Hello! It's been a while! Sorry there was an extra week of delay, I've just had a bit of a time of it getting back into things. Hope you've had a good month folks! Anyway, on with the story!

ROBYN POV

Our slice of happiness was short-lived. Well, we were happy enough within ourselves, but the situation within the Underground soon grew sour. Refugees had been gradually coming in since the breach was announced, but as word spread, their numbers grew thick and fast. Soon enough the streets were heaving, and the next morning me and Levi handed his old abode over to a couple families with small children, they needed shelter, they simply needed a small space to call 'home' for the time being. As we headed back through the streets, intending to head back to the surface right away, Levi kept stopping to check in with old associates. Though really everything was in upheaval. Business might have been good before, but now supplies were running low, and it had only been a couple of days.

The stations where rations were being distributed swarmed with MPs, clutching their guns tight, glaring at everyone that came near. It felt like a powder keg, waiting to go off. One wrong move, one sour word or angry snap and this whole situation might explode. And so we stayed. There had been no word about the Scouts return yet, even though it had only been a day, so for another day or so we stayed and helped keep the peace. We took minimal rations, neither me or Levi being strangers to a hungry belly. But both of us were well-practised at keeping people calm when they were on their final shred of patience. Admittedly usually we were dealing with traumatised soldiers, but the same concepts applied. A few fights broke out, but nothing catastrophic. The MPs were generally pretty well-behaved, I have to admit. They still wrinkled their noses when hearing which regiment we were from, or sneered at us for not being involved in the wall efforts at the time, but nothing beyond petty nonsense which we could look beyond easily. Little men needing to feel like they had some control.

On the third day, word reached us of the Scouts return. And a need for us to regroup with them. We wasted no time in getting up-top, though it did take about an hour for us to get used to the daylight. But still, we were on our way to regroup with the team in Trost. I clasped my hands tight in the wagon, trying not to list the names over and over of who I prayed had made it home again, but it was difficult. How depleted were we? How many more names did I have to see carved onto gravestones? The trip took an average time, but it felt torturously slow. Every rattle of the wheels, every huff of the horses, it made my skin feel tighter and my mind reel. Who had lived? Who was gone?

Finally Levi poked his head back into the wagon and announced we were close to Trost, he could see the gate. I breathed a little easier after that, but the wagon had barely stopped rolling before I had toppled out and headed for the building where everyone would be recovering.

Or what was left of them.

Hanji was covered in burns, a lot of cadets were – presumably from fighting the Colossal? Several cadets were in shock still, staring off into the distance, flinching at any noise even remotely like thunder. Eren had thankfully been in pretty good shape, not missing any limbs or in fatigue from using his power. Though judging from the way he said he was fine, many other things had occurred while they had been out there. A fuller picture would follow, but for the time being, I was just glad to see them whole. Mikasa, Armin, Connie, the all important Christa, and many others within the 104th were doing well also. But then I noted the lack of Bertholdt and Reiner. So it had been confirmed. It turned my stomach but there was no point in denying it further. They saw it themselves. Apparently the bastards had admitted it outright to Eren, as if he would take that as a sign of good faith or something. How deluded had they been?

And then came the Commander.

He was still unconscious when we were allowed in to see him, lying in a large bed, looking oddly small as he lay beneath the blankets. Moblit left me and Levi in there for a moment for us to wrap our heads around it. Our Commander, the unbreakable Erwin Smith, had lost an arm, and very nearly his life. It was strange; he was just a man, there was no real reason to be so utterly shocked at him being injured, but it shook us both. Fever still had him in its grips, a flush on his sunken cheeks and a stubble scattered across his jaw. Human. I think that was the weird part, he looked utterly human.

"Damn stubborn fool." Levi muttered with a shake of his head. "Cut your own damn arm off so you could stay in the fight? What, being notoriously calculating wasn't enough for you? Now you have to be psychotic as well?"

"How do you know he cut–"

"Hanji theorised." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We should let him sleep uninterrupted."

