckless actions today," Oluo explained, the smirk evident underneath his tone of respect. I resisted the urge to glare at him for a moment, instead nodding in acknowledgement of his statement before looking at the other squad members.
"Are the rest of you in agreement with this?" I asked, my bored tone masking my anger. Gunther nodded in response, but Petra and Eld both hesitated.
"I agree that she put us all in danger earlier to an extent, but most of the danger was put on herself and she did manage to save lives in the process, but…" Petra admitted, looking conflicted, and I noticed the steely look in Emmryn's eyes soften a bit in shock.
"But her hiding her past is really suspicious. If she can't trust us enough to share this information, why the hell should we trust her?" Eld finished, directing his attention to Emmryn as he asked the question. I shifted my gaze to Emmryn to see a small light back in her one visible blue eye, as I nodded, letting her know to answer the question. She gave a small smile as she tied the top part of her hair back, showing her right eye without fear and seeming to be unashamed of it for the first time.
"I spent years being abused and tortured by men, waiting for the man I trusted more than anything, Commander Erwin Smith, to come and save me. And he never did. When I first joined the Survey Corps after my arrest, Erwin and I were not exactly on good terms. To put it bluntly, I hated him with every fiber of my being. The only reason I joined was to avoid jail time. However, thanks to some unwanted intervention from outside parties, we eventually reconciled. Still, I wanted to make my own path here in the Scouts without everyone's opinions being affected by a past I had no control over or by who my older brother is," Emmryn explained, her voice soft, but strong and filled with confidence as she looked at the other squad members and continued, "I apologize that you all felt deceived by my actions. I assure you that was not my intention. Please forgive my unintentional deception."
She gave a salute first in the direction of Oluo and Gunther and then towards Eld and Petra before bowing in apology. My expression softened ever so slightly as my gaze rested on hers and she lifted her head. She gave me an ever so small smile that quickly turned to a look of shock as Petra ran over to her and hugged her.
My normal bored gaze moved between my other three squad members. Gunther and Eld both looked at each other with a nod and a smirk as they too went over to Emmryn who was still in shock, Eld ruffling her hair and Gunther giving her a kind pat on the back.
"We're sorry too, Emmryn! It sounds like you went through more than any of us could understand! Please forgive us!" Petra apologized loudly as she released Emmryn from the hug with a smile.
"Yeah. You're alright, kid. We've got your back from here on out," Eld added with an assuring smile, and Emmryn looks at him and nods.
"Just don't go running off on your own like that anymore, alright?" Gunther interjected with a small smile of his own, "And for Walls sake, no more secrets!" Emmryn nodded again as I noticed her eyes shining, turning glassy as tears started to fall from them.
"Thank you all so much! I won't be so reckless again," she assured with a bright smile that caused a warm feeling to bubble up inside of me, "And no more secrets."
Tearing my gaze from the heartwarming scene to my left, I turned my head to look at the remaining member of my team.
Oluo's face was frozen into a shocked, angry expression. He clearly never expected the rest of the squad to forgive the young Smith. Part of me wanted to smirk, but instead I kept my usual stoic expression.
"Oluo," I called out, getting his attention, " I don't care how you found out that information about Cadet Smith, but your big mouth caused our whole squad to be in danger by creating an unnecessary divide. You will be cleaning the stables on your own for 2 months when we return from this expedition." My tone left zero room for discussion as I turned my gaze in front of me, focusing on keeping watch. The rest of the squad quickly returned to their positions and did the same as we waited on the next shift to arrive.
Song: Catch Fire by Jenix
Edited: 03/26/2020
