Chapter 33: Not Yet

When they stepped out of the airship, the sun was shining, brutally bright. Not a single cloud in the sky to keep it in check.

How fitting.

Nora only wasted a thought on this trivial detail because the glaring light was torture to her eyes. Maybe because she'd spent too much time in the night and sparsely lit places inside. Maybe because she hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours.

Maybe because she felt raw, like she'd been flayed. Empty except for all the worst things a human could feel.

Head bent, she was walking with Rob and Varis, who carried Levi's stretcher.

"Do I get a room with a window?" Ayad asked blithely behind them, never mind that he was cuffed again. "I think I've earned myself a window."

It was a real feat that the bugger still managed to provoke a spark of irritation within her. She turned, glaring. "If you shut up for even one bloody minute, then maybe."

And he did. He really seemed to want that window.

Thanks to his impertinence, she noticed her surroundings against her will as she was about to face the front again. A few Scouts and Marleyans had been waiting for them; they'd probably come running when the airship appeared in the sky.

And at a dozen or so metres distance stood Niccolo. Holding Sasha in his arms, who was crying into his shoulder, his expression a mask of shock and grief and so many conflicting emotions that Nora had no capacity of identifying. Certainly not right now. Niccolo, embracing Sasha, one hand at the back of her head right above her ponytail, the other rubbing soothing circles between her shoulder blades. Under any other circumstances, Nora might have been astounded.

Up ahead, the rest of the Special Ops squad hurried towards them. What was left of her heart froze.

No. She couldn't do it, not right now. She could barely look at them.

As if sensing her misery, Hange stepped up to meet them first, tugging the doc with her by his elbow. All three of them started talking almost at the same time.

"Is that him?" Armin asked, examining Ayad with open curiosity and not a trace of animosity.

"Why the hell is Sasha with Niccolo? Where's Connie?" Jean tipped his chin in the direction of the airship. "He still back in there?"

"What happened to the captain?" Mikasa was looking over Hange's shoulder, her wide-eyed gaze darting from Levi—lying unresponsive on the stretcher, his cloak draped over his upper body—to Nora. "And why are you covered in blood, Nora?" Her tone was urgent, alarmed.

Nora physically couldn't answer. She'd lose it again, break apart, make it even more real than it already was, make it worse.

"I'll update you in a minute, guys," Hange said, the slight tremor in her voice betraying her business-like tone.

Turning to Nora, she put her hands on her shoulders. "Come now. You should wash up, get something to eat."

Fresh panic flared in her chest. "Later," she said immediately, trying to free herself from Hange's hold.

But Hange remained persistent. "You've blood all over you. Please, only five minutes, while they take him to the hospital ward. Freshen up, drink some water, and I'll get you some food there."

Tentatively, Nora gave a single nod. She turned, held her hand over Levi's face until she felt a faint puff of air on her palm.

Then, she went, without so much as a single additional glance at her friends. "Sorry," she whispered as she passed them.

#

The sequence of mundane actions happened in a blur she could barely recall. Nora didn't even have an idea from where she summoned the energy for any of her mechanical movements. But she shed all her clothes, dumping them in a heap on the bathroom floor, went to the sink. The sight the mirror presented her was nothing short of gruesome, once again really driving home what had occurred. She looked like an axe murderer, or like someone who'd just slain forty titans. Her face was smeared with blood all over; cheeks, chin, forehead, nose. How her hands were looking—even worse—she already knew. She had never had so much blood on her before. And nearly all of it was Levi's.

Nora used the toilet, vaguely bemused about how persistent and non-negotiable basic human needs were, and if the world disintegrated around oneself—which it had, in a sense.

She took a shower that couldn't have lasted more than three minutes, cleaned her hands under the spray, then used them to scrub away the blood on her body, even got her hair wet but without really washing it. She did this until the water ran clear again, not reddish-brown. Grabbing whatever lay on top of the stacks of clothes in the wardrobe, she got dressed again. It felt so wrong, without Levi in here. It felt so wrong, not being with him, not knowing what might happen in the meantime.

She was more than a little dizzy, she noticed. Her body was wrung out and exhausted, and hungry. She was very much none of those things.

She rushed out the door.

#

The moment the medics had left, Nora pulled a chair next to Levi's bed and sat down with no intention of getting up any time soon.

Nothing had changed about his appearance since the airship. His face was still just as lifeless and greyish, the circles beneath his eyes very dark, the creases surrounding them particularly deep. His black hair fell messily over the bandage; they'd probably taken care to keep it outside so it wouldn't touch the wound. The graze shot.