"All right." As much as he was scolding the Commander, I knew plain as day that Levi was also worried for his friend. They had their differences, I knew that well enough. But over the years Commander Erwin and Levi had formed a bond. A strong one. It likely scared Levi to see his comrade brought so low. So close to a permanent end.

He came over and encouraged me away with a gentle hand against the small of my back. "I need to tell you something anyway."

"Well now I'm worried." I chuckled, but his remaining pursed lips made me feel cold. It wasn't good news. I guess that much was obvious. We weren't going to get good news for quite some time.

"Just… C'mon."

He led me to another room, an empty one. I frowned and he gestured for me to sit on the bed, but I stayed standing. While I visited Eren and some of the 104th, Levi had been talking with Hanji and Moblit to catch up on the situation. What had he learned? Someone else was a damn shifter beyond Bertholdt, Reiner and the Ymir girl?

Levi looked uneasy. Names and faces that I still hadn't accounted for began to run through my head, and I began to shiver. I'd still not bumped into either Mike or Nanaba. Surely it wasn't them? It couldn't be.

I licked my wobbling lips. "Levi, where are Mike and Na–"

"They fell."

Air rushed from my lungs and the room began to spin. I gritted my teeth and tried to stay standing, but it was no use, I staggered to the bed and slumped there. Shit. I didn't want that truth. Not now, not ever. No. How the hell could it be true? NO. Mike. How? Before Levi came to the Scouts, Mike had been known as Humanity's Strongest. He was a damn good fighter. One of the best. And Nanaba? She had always been there, reliable and constant. Gone. Both of them.

"H-How?"

"Apparently Nanaba fell at Utgard castle, she was defending the tower where the cadets were hiding due to their lack of gear. She fought to the end. But they were blind-sided, the Titans were moving in the dark."

I shuddered. "I thought that wasn't possible?"

"Somehow for these ones, it was. Had it not been for that, Hanji's group likely would have made it in time to aid them. As for Mike…" Levi's voice drifted and he cleared his throat, hands clenched at his sides as he tried to cling to composure. I reached for him and he joined me on the bed. Levi sighed. "He stayed behind to give the initial groups some time to head out from the camp where we left them before Stohess. No one… No one really knows how he went out, but there's been no sign of him except for a scrap of his jacket near where they parted ways."

His voice faltered towards the end. Like the picture sickened him, but of course it did, how could it not? Our friend, comrade, brother-in-arms, was gone. Just like that.

Levi wouldn't cry. I'd been forming a theory recently about that, and I reckoned crying was something Levi didn't really allow himself anymore. Maybe he didn't want to look weak – though that never sat right in my mind, he didn't care about that kind of thing. And it wasn't weak. Maybe he hadn't cried since losing Isabel and Farlan – that seemed the most likely. I'd probably never know. And that was fine. I cried for the both of us. My head hung forward and it poured out of me, deep sobs wracking my body. My heart ached. Not only had Mike died defending the cadets, but he had done so alone. The only hope I could cling to was that it had been quick. My friend. My big, tall, goofy, strong friend. Gone forever, and I didn't even know how. How much loss can one human endure before they break? I clung to Levi and he held me tight, apologising despite the fact it wasn't his fault. I guess he was just apologising on behalf of this cruel world.

Eventually I was able to breathe steady and dry my eyes. They would want us to keep fighting, to keep going, to use our pain but use it for good. So I would. I'd take it and forge it into a fresh frenzy to fight. It was what our squad would have wanted as well. This world was cruel, and we would beat it.

"We have to crack this, Levi." I sniffed. "We need to know what the fuck happened out there."

"I know. We will." He kissed my head.

"Fuck, if only we had–"

"Don't do that." He held me tighter. "There's no telling what would have gone differently if we'd been there. We might be on the dead list for all we know. From the sounds of it, the encounter with the Armoured came down to sheer luck at one point, the way the bastard was literally throwing Titans like canon balls."

It must have been terrifying. Not only were the Titans coming from all sides, they were literally falling from the sky. Reiner. How the hell could you do that to your comrades? Kids you had trained with for years, forged bonds with. Hadn't you? It made no sense. What the hell could justify it? What could their real reasons be?

