Risk: Chapter Forty-Three

Amidst training, Rose was utilizing the younger Scouts to help her with her finals. She had a ton of flashcards, and they quizzed her at random times to ensure she memorized the knowledge she'd procured over the last few months. Or with Calculus, she would sit in a quiet space in Hange's home and do random math problems.

Finals came and went, and she was happy to share that she'd passed her classes with flying colors.

However, she'd studied so hard, while also training alongside all that, that it appeared she may have gotten sick, though initially she ignored the symptoms.

It was while she was preparing dinner one day that thought it unbelievably hot in the kitchen. The younger Scouts and Lily were outside, training and doing chores, and Levi was in the dining room behind her, wiping the table and scrubbing the floor – "The brats didn't do a good enough job, they'll be punished for this later". Rose wiped at her forehead, heaving a heavy breath, getting a little dizzy while standing over the giant pot of stew she was creating.

"What's wrong with you?" Levi asked, stopping with his task to approach her.

"Nothing – it's just hot in here."

"Are you kidding?" He knit his brows together, leaning over a bit to look at her directly. "Your face is bright red."

"It is?" She fanned herself with her hand, uselessly trying to cool herself down. "It's just so…" She suddenly let go of the ladle into the pot and dropped to the floor, her knees buckling underneath her.

Levi quickly knelt down beside her and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. "No wonder you look like shit; you're burning up. Come on." He lifted her by the arm and assisted her to his office, having her sit on the bed. "Don't move." He left, her watching him go with bleary eyes.

Rose couldn't keep herself upright anymore, however, and collapsed onto the bed, head just barely touching the pillow. Her breathing became shallow, and she felt like she was in a sauna.

Levi returned shortly thereafter to see her in such a state, and placed a cold washcloth on her forehead, helping the next moment to situate her more comfortably on the bed. "You're not going anywhere tonight. I'll tell Hange you're staying the night here."

"I don't want to be a bother –"

"Will you shut up?" he said, but his voice wasn't harsh at all when he said it. Honestly, he sounded slightly concerned.

Nodding slightly, she closed her eyes, curling up into a ball and allowing herself to fall into a deep sleep, comforted by Levi's presence, as she always seemed to be.

When she awoke, it was pitch black outside – or at least, that was what it appeared through the small window behind Levi's desk. Rose pushed herself slowly off the bed and into a sitting position, searching the small room for Levi; she found him watching her from his chair, his new knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other.

"You should still be asleep," he insisted, proceeding to continue with his work absently, but glancing at her every now and again as if he expected her to collapse again.

"I'm… not tired." That wasn't entirely true; she felt slightly exhausted still, probably something lingering from her fever a few hours ago, but she didn't think she could sleep right now. Not with her heart suddenly racing, as it sometimes did when she was around Levi. "Did you rest at all?"

"I was a little busy," he said, carving at the wood in his hands carefully.

"I'm sorry," she told him, her eyes landing on his hands.

"For what? Getting sick? Don't be dumb." His hands then ceased their deft movements on the wood and he set the tools aside, standing up and coming over to her. Sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, he placed his hand on her forehead, just like before, and nodded once, satisfied. "Looks like your fever is gone."

"Oh." That was the most intelligible thing she could say. As she was then aware of how close they were on the bed. Just a couple of inches separated them.

Rose remembered what Levi had told her a few days ago. That he would rather be around her than anyone else. And she had confessed the same. What did that mean for them? They didn't discuss it any further, as they'd been distracted by Rose's gift-giving. However, now that they were alone, she could ask him.

It appeared that Levi had the same idea.

"So I'm the person you like being around most." It wasn't a question – more of an affirming statement.

She swallowed hard, but her eyes never left his. "That's what I said. Is that… okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Silence. They stared at one another for what seemed like forever, searching each other's faces for answers to questions that lied deep within their minds – questions they wanted to ask one another but neither could bring themselves to do so.

But Rose wanted to be brave in this instance; she really cared about Levi and she wanted him to know that. "I –"

"Tell me honestly: what do you think of me?" Levi's eyes narrowed a bit with the question.

"What?" It was such a random thing to ask. "I… think that you are honest, sometimes stoic but… behind that demeanor is someone who cares about others. A lot. And you express that in different ways, especially in your actions rather than your words." She tilted her head a little in confusion. "Why?"