The other one hadn't been a graze shot.

She could almost hear his voice, what he would say if she told him about the liver surgery. I don't need the whole damn thing, anyway.

Nora smiled a not-smile.

His limp hand was cool to the touch when she took it in hers. Another thing that felt so wrong. She tugged at his blanket, covering him up to the shoulders.

There was still some crusted blood under her fingernails.

As she sat in dead silence, she thought of Connie, again and again. Impetuous Connie, easy to smile, always good for a joke, who had faced every obstacle with them head-on, no matter how afraid he was. Humble and capable. Who had once said he wanted to be a soldier his mother could be proud of. His mother, who was not dead yet not alive.

He'd been that soldier. Right up until the moment Nora had got him killed, because he'd trusted her, followed her.

It was her idea, she had pushed for the mission, and this was the outcome. This was the price they had to pay. She was physically sick with self-hatred. She wanted to rip off her own skin.

Is that what it was like for you, Erwin? Each time?

What Hange had said on the ship was true, but knowing something and feeling something were two very different animals; if they had the best of the best reasons and intentions, the fact remained that, partly due to Nora's decisions, one close friend got killed, and her person so gravely injured he might not make it.

Sometime in the night, she might have dozed for an hour or two, her head resting on the mattress. She wasn't sure because the atrocious thoughts haunting her didn't change, they only sped up, jumbled.

The next day, when she watched the medics change Levi's bandages, she saw for the first time the full aftermath inflicted by those two gunshots he hadn't been able to evade.

The bullet along the left side of Levi's head had left a shallow, fleshy groove of about a finger's width. It was still fresh, red, and seeping. So, so close to being fatal, to ending it all. So, so close to ending up like Connie.

And the abdominal shot. The shot. The doctor had done his job, alright. Just below Levi's ribcage, a long, vicious, stitched cut ran in a diagonal curve from the side of his lower abdomen upwards, only ending beneath his breastbone. The gunshot wound itself was situated above the cut. No longer bleeding profusely, but that was the best she could say; despite its far smaller size, it was even grislier than the wound on his head. A red-black hole inside a deep-red, jagged ring.

Her nausea worsened. Objectively, she had seen worse than all his wounds taken together, countless times. But it was Levi.

That sense of wrongness intensified. This was too early. Somehow, this felt like a thousand missed chances, and she couldn't even pinpoint them. Things she should have said, things she should have done, things they should have done, things they wanted to do.

Things she should have said.

At least one of those, she could pinpoint.

Don't think about it. She couldn't break down, again. And in front of witnesses. Again. She might not survive it, and she absolutely had to survive. As of now, Levi was surviving, too. She focused on that hollowness inside her chest that swallowed a fraction of her agony. Or gave the illusion that it did, at least. Right now, it was a blessing.

#

Eventually, Nora was alone again. Alone despite him being right there, despite her touching him. He was checked on multiple times a day, and she was to shout for someone immediately—the medics were always close by in the adjacent offices—should anything about his condition change.

After only minutes of solitude, Hange came. Her gaze strayed to Nora's hand—wrapped around Levi's wrist, again. She didn't let go; first, she didn't care, and second, there was no point in hiding it. Hange had seen enough.

"I brought you tea and supper. Here." She set the tray on the bedside table.

Nora didn't want either, but she thanked her friend regardless.

Hange pulled over another chair, sliding her fingers beneath her glasses to rub at her eyes, heedless of the eyepatch. "I'm sorry I didn't come by yesterday. I was swamped, as you can imagine."

Nora shrugged. "It's okay. It's not like you missed anything." Besides, Hange had already done more than enough for her. There was nothing more she could do.

Hange leaned forward in her seat, inspecting Levi's bandages. They were immaculate, of course, freshly changed, and wrapped around his torso in a way that left only his right shoulder uncovered. "Our mouthy scientist is contained in his room, by the way. I didn't really talk to him, so far. His bag is in my office. When you want to take a look, just give me the word."

"Did he get his window?" Nora asked for whatever reason. Not that she knew anything else to say; there was only one thing she currently wanted.

Hange heaved a sigh. "He sure did."

In another reality, Nora would already have squeezed him like a lemon and read through his research several times. But as it was, she wouldn't have been able to focus on a single word; she was completely useless right now, and she didn't even give a damn. She was a despicable soldier and friend, yes, but everything else had to wait. It would only be a matter of days, anyway. The next couple days were decisive. She couldn't be anywhere else.

