It's our last day, Elsie thought as she woke to Levi shifting behind her.

She stared at the closed curtains for a long time. She thought. She pondered. She considered all outcomes. She prayed that she would come back. Levi slept soundly, or perhaps not and he had nightmares of titans eating their whole squad, but he snored and he stayed still and Elsie stared.

At some point she turned to face him. Levi. She mentally took a picture and saved it, thinking if she had a scrapbook she would fill it with only him and write November Fifteenth and maybe scribble some cheesy hearts and Cupid's arrows and she would save it in her closet to look back upon as the last happy moment they had. His raven locks made beautiful line work only Elsie could see on the pillow. His finger twitched, routinely on his chest, and she clenched her eyes shut and wished away all his scary dreams. When she opened her eyes Levi laid peaceful and unbothered, lips parting for a breathy exhale.

If they had met in her world she wondered if he would've stopped at seeing her. Where would they have met? Perhaps on the street, Elsie fumbling with her humungous satchel on the pavement and trying to find her car keys and she's far too busy with her own personal problems to catch sight of a short man, dark in attire and silently approaching. And they collide. And Levi wouldn't let her fall ad he would help her and she would look at him and smile, and she would ask him for coffee and he would scoff with a roll of grey eyes and say coffee is too main stream or something ridiculous and it would all fall into place. They would have a home, friends and weekend plans, and during Christmas they would be sitting in her apartment, cozily wrapped on the couch and watching some D-list film Levi wanted to critique, a cupcake with a birthday candle to be blown at midnight, and not-

And not facing titans. But they were here in 850, two thousand and some odd years away from where Elsie imagined their other selves to be, and approaching 851 with a treacherous journey filled with flesh eating zombies and trigger happy cowboys from underground.

Elsie preferred to take more pictures of Levi instead of thinking about it.

His knee shifted beneath the blankets, a ripple effect over the comforter, and he scratched his nose. He blinked once. Twice. Elsie counted each one.

"What are you staring at?" He asked quietly, husky, gentle. Did he think the same thing she had when she'd faced reality?

"The huge pimple on your nose."

Levi scratched with no result, "Rude."

Elsie smiled. He caressed her cheek and kissed her chin. He pushed her hair back and he encouraged her to crawl into his space with greedy hands. It's as easy as sleeping, this new game of kissing, they did it so naturally and so fucking well. His breathless pants exposed him to liking it when her lips found the spot near his ear and his fingers dug into her side to keep her hostage.

Elsie gasped, trembling with anticipation, and Levi swallowed her sounds. He held her, eventually shirtless, and dragged red marks across her spine and traced her skin with his lips. Levi guided her with stern hands and nippy kisses, holding her by the neck and devouring every inch of her perky breasts.

And things changed. Levi caught Elsie's eye and they knew with one devious glance beneath hooded eyelashes how they would spend their last morning in the castle. Their clothes are only foreplay for them to undress, Elsie promising that she would never forget how Levi's milky thighs looked beneath her, and savoring that when they finally became one, meeting in the most delicious way, Levi's head fell back and his mouth parted and he groaned deep in his chest, one that reverberated through her palms and never left her mind.

Golden hair created a curtain from them and the rest of the room, the gentle creak of the bed as it tried to keep up with them, his skin against her's, sweat against their bodies that only sex could create, and her only solution was to lick and kiss it away and leave her mark. And maybe if she left them there, made in love and desperation, titan's would see and run in the opposite direction. That they knew he had someone worth killing them for.

They fall asleep naked. Levi can only sleep so much before his mind demands that he do something, so Elsie wasn't all that surprised to wake up and find him sitting on the couch with scrolls laid across the coffee table.

She held the sheet to her chest and sat up, blurry eyed as she took him in, "Is that for Shiganshina?"

"Yes," The flame flickered and shadows played peek-a-boo against his scarred shoulders. "Did you sleep at all?"

"A little bit." She didn't confess to how long she truly thought she stayed up and looked around the room. Her shirt and pajama pants were now folded neatly on her side table for easy grabbing.

No such thing was needed anymore. She slid to the end of the bed, her toes touched the freezing floor, and she knew better than to leave the sheet. She wore it as a make shift dress to open the curtains, wincing as the blinding afternoon sunlight hit her. Like losing her virginity, Elsie thought that maybe her body had changed since the last time she'd seen it. She glanced down, grinning at the sight of scattered purple love marks on her breasts, evidence that Levi had truly touched her and not been a figment of her imagination.

"Come here."

He said it as if he hadn't drank water in days and she held the only pitcher. Elsie did not make him wait, striding to settle on his legs and wrap her arms loosely around his neck. She can't stop grinning once she started, "Good morning."

"Good morning." He murmured and brushed a tangled strand of hair off her shoulder.