I curled against him. "Fuck. I'm so angry."

"Likewise, but we'll use that rage. For everyone we've lost."

I held onto his jacket. "It's selfish, but I'm glad you're still here."

He gave me a gentle squeeze. "It's not selfish, it's human."

Thankfully it wasn't too long before Commander Erwin had woken, and gotten past the worst of his fevers. Obviously he was still in bed, and his wound was still being tended to, but at least he could strategize. And so, he called me and Levi to his quarters to discuss our mission in the Underground. It was a plain room, but he still looked odd in it. Like a civilian. Stubble covered his jaw and his hair was askew from recent sleep. I'd never seen him out of uniform, let alone dishevelled. Still, he was my Commander, and we had work to do. He gestured me and Levi forward. As ever he was looking ahead, he was strategizing where to go from here. Barely time to take a breath. But then again, it helped move past the pain of what we had lost. Mike. I'm never going to be able to rectify what happened, nothing would ever make it right, but I could at least make the bastards pay.

A knock sounded at the door.

"That'll be Hanji." Levi said, looking a little bored by Erwin's plans, but it seemed more like a mask than ever before.

The door opened, revealing Hanji and Connie. I blinked. What was Connie doing here? They stepped inside, and it seemed that there was some new information gathered from the field, regarding the supposed breach in wall Rose. Commander Erwin asked for Pixis to be invited inside as well, knowing that we all had to be on the same page. And beyond anything else, it was good to cultivate an ally in Pixis. He had a lot of power these days, the walls were more important to people than ever.

While we waited for Pixis to arrive, I took note of how rigid Connie was standing. Completely still. Eyes forward at the wall. He looked made of stone. Something wasn't right, and it seemed more personal than a recount of the mission that followed the appearance of titans. He had been in the Utgard castle, he had seen Nanaba and the others perish, but something about him looked… Haunted. For someone as light-hearted and warm as Connie, it was downright horrible to see. I wanted to go over there and try to reach that goofy kid inside those frightened eyes, but when I shifted my weight to move, Levi glanced at me and gave a small shake of his head. I could help the boy later. For now, we needed the information.

Finally, Pixis arrived and we were able to hear the weird news.

During the attempts to find survivors and warn villages, Connie had been eager to reach his homestead. It made sense. But when they had arrived, the place was abandoned – kind of. The houses were either emptied, or seemingly wrecked. But the stables were full. Horses untouched. Why flee without horses? It made no sense. And his people were country folk, they knew how far it was to the nearest next village or to any kind of aid. They would have taken transport. Yet not a single horse was taken. And then Hanji put a hand on the boy's shoulder and he recounted what he had found when arriving back at what was left of his childhood home. A titan. But it was lying on top of the house, unable to move.

I leaned forward. "If it couldn't move, how did it–"

"He's not done, Robyn." Hanji gave me a stern look and I dipped my head in apology.

Connie looked down. "Gonna sound so stupid but I… I could've sworn I heard it speak."

We all jolted. The Commander's eyes lit up a little, almost like he was excited, but then he checked himself and reigned in that boyish glee. He cleared his throat and nodded to the cadet to continue.

"She… It…" Connie swallowed. "It said 'welcome home', I think."

It was like the air had been sucked out of the room. For one thing, a Titan speaking? For another, it recognised Connie somehow? It knew he was from there? Madness. Total madness. And on top of all that, if it couldn't move, how had it got there from outside Wall Rose? Unless, it hadn't. Hanji took the silence as her chance to step in with her theories, and by the time she was done, the room was practically spinning. No wonder Connie had looked so fraught when he came into the room. No doubt we all looked the same.

Pixis was the first to find the ability to speak. "Come, again? You're saying the Titans responsible for this, were the citizens of Ragako?"

Connie stared forward. He trembled.

Hanji gave a small nod.