She wondered if her squad mates would come to visit. It was their captain, after all. She almost hoped they wouldn't, not after Connie. Seeing an exacerbated version of her own grief reflected in their faces… How was she supposed to keep it together?

"How are the others holding up?" she heard herself asking against better judgement.

The corners of Hange's mouth drooped. "As you'd expect." She reached over, briefly squeezing Nora's knee. "They're strong, though, each of them. They asked about Levi. And you."

"I'm not the one in a coma." The word almost got stuck in her throat. Barely more than a whisper escaped.

Eyebrows drawing together, Hange shook her head as if Nora had said something stupid. "They wanted to know how you are. They're worried."

A little something flickered in Nora's chest, extinguished before it could catch. "What did you say to them?"

A sardonic smile ghosted across Hange's face. "I said 'as you'd expect'."

Nora nodded. A fitting answer, she supposed.

The little conversation died down. After a while, Hange started shifting in her seat, fixing her glasses over and over, and when Nora redirected her gaze from Levi to her, she was nibbling at her lower lip, as though she was debating herself.

"Just spill it, Hange. I'm quite certain it won't ruin my day."

"Well, I kind of have bad news. Literally. This arrived here today." She produced a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and handed it over. A newspaper article.

No matter what it was, it couldn't be actually bad, not in Nora's book. She had a new benchmark for the definition of 'bad', now.

She skimmed the first paragraph of the text, barely able to absorb the information. To be fair, she wasn't trying all that hard. What did register was her name, "power of the Colossal Titan", blah blah.

"Oh." She gave the piece of paper back without reading the rest. "It's about time."

Hange's mouth fell open, brows climbing up her forehead. "That's all you have to say? Everyone on this island now knows what you are, Marleyan and Eldian alike."

Fuck, Nora was so tired from all that talking. "What do you want me to say, Hange? I can't do anything about it." Shrugging, her eyes fell back to Levi's unnaturally still face. "And I couldn't give less of a shit, anyway."

She was only met with silence from her right side. Had she finally managed to alienate her best friend, maybe lost some of that trust and respect she hardly deserved?

But when Hange spoke, all she said was, "You will, again. Eventually." Her voice rang with a conviction that almost made Nora laugh. "I promise."

#

On the third day, Sasha and Mikasa visited. Nora's stomach was in knots the moment they stepped in, and the knots tightened once she saw their tired, red-rimmed eyes.

"Hey," Sasha said as a greeting, a small, soft sound.

They sat wordlessly for a while, watching the captain. No pleasantries were exchanged, no more useless how are yous or I'm sorrys.

Nora managed to exhibit self-restraint for maybe three minutes. Then, that dull, looming sense of dread that had become a fixture in her body overpowered her once more, and it was either jumping out of her skin or checking Levi's pulse at his wrist. And leave her fingers there.

Maybe witnessing that neurotic habit was what made Sasha speak up. "Sorry, but—can I ask… What do you like about the captain?" And she cringed immediately, before Nora could do more than look puzzled. "Oh, I don't mean he's awful or anything, not at all, I don't mean it like that; he cares, of course, and we'd all be long dead without him, but you two are—well, y'know, and back on that airship, you were really… and, it's just, he is so, er…"

Mikasa came to her assistance, putting an end to her babbling, fortunately. "Unapproachable? Unsettling? Violent? Crass?"

"I, uh… Yes. All that." Sasha covered her face with her hands for a second. "Sorry. I really put my foot in my mouth there."

Well, that was what Nora got from losing her shit in front of her comrades. None of her squad mates had ever asked her a question like this before. Yet, Sasha bothered, after everything that had happened. Maybe that was why it didn't seem right to provide no answer at all. She'd just have to limit herself to what she could bear to say. Bear to think.

Nora stretched her lips into a small smile. One of those that felt like hard labour. "Don't worry. It's a legit question. I know he can be a proper prick." She wouldn't have thought it was possible to say this with so much tenderness. She hadn't really meant to. Not that his prickishness bothered her—kind of the opposite—but she knew the common consensus. The first conventionally positive thing she could somewhat safely think of was, "He makes me laugh, for one thing."

Present tense. She was talking in the present tense. Something she shouldn't even notice.

"Huh. Yeah, I've always thought that's weird," Sasha said.

Nora thought it made perfect sense.

Mikasa and Sasha continued staring at her, expectant. That probably hadn't been enough of an explanation.

But she couldn't say any more about him, about who he was, the countless reasons he was the most incredible person that would ever exist. She couldn't.