She glanced briefly at the formation scrolls but they don't nearly hold her attention as well as they had the entire week. Maybe she'd focused so much on being involved so that it would keep her mind off of missing Levi.

Levi, who snuck his hand beneath the sheet and grabbed at her thigh. She did nothing to stop him and said, "Do you have to be somewhere?"

It is their last day after all. Levi has no where else to be besides with Elsie, in the shower, wet bodies twined beneath the hot water, and lost in a timeless bliss.

Eventually someone's stomach growled. Elsie wore the same uniform she does every day and twisted her wet hair into a bun as she did every day and Levi opened the door for her like he does every day. And when she goes to walk out of their safe haven and leave behind the tender touches, Levi pulled her back for a short kiss.

And it reminds her that today is a special day. It is not just like every other day.

"I hope you're not stupid enough to fuck this up."

Elsie set the tea leaves down and clasped her hands. She did not appreciate his back seat critiquing, "I know where I mess up now. Listen, it's in the touch. I just got to pick out the best leaves... Right?" Elsie began with such confidence but ended with a slightly inquisitive cock of her head.

"Sure."

"You're no help."

"I've told you before."

"When? Obviously you didn't say it very loud."

"Back in Trost, when we first met." Levi takes a bite of his egg and potato concoction.

The kitchen door is suddenly loud and full. Ymir crashed through first, a tornado searching for the ice box, and second to enter is a benignly smiling Historia cradling Sasha. Blood spews from the girl's nose and it drips in threes across the floor. It took no tracker to find her and yet down the hall Elsie could hear the rest of the squad calling for their location.

"Good afternoon!" Historia greeted. She secured Sasha a stool at the kitchen island and instantly lost interest in her trauma. "Is there any more of that food, Captain?"

Levi gestured his spoon towards the pot left on the stove for late comers. With everyone's schedule out of whack food was constantly left out for someone to finish up. He is in the same thought process as Historia and takes another bite, nodding for Elsie to continue her painstakingly hard task.

"Ge' me a bo' too!" Sasha called through the thick towel over her nose.

Connie is louder than Ymir in his entrance, "Sasha! You almost had it!"

"One more foot and you would've been fine," Jean shouldered past the smaller boy and can't keep his amusement to himself. His eyes are teary with laughter and it bubbled in his chest, barely contained. "That tree branch just got the better of you."

"You should've seen it, Elsie, it was hilarious!" Eren is the last to enter and he can not see Levi standing besides her. He brushed through Historia, eating her warmed eggs, and Ymir crossing to give Sasha a new towel full of ice, and he stopped when he spots Levi's smoldering gaze. "Oh, good afternoon, Captain Levi."

"I think only you and Jean think it's funny," Elsie said and the boys shared a suspicious look at each other. She plucked five thick leaves and a few whose pretty color caught her eye. "Anyone want tea?"

"Sure, we'll take some." Ymir agreed.

Sasha leant back against the island to staunch the bleeding, "Do you have sugar?"

And Eren, returned and sweet once again, said, "I can help!"

Released from the stress of making good tea for not only Levi but for everyone - Gods, she could not handle multiple comments on it - Eren took control of steeping the leaves. Elsie and Levi found themselves standing around the island with the rest of the squad, served drinks by Eren and Armin, and listening to their exhilarating retell of Sasha flying face first into a branch.

"You're lucky it's only a broken nose and you didn't lose any teeth." Mikasa said after jokes had gone around about her purple bone.

Sasha shuddered, "There was a man in my village with no teeth, all he did was slobber and point and he scared me as a child."

"The scariest thing I had to deal with as a child was my mom finding out I skipped from school." Connie grumbled.

"Eren," Armin laughed suddenly. Eren's face dropped and he grabbed his mug, shaking his head. "Do you remember the one time we ditched school?"

"Yes and it was utterly humiliating and has no reason being brought up right now." Eren is fast to remind.

"Come on, it's funny now, at least. But back then, we'd been absolutely terrified. We skipped school, one of our wild adventures of some sort led by Eren, and barely made it ten minutes before Eren's mom rounded a corner. Turned out Hannes had seen us leaving and told on us."

"Hannes always told on us when it helped him out." Eren grouched.

They talked as soldiers do before they go on a mission. Even Levi found himself reminiscing of getting into a fight that had to be broken by the MP's like Eren and Jean described his families Friday night bonfires. Memories were passed and hoped to be retold, that one day one of them would bring it up in passing in another conversation and say 'one of my old squad mates, may they rest in peace, told me' and their life would be remembered once more.

Elsie suddenly lost the fresh, invigorated feeling she had this morning in Levi's arms. She wished they would stop talking about their moms and dads, and she wished her and Levi hadn't already discussed it, and she realized that maybe everyone was saying good bye in their own ways.

She drank her tea. Levi told another story about a man who thought he could pick pocket better than him.