The base had long gone quiet. Only the occasional creak of wooden beams or the distant shuffle of night patrol broke the stillness. The stars blinked lazily overhead, silver scattered across the deep indigo sky like spilled salt.
Beatrice crept up the attic ladder with her usual silent grace, a folded blanket tucked under one arm, her hair half-dried and curling from the earlier shower. She pushed open the hatch with care—expecting solitude. Instead, she found him.
Again.
Levi.
Sitting at the edge of the slanted roof, one knee pulled up, arms resting on it. He looked like a carved statue under the moonlight—still, composed, impossibly quiet. The light made his cravat gleam faintly at his throat.
Beatrice blinked.
"You're on the roof again," she said softly, climbing up beside him.
"Roof doesn't complain when I sit on it," he muttered.
She snorted and settled down beside him, unfolding the blanket and draping it across both their laps as if it were a shared routine. It wasn't, not really. But Levi didn't stop her. Their shoulders touched. Just barely. The stars above them pulsed gently.
"I like the sky here," she said. "It's different, but also not. The same constellations I memorized at HQ are still up there. Just shifted."
Levi's eyes didn't leave the sky. "Still watching the stars?"
"Always." She turned her face slightly. "They make everything feel less lonely."
A beat.
Then, quietly:
"You're not lonely anymore, are you?"
Beatrice tilted her head, thinking. "No. Not with you all here."
Levi exhaled slowly, but said nothing.
She didn't notice the way his shoulders dropped—like tension had uncoiled from his spine at her words.
Instead, she pointed upward. "That one's Cygnus. The swan. And that one—Aquila, the eagle. Vega's just above them. I used to pretend they were guardians. Watching over people who didn't fit in."
"You fit," Levi said before he could stop himself.
Beatrice blinked. "Hmm?"
"You fit here," he repeated, more carefully. "In this squad. With us."
She smiled at that—small and content.
"Thanks."
Levi felt something press behind his ribs. He shifted slightly, trying to bury it.
"You cold?" she asked.
"No."
She pulled the blanket a little higher anyway. "You don't have to stay if you're tired."
"I'm not tired even if you never stop talking about the stars."
She gave him a look. "You love it."
He didn't deny it. Didn't say anything. Just sat there beside her, staring at the same constellations she saw—like the same sky meant something different when she was beside him.
After a long pause, Beatrice spoke again—her voice lower now, almost a whisper.
"Do you think... people ever get named in the stars? Not just mythical kings and gods—but real people?"
Levi glanced at her.
"You're already written in mine," he said softly in a whisper.
She turned. "What?"
He cleared his throat. "I said, you talk enough to make people write you into myths."
She giggled, shaking her head.
"Idiot," she whispered, bumping his shoulder gently.
He didn't flinch. Didn't pull away.
Just let the night fold around them like a second blanket.
They sat like that for a while longer—side by side, her head eventually resting against his arm, breath deepening with quiet calm. Oblivious to how Levi never once looked away from her.