It would feel like giving a eulogy.

"It's like…" Nora imagined she was doing nothing more than explaining a general concept. Nothing that had to do with her, that had happened to her, was ruining her. "A person comes into your life, out of nowhere, someone you didn't know you were looking for, someone you wouldn't have thought could possibly exist." She took a deep breath through her mouth, clenching her fist in her lap. "And that one person manages to turn your whole life on its head, changing you forever, and no matter what happens, you couldn't possibly go back to how it was before."

No matter what happens.

"I understand that." Mikasa said calmly, surprising her.

"Yeah…" Sasha's gaze dropped to her knees. "Me too, I think. A little."

Nora thought back to when they'd returned here. What she'd seen without really seeing; Niccolo, hugging Sasha, comforting her. "Does he talk to you again?"

Sasha knew right away what Nora meant. "I'm not sure. Not really, I guess…" She swallowed, picking at a thread on her trousers. "He's been bringing me lunch… Even asked how I was doing, once." She shook her head, incredulous, smiling a sad smile. "It's… nice. But also not? 'cause I know he's just doing it because he pities me, despite everything." Her eyes filled with tears. "Connie was like my brother." The tears ran freely down her cheeks, coalescing on her chin.

A leaden weight bore down on Nora's chest. She had to forcefully relax her grip on Levi's wrist. She had no right to freak out right now.

They went quiet. Nora had a distinct feeling that she'd failed them. She wanted to cheer them up, to make it better—yet she didn't. In truth, she didn't have it in her; she lacked the words, she lacked the energy. This conversation had been like running a marathon. Worth it, but draining to the point you couldn't get up from the ground anymore.

She just wanted to be alone. She didn't need to be strong when she was alone. Or rather, pretend to be strong, and do a shite job at it.

"Do you…" Mikasa interrupted the silence so suddenly Nora almost flinched. Their eyes met. "Do you think he'll come back?"

Eren. Fuck, Eren. What could they know about him at this point? He might as well be just as dead as Connie.

"I…" She hesitated. "I think Armin could answer that better than me."

"No. At least not in every way." Mikasa gazed at her with singleminded focus, even as she was playing with the fringe of her red scarf. "I'm asking you because you know Eren well, too, and because I know you'll be honest instead of trying to comfort me." She inclined her head towards Levi. "I mean, you aren't with him for nothing."

Nora's brows lifted a fraction. That was about all the expressiveness she was currently capable of. "Thanks, I guess?" She considered the question, considered what Mikasa was really asking. Thought of the young man she knew or had thought she knew. "I think that, once he's done what he means to do, he'll come back to you. If he can."

"If he can," Mikasa repeated steadily.

Nora looked at Levi as she answered. "Yes."

"Alright."

Because that had to be enough.

#

Hange came to check on Levi—or her, Nora wasn't so sure—that evening, as well.

One look at the half-eaten lunch on the table, and she crossed her arms, frowning down at Nora. Apparently, Hange had decided to take off the velvet gloves. What a relief.

"Have you spent the past two nights here, on that damned chair?"

Why was she asking a question she already knew the answer to? "Yes."

"Don't you want to go to bed, for a bit? So you're rested once he wakes up."

Once he wakes up. Or, she'd miss it when he…

"No."

"C'mon, I'll stay here the whole time you're gone, and get you in case anything changes."

"No." Something hot and spiky was working its way up her stomach, rubbing her raw.

"Nora. You need to sleep. You need to eat more than a few bites a day." Hange had adopted the sternest voice she was capable of. "Go take a rest, now. It's an order."

The hot and spiky thing had lodged itself in Nora's throat, leaving a burning trail in its wake. "No."

"You stubborn dumbass. You're even worse than him. It doesn't help anyone if you make yourself—"

"I can't, alright?" she exploded. How could Hange not see it? "I can't go, not knowing what…" Shit, her tear supply had replenished. They gathered in her eyes, just shy of spilling. "If I leave, I'm gonna lose it."

Hange's expression went unbearably soft. "Oh, sweetie…" Only now did she sit down, pointing her chair towards Nora. "He'll wake up."

"You can't know that." She pressed the balls of her hand against her eyes. She wouldn't cry again. She refused to. It made everything worse.

"No, I can't," Hange admitted, yet there was no resignation, no hopelessness. "But I'd bet my ass on it."

Nora stared at her hand, interlocked with Levi's. His was only warm because of her. "I don't know if I can do this without him," she confessed, voice thick. That ugly, pathetic truth she had never meant to let anyone see.