Fucking hell, how was this even possible? I held onto my knees tight, knuckles pale as I tried to digest that kind of information. But before my mind had managed to crystalise the underlying truth therein, the Commander went ahead and did it for me.

He took a long breath. "I see… So, in actuality, Titans are human beings."

Hanji swallowed. "Well, we don't have proof yet."

Levi somehow went even more still. "Great. Perfect."

He was spiralling. I cleared my throat. "Captain I think we need to–"

"I've spent all this time. All this energy. And the things I've been carving through like carrion were people."

My own kill count suddenly weighed heavy on my back, like an overstuffed bag of bricks, no doubt his own was occurring to him as well. His eyes had gone a little wide, staring at Hanji for confirmation. I looked as well and she looked entirely uneager. The woman who frothed at the mouth when a Titan even blinked slightly differently, was entirely unamused in this moment. Cold filled my veins.

"Look," Hanji frowned, "we don't know for a certainty."

But I knew her words weren't reaching Levi, it was like watching rain bounce off a window. No doubt it would take time to scrape through that guilt, for all of us. But like Hanjit had said, we didn't know for certain. The implication alone was horrifying. Not only did that mean we had been killing people, but it meant that the Titans, our enemy, were our own kind. And beyond that, how? How the hell did a Human become one of those mindless Titans? Sure we had seen Eren shift, we had witnessed that ourselves. But it wasn't the same. To know that those mindless beasts roaming around outside the walls, just seeking a person to shove into their stinking jaws, were people? It was sickening.

Connie and Hanji left, the boy trembling from head to toe, but as they went Hanji gave me a soft smile and I knew she would look after him. He had done a brave thing. Potentially he had just pointed the finger at his own mother and named her a Titan. But it was vital information. Our main weakness against the Titan threat had always been our lack of understanding. This new information was baffling at this point, but it was at least information. We could work with that, grow from it.

Levi hadn't spoken again since his little outburst. His knuckles were white and his jaw had been tight, like he was biting back more self-loathing every single second. No doubt he was. My own hands had begun to feel sticky with all the blood they were drenched in. But as he watched Hanji and Connie leave, heading back to the main base where the other cadets were staying, he sighed. We had work to do.

He turned back to me and the Commander. "So, now what?"

But he choked a little, eyes going wide as he looked beyond me to the Commander. I turned and found myself taking a step back. An inane smile was plastered across Commander Erwin's face, his eyes practically glistening.

"Uhm…" Levi muttered. "Excuse me..."

The Commander jolted, as if he had forgotten we were even there.

Levi stared in disbelief. "What's with that smile?"

I had seen that smile before, and loathed the sight. It was the kind of smile that preceded Vincent claiming something had finally worked, something had made it all worthwhile. In his eyes anyway. The proclamations usually being spouted as I held a cloth to a new carving against my skin, or felt a cleaning solution burn against an open wound. Worthwhile. Justified. And now, we can keep going and keep hiking up the price.

The Commander, almost in a dazed manner as the smile faded before our questioning looks. "Oh… It's nothing." He looked down. "It's just, seems to me, we've taken one more step towards the truth."

"Wow." Levi scoffed. "One whole step, huh? At this pace we'll run out of people before we actually reach it. Not a good rate of return."

"And we don't even know if that truth is going to be for our benefit or not," I pointed out, hating the way the Commander seemed to be using the word 'truth' like it was automatically a good thing. When really the truth of all this could be even more horrifying. "The truth could just cost us more lives for all we know."

And then the smile was gone. In its place came a fierce determination, one that looked ready to burn down the whole world in order to achieve its goal. Dammit. Stop looking like Vincent.

Commander Erwin glared. "Everything comes at a price. One day we'll get close enough to break through. The wall barring us from the truth will tumble."

Let it never be said that Commander Erwin wasn't willing to be on the front lines with his men, of course not. But still. At that moment I wanted to slap that beard clean off his face. I wanted to scream the names of the fallen at him, to burst his ears with the sound and make him feel every single one of those lives we had lost along the way. And even then I don't think he'd have registered it. Not really. Forget about looking human, that had come and gone. There wasn't anything human about that look. Not one bit.

