The days blurred together. Time lost meaning in the rhythm of machines and muffled footsteps. Beatrice drifted somewhere between consciousness and darkness, the line between sleep and waking as thin as gauze.
When she was awake, she felt every inch of her body as if it belonged to someone else.
Broken. Bound. Barely responsive.
Her ribs had been crushed. A lung was punctured. Both shoulders were dislocated. Her spine fractured—close, they told her. Millimetres away from never walking again. Her arms trembled with the weight of a spoon. Her throat still burned when she whispered.
Sometimes she couldn't even open her eyes. But Levi was always there. He never said much. But he was there, a constant, a gravity that kept her from slipping too far away.
When she broke into fevered sweats, he'd gently wipe her down, brushing damp hair from her brow, cool cloths against overheated skin. When blood streaked her lips after coughing, he'd catch it with trembling hands before it could stain her sheets.
He read to her. Anything he could get—updates from Erwin, military reports, sometimes even old manuals, just so she wouldn't be alone in the silence.
"Here's a thrilling update," he muttered once, voice low and dry. "Rations are down again. At this rate, we'll be eating glue and hope by spring."
She didn't laugh. But her fingers twitched. And that was enough.
The nurses started calling him a shadow. He didn't leave. Didn't eat in the mess. Didn't report to his quarters. He barely slept—only nodded off beside her bed with his head in his hand, waking at the slightest shift in her breathing.
Only Levi could get her to eat when she didn't want to.
Only Levi could anchor her when the pain made her claw at herself, trying to tear away bandages she couldn't remember receiving.
Only Levi could keep her from breaking when the nightmares returned.
And they always came.
The first one came three days after she opened her eyes.
She didn't ease into it. She fell. Screaming. Thrashing.
The room filled with a sound Levi hadn't heard since the mission—a raw, broken, animal kind of scream.
"ISABEL—FARLAN—STOP! NO! NO—GET AWAY—!"
The nurse barely reached the door before Levi had her in his arms.
"Beatrice! Wake up—wake up, you're safe!"
But she didn't hear him. She fought. Fists clenched, weak and frantic. Her body shook violently against his, hips spasming, throat tearing itself raw.
"Don't let them take me!" she sobbed.
Levi held her close, one arm cradling her back, the other wrapped around her shoulders as if his arms alone could shield her from memory.
"They're gone," he murmured, voice low and steady.
"They're gone. But you're not."
"You're here. You're with me."
Her sobs cracked into whimpers.
And then silence. She collapsed into his chest, shaking, eyes wide open but seeing none of the present. He didn't let go. Not that night. Not the next. He stayed upright, her head pressed beneath his chin, fingers stroking through tangled hair, whispering her name until she remembered who she was again.
It was a rare afternoon of light. Sunlight filtered through the infirmary window, gold and warm against the white linen.
Beatrice slept. This time without fear. Her lips were parted slightly, breath shallow but smooth. One hand remained curled in the folds of Levi's uniform—reflex, instinct, need.
Levi didn't move. Didn't dare. He watched her chest rise and fall like it was the only rhythm that mattered.
The door creaked open.
Levi looked up.
Zackly stood in the hallway. Erwin is beside him.
Levi stood slowly, shoulders tight, spine stiff.
"You wanted to see me?"
Zackly didn't speak at first. Just studied him. The bags under his eyes. The dried blood on his sleeves. The raw skin on his knuckles. The exhaustion in every inch of his frame.
When Zackly finally spoke, his voice wasn't sharp.
It was quiet. Measured. Human.
"Do you love her?"
Levi blinked. Once. Slowly.
"What the hell kind of question is that?"
"A fair one."
Levi's mouth pressed into a hard line. "I'm not answering that."
Zackly stepped closer.
"Then let me ask another. Do you want her safe?"
That struck something. Levi's throat bobbed. "She's safer with me."
Zackly didn't flinch. "Then convince her to come to me to the Inner Walls. When she's healed. Before this life takes the last thing you care about."
Levi's eyes narrowed. "She's a soldier."
"She's your heart."
The words hit like a hammer.
"And she's my daughter."
The silence was sudden. Crushing. Even Erwin went still. The breath caught in Levi's lungs didn't come out. It just sat there. A stone of disbelief and grief.
Zackly continued.
"You think you've been protecting her. But all you've done is hold her hand while the world tried to kill her."
"I know what she means to you. But I've known her since she could walk."
His voice wavered for the first time.
"And I will not bury her. Not after my sister. Not after her father. Not her."
Levi's lips parted. But no sound came. What could he say? What could excuse the weight of bringing her back broken?
Zackly turned to Erwin.
"Make him understand."
And left.
Erwin didn't speak right away. Just stood beside Levi, watching the way Beatrice's fingers curled ever so slightly in his sleeve.
"She's not just a comrade to you," Erwin said softly.
"That much has always been clear."
Levi's voice cracked.
"She's my entire squad."
Erwin stepped closer.
"She's your entire world."
That truth left Levi breathless.
And then came the words he hadn't expected. Words so gentle they cut deeper than any command ever had.
"Zackly's not asking you to give her up."
"He's asking you to love her in a way that lets her live."
Levi stared down at her. The bruises on her arms. The line of dried tears on her cheek. The thin hand tangled in his uniform.
"She wouldn't want to leave," he said.
"Then you have to be the one who makes the choice for both of you," Erwin said. "Sometimes the hardest missions are the ones where we have to stop fighting."
He didn't say more. Didn't have to. He stepped back, and let Levi think. Let him stand there in the pale light of recovery and reckoning.
And for the first time in a long time—Levi didn't know what to do.