"I know Hange told you about who I was before I joined the Scouts. And you've heard me talk about it a little bit. I just wondered if any of that skewed your view of me at all."

"Levi, I know I could have met you back then and I still…" She almost said it. She almost confessed that she still would have loved him. Thankfully, she stopped herself. "I still would care for you all the same."

"I doubt that." He got to his feet then, pushing with his hands on his knees, and went toward the door. "Get some more rest. Your face is red again."

She wanted to just crawl into a hole and die.


Rose must have fallen back asleep at some point, as she'd woke up with the sun blaring against her eyelids. She blinked rapidly, adjusting to the light, and rolled over to sit up properly, looking around the room to see if Levi was there. To her dismay, he wasn't. She pushed herself off the bed, steadying her feet on the wooden floor beneath, and walked to the door.

She heard muffled discussions from the other side, and she was curious as to what they could be talking about, whoever "they" were. She slowly opened the office door and stepped out, creeping down the long hallway to the dining room where the talking was coming from. As the voices grew louder, the conversation grew more clear.

"… You were quite the spitfire when you first joined, I remember that," Hange said, sounding like they were joking a bit with the other party in the room.

"That's because I had a job to do, remember?" That was Levi, and he sounded a little annoyed at his comrade.

"Right, kill Erwin. Didn't really work out, now did it?" Hange openly laughed now, as if they'd just told the best joke.

Levi didn't say anything at first, just groaned at their comment. Then he finally responded with, "I didn't expect to want to follow after him after everything that happened with Isabel and Furlan."

Who? Rose wondered who they were.

Hange was about to answer her question. "They were your closest friends in the Underground City, weren't they? You all worked together?"

"And lived together," he added, his voice a little low. She wanted to see his expression, she wanted to know how this conversation was making him feel.

"Right…" Hange seemed at a loss for words for a moment. Then, "I imagine that you're getting used to loss like that at this point, huh?"

"Actually, no," Levi countered, sounding a little defensive.

Rose thought this might be a good time to enter the room; she didn't want them to start arguing or something. She turned the corner, but didn't go completely through the entryway, leaning against it, looking between the two. "Good… evening?" She didn't know what time it was.

"You're right," Hange said, beaming at her. "It's actually pretty late. I came to pick you up. Are you ready to go?"

"Ah – just a second, I have to grab something." She had forgotten her knapsack with her medication in Levi's office, and she knew that she would need that the next day.

She rushed back to the room, grabbing the bag from beside the foot of the bed, and turned around to leave – only to have Levi standing behind her. She had to stop herself from screaming, putting a hand over her mouth for a second.

"How much of that did you hear?" he asked, eyes narrow.

Dropping her hand, she looked to the ground, feeling a little embarrassed. "Ah… a little." Then, still staring at the floor, she asked, "Who's… Isabel and Furlan?"

He didn't answer for quite some time, and she believed that he wouldn't answer her question at all – why would he? She'd been eavesdropping on their conversation, after all, which was rude, to say the least. However, he seemed to relent, going to his chair and taking a seat, leaning forward. "They're old friends of mine from the Underground."

"I… heard that," she admitted, messing with her bag in her hands nervously. "I just wondered… about them, is all. You said you lived with them. I just wondered about – " She didn't know how to best put it into words without sounding like she was prying into his personal business. He was a rather private man, she knew, so him divulging any information about his past would be quite the miracle.

"They were close friends," he told her, watching her carefully as she nervously fidgeted in her spot. "They were like… siblings, if I'm honest."

"I see." She lifted her gaze to meet his, daring to ask, "What happened to them?"

Levi heaved a heavy sigh, and she felt she shouldn't have even bothered asking, but then he answered, "When we were captured by the Scouts to join them, they got separated from me and… were killed by a titan on our first expedition."

Rose didn't – couldn't – say anything for awhile. Just stared into his eyes, searching them for whatever emotion lay behind them, but they revealed nothing. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "To… lose people who are like family to you is hard." It was a stupid, unintelligible thing to say, but it was the only thing that came to mind.

"No kidding." He stood up then, heading to the door, waving once for her to follow. "Hange's waiting."

"You're right." She left the room after him, shutting the door behind her, her mind racing with thoughts of losing found family – and what that must have done to Levi's heart.