I practically snarled. "Even if you're the only one to know that truth?"

He blinked at me.

"And what if that truth turns out to be even worse than this ignorance? I'm all for making progress, for finding the damn reason we're in this pen surrounded by those hungry bastards, but don't forget what that neat little word 'price' actually means."

He pursed his lips. "I'm not."

"No?" It poured out of me. "Big sweeping statements about walls tumbling and finding the 'truth' are all well and good, but right now I'm still trying to wash the blood of Mike and Nanaba out of my mind, still trying to contend with the fact we had shifters in our ranks actively working against us. That the city of Stohess was flattened in order for us to reveal who the Female Titan was. That good people died in order to root her out in the first place. Petra, Eld, Gunter and Oluo, not to mention the countless others. Dead. Gone. Fucking dismantled! The wall barring us from the truth might well bloody tumble, but let's not go too fast and forget that our fucking humanity might just join it."

"You forget yoursel–"

"No, sir. That's what you're doing." I swallowed hard and gave a salute. "I admire your drive, I will always be a loyal Scout, but right now you need to step back from that bigger picture and remember all of us people standing under it, holding the damn frame." And then I walked out, slamming the door. Because if I heard a refute, or a justification, I'd really lose it.

The corridors were stifling, the sun high in the sky as the town continued with its day. People out there living their lives, dreaming dreams, just continuing on without the knowledge that the things hunting us relentlessly were potentially just people. Were the people inside the Titans trapped? Had they chosen that fate? I shook my head. No. I highly doubted Connie's mother would have chosen to become an immovable Titan trapped in her own destroyed home. So the likelihood of it being against their will swelled in my mind and ice nipped at my gut. Was that what Vincent had intended for me? Not a shifter at all, but a mindless beast?

I made it outside and sat on a set of stairs, the sunshine swathing over me, the fresh air greedily dragged into my lungs. For a few moments I just sat there and stared at my boots. I shouldn't have said all that. At the end of the day, he was still my Commander. But I couldn't just let that smile go untouched. It wasn't meant to be the reaction to discovering you have been ordering people to murder people. Sure, he has been searching for the answer to the Titans his whole life, but we had to keep in mind why we were seeking those truths. Didn't we?

"You really have to learn to form an opinion." Levi drawled as he joined me on the steps, briefly touching his shoulder to mine.

I smirked, but kept my eyes low. "I'm guessing he's rather angry."

"Not pleased, but hardly arguing against what you said."

"Good…"

"He's resting for now. No doubt he'll be licking his wounds for a while too. But you know…"

"What?" I peeked at him, finding his eyes fixed on the blue sky above us. "You don't agree with him, I know you don't."

"Good." He smirked. "Glad you know that, but you do still need to be careful."

I sat straight. "Of?"

"Erwin."

The breeze shifted, moving his hair against his eyes for a moment. What exactly happened when Levi was recruited to the Scouts was still a fairly mysterious time. They had a bond now, sure. Some might even call them friends. But Levi had still seen more sides to Erwin than most, at least, most living.

I clasped my hands tight. "Yeah, I'm getting the sense of that."

"What tipped you off? The insane grin after learning we've been murdering civilians?"

"We don't know that yet." I snapped, but he didn't even flinch. Then I sighed. "Aside from your evident ongoing self-loathing. That wasn't what I meant. It was the smile partially, sure, but mainly…"

"Go on."

I shivered. "He reminded me of Vincent."

"Ouch." Levi raised his brows and nodded slowly. "Give it a day or so and lay that at his feet, it'll wake him up better than anything else."

"I'd never be able to say it to his face." I snorted and Levi shrugged, instilling a newfound fear in my gut. "Don't you bloody say it either."

"Wouldn't dream of stealing that moment." He shook his head. "Look, Erwin can be a boorish moron at times, and he absolutely loses sight of what that word 'price' means. You were right, and deep down he knows that, which is why he was trying to hide behind the Commander role. But that's just it. He needs people like that, like you and me, to point that shit out."