Hange took off her eyepatch, wiping at her eyes; they were glistening with the tears Nora had not shed. Shit. "I know, it hurts. And I know it's not the same, but… I miss him, too."

Nora had to, she had to get it out, or it would keep eating away at her from the inside. "He told me he's in love with me." Her chest constricted so badly she almost didn't get the words out. "Before the mission."

"But of course he is. He's loved you more than anything for a long time. The same way you love him." Hange stated it as the most obvious thing; nothing new, no big deal, what else?

More than anything. That certainly wasn't something he had said. And it definitely wasn't something Nora would assume. Yet, hearing it was more than she could bear now. For her sanity, she chose not to answer. This wasn't the issue she was getting at.

"He said that. I mean, he said that. And I didn't… I couldn't… and now he's—" Her voice left her for good.

"I'm sure he knows," Hange said, leaving no room for objections. "And you can tell him later." Her mismatched eyes were no longer teary; instead, her smile had produced a warm shine in them. "Trust me on this; this man is too stubborn to die."

Wouldn't it be nice if it worked like that? Nora would be immortal. She'd have forever to contemplate how she had fucked up with him.

She had wanted Levi almost since the beginning. She had realised only a short while later.

But for how long she'd loved him, she couldn't pinpoint. Only that it had already been too late to turn back, to prevent the inevitable, by the time he had first taken her hands in his in the starlit courtyard of an abandoned castle.

Maybe she would have been able to say it earlier, despite her paralysing fear, had she not instinctively done her damnedest to avoid reflecting on it for so long. In a subconscious, misguided and utterly futile attempt at protecting herself, as she had come to realise. After all, here she was, right at the breaking point.

What had happened with her mum—the one person she had loved, back then—had fucked her up badly, and being a Scout had fucked her up even more.

Levi was fucked up, too, but he was so much stronger, so much braver.

She, on the other hand, had been such a coward.

And now she had missed her chance, and might never get another, and she would forever, for as long as she lived—

Don't regret. The memory of his voice echoed in her head, that sound she knew and loved better than any other.

Yes, that was what Levi would say, most likely. Even to this. There's no need to say anything, he had told her, and he always meant what he said.

He had taught her how to live without regrets. He had shown her what freedom was, and also, inadvertently, that she would never truly achieve it. And because of him, she had realised there was something she cherished far more.

Yet, this time, she couldn't not feel the regret, leaden and painful, even though she knew it didn't do any good, knew he wouldn't approve. She had never regretted a thing she had said to him, but she regretted not telling him.

After Hange had left, Nora spoke to him, for the first time since he had closed his eyes. Useless as it was. "Our quarters are collecting dust, by the way. But I sure as hell won't clean them while you're napping here. You'll have to wake up and order me to."

He didn't. Not a single, tiny twitch. She dropped her forehead to the bed, burying her hands in the bird's nest she called hair, tugging hard.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," she mumbled into the mattress. Where he was, he couldn't hear her. He couldn't use that wonderful voice and give her a sullen, sarcastic retort. All she had right now was her shitty imagination and her memories.

She thought of one of those promises he gave unasked. Others might call them 'threats'.

If I ever catch you thinking about giving up, I'll kick your ass.

And she had. For a moment there, she really had. In a way, she still was. If he didn't wake up… She wouldn't give up on fighting, yes, but she would give up on herself. It wasn't a choice, but an unavoidable consequence.

Levi had made some excellent promises to her. Of another one, she'd dreamt only recently.

You're stuck with me until you die. Get used to it.

To be fair, it had been more of a morbid joke—back when she had been considerably more breakable than him—but she had decided to take it as a promise. She did not have the capacity to approach this rationally. She had to cling to something, or she'd fall—with no one there to catch her.

And of course, he had made a promise—a real promise—to Erwin. Levi never talked about it, but she knew him, knew what it meant to him. Probably more than all sort-of-promises he'd ever made to her taken together, and that was only reasonable. This one was far more important than she was.

She wrapped her fingers around his hand again—even though hers was much too small to envelop his—and there was nothing he could do about it.

Well, Levi, I'm waiting. After all, you hate making promises you can't keep, right?

AN: So maybe I can get a bit carried away and straight-up obsessive, on occasion (which is why my fics exist). Naturally, my research for these past three chapters got a bit out of hand and a little more intense than planned. The reading I did aside, I saw A LOT of things I can never unsee. More than I was looking for. The Connie stuff was the worse offender, I'll say that much. 0/10 would not recommend—but would do again. Priorities.