"I didn't sign up to be the Commander's therapist."

"Mm, but you care about him as a person too, don't you?" He raised a brow. "You can't help yourself with us broken bastards."

I frowned. "You're not a bastard. You immediately turned those numbers into people."

"Perhaps a different kind of bastard then." He shrugged again, and I hated how much that mask was being held in place. Barely. But he was trying so hard. "Point is, he will be grateful once he can see it."

A quiet fell over us after that. The building was busy with folks going to and fro. Cadets visited the injured, and tended to their newfound duties. Hanji rambled somewhere nearby, and Moblit rambled back in exasperation. Life went on. As always.

"I do want to find the truth, you know." I'm not sure where the words came from, but there they were, escaping me. "I just can't go celebrating that truth when a step towards it potentially reveals the hypocrisy in my own survival."

"Agreed." Levi stood and brushed himself down. "Feels like I've gone from Humanity's Strongest to Humanity's bloodiest."

"But you–"

"I don't expect you to have the answers, I'm just venting. Sorry." He sighed, running his hands through his hair.

It wasn't something I could simply brush away. Not really. I couldn't say 'no, you're not a killer', because yes, we both were. But not in the way he was saying it. But how could I reach him with that notion? I scanned him from head to toe, and every part of him was tensed. He had come out here to see that I was alright, but now he was the one in need of a rescue. The man I love was in pain.

I cleared my throat. "Do we uh… Do we have assigned rooms?"

"Hanji let me know she had 'accidentally' assigned us the same room, why?"

"I just fancied finishing this conversation alone. Is that alright?"

He partially turned to me, with a frown, but slowly nodded all the same. He led the way through the many large corridors, and we dipped our heads to the other cadets, members of the Garrison or even a few MPs that were scuttling around. These days the branches of the military seemed to be constantly overlapping. In one way it was good; after all we were all fighting for the same thing, right? Right…

As soon as Levi had closed the door behind us, sealing us in a personal bubble, I rounded on him and kissed him hard. He was caught a little off-guard I think, as I managed to actually push him back against the wood, pressing my body to his. Sex wasn't a fix-all, of course. And I didn't particularly intend for this to go beyond some heavy petting, but right now I needed to show him that I saw him as human still, as someone I loved, as Levi. And if he wasn't able to listen to my words yet, I could use actions first. It took a moment for him to catch on, but soon enough his arms had wound round my middle and he was responding in kind with his lips on mine. Perfect. Only trouble now being that I had to stay focused enough to remember this was for his benefit more than mine. Made all the more difficult by him turning us and working his knee between my legs. Fuck. I tugged on his hair, trying to gain some space to think, but he just moved lower, lips trailing down my neck, teeth catching along my pulse point.

"L-Levi…"

"Robyn." He hummed, one hand gripping my hip, the other beginning to undo the upper buckle on my uniform. After that it would all become a blur of grasping hands and panted names.

I grabbed his wrist. He immediately paused, staring at me with blazing eyes, but clearly waiting to see what was up. My heart hammered. My body screamed at me for stopping. Wanting nothing more than to distract myself from the pain inside by having him drown me in pleasure. But this wasn't the time to get lost in a fog. I needed him to know who he still was. How I still saw him.

"Sit on the bed." I spoke softly, swallowing hard when my voice crackled. He blinked and let go of me, stepping backwards until reaching the bed where he sat and placed his hands on his knees. "As much as I would gladly fuck your brains out right now, I need you to hear me first."

He frowned. "What're you talking abou–"

"You're still Humanity's Strongest."

He rolled his eyes. "You don't need to–"

I pushed him back down when he tried to stand. He let me, looking up in blatant confusion but also a hint of curiosity. Holding his gaze I stepped forward and got into his lap. He looked down for a moment and shifted his weight more onto the bed. I just held his gaze and cupped his face. His eyes never really settled on mine, they kept looking to the left or right, focusing on my nose, my lips or my hair. Anything but full-on eye-contact. I waited. Communication was key to any of this working. Just because we had said 'I love you' didn't mean that everything else would be simple. I would annoy him with my persistent self-doubt, and he would drive me mad with this need to be the strong Captain at all times. But we could work on that, together.

Finally, he met my gaze.

I smiled softly and his brows raised in the middle slightly, like he couldn't fathom why I would ever smile at him. Idiot man. "Levi, this new information throws everything we do into a new light, I know. But we can't let it taint what we were always aiming for. When you're out on that field, you're trying to save people, to make things better for people. And yes, if it turns out these Titans are in fact people themselves, that complicates things, but what're they doing before we kill them?"

He swallowed hard. "Trying to kill us."

"Exactly. So not only are we acting in self-defence, but who knows, we might even be freeing them from some kind of torment."

"How… How do you figure?" His arms wrapped round me, holding tight, clinging to my words as much as his eyes were as they shone slightly. How deep would he have sunk, had he been left on his own with this information? I didn't want to think about that. In truth, I guess I didn't need to. And neither did he. Because he wasn't on his own.

"Does it seem like Connie's Mother would choose to be a Titan? From the boy's character and his reaction to the 'maybe' revelation?"

For a couple of seconds, Levi just looked at me. I could see it plain as day, how much he wanted to believe me, how hard he wanted to buy into my words and feel better. But it wouldn't be that simple. Not for someone who cared as much as he did.

I kept going, letting my own train of thought lead the way. "Maybe we just have to look at this from a different angle. As much as we can't be blamed for defending ourselves, p-perhaps we can't blame them for what they do. They might have no other choice, it might literally be the only thing they know how to do anymore. I dunno why it would specifically be eating but… That's just another question we have to answer." I kissed the end of his nose. "Knowing what we maybe know now, I can't honestly say I don't still wish I had been there to cut them down to save Mike."

Levi swallowed hard.

I kissed his forehead. "It's not black and white, it's never going to be. And at the same time, you aren't a murderer now, you're just a survivor, like you always were."

"Isn't that just justification though?"

I lingered against his skin, knowing he was thinking back to the Commander, perhaps even back to what I had spoken to him about Vincent before. But it wasn't the same. They had a choice between seeing people as people, or as fodder or lab rats. I saw people as people, until they hurt me or my comrades. Regardless of the Titan's origins, when my blade struck their necks, they had hurt me or my comrades. They had killed. By their own choice or not.

"If it's a choice between my survival and a Titans, I'll choose me, I'm afraid. Beyond anything else, I know I can save more lives by staying in the land of the living. And beyond that, I know the Titan will continue to take lives if not stopped." I sat back and placed my hands on his chest. "If that still sounds like cheap justification to you, I'm sorry. Guess I fucked up my attempt to talk you back to feeling human, but… I genuinely don't see you as a murderer, Levi. For whatever that's worth."

"It's worth a hell of a lot." He reached and tapped my chin, bringing my gaze back to his. "I didn't mean to demean your words, I just can't stand how we've been stumbling around in the dark this whole time. If…" He sighed and shook his head. "It's foolish."

"No. Tell me." I smiled softly and waited while he searched my face for something.

"If we confirm this theory, I don't know how we can continue to do our jobs."

"We alter tactics. We only engage once they have. It's practically our approach already, but we can make it a concrete aspect to the Scout code. Beyond that… Maybe we can look into ways of immobilising them instead. I dunno. But we'll figure it out."

"How're you so damn sure?" He frowned and put his head against my chest, and I rested my chin atop his hair.

"Because if there's one thing the Scouts really know how to do, it's adapt."

For a few minutes, he was quiet. It almost got to the point that I thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he breathed deep and his arms tightened round my waist.

"Thank you." He murmured against me before peeking up at me, in an almost very cute manner. "Consider my head pulled from my ass."

"Wonderful." I grinned. "Though I admit you being that flexible was quite a surprise."

"Cheeky, Brat."

"Silly, Captain."

Aaand there we have it! It was fun playing with these cannon scenes and considering how Robyn would react to them. Hope you enjoyed! Cya next week!