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You’re standing by the railings, clutching the bars like your life depends on it, holding on so tightly that your knuckles have turned white.
Your eyes are fixed on the moving water below, trying to focus on the ripples and waves created by the moving boat, the white foam rising to the surface only to dissipate moments later.
This is pathetic, you think letting out a quiet groan as you feel another wave of nausea roll over you. Closing your eyes, you press your cheek against the cool metal bars in an attempt to suppress the urge to throw up – again.
Who would’ve thought you would be susceptible to seasickness? You, who can do somersaults in ODM gear and spin in the air so fast that you’re only a blur to the eye, without feeling any discomfort whatsoever? You didn’t even know seasickness was a thing before you boarded this damn Azumabito boat.
“Hey…are you alright?” A delicate hand is placed on your shoulder, and you glance behind you to find Armin standing there. His white shirt is still stained with blood, now brown and crusted. There’s a small tear in the fabric right above his heart where Samuel’s bullet had gone through.
It’s jarring to look at and only serves to worsen your nausea. Gulping, you avert your gaze.
“I’m fine,” you mumble, then move to press your cheek against the bar again. It helps a little.
You expect Armin to leave after that. To plan your next move with Onyankopon and the rest of your friends, or maybe to spend time with Annie. To say goodbye – because reality is, none of you know if you’ll come back after what you’re about to do.
But he doesn’t leave. And when you spare him another glance, you notice that he’s chewing on his lip, gaze fixed onto the ground while he fiddles with a loose thread on his sleeve.
You frown at him. “What’s wrong?”
Armin looks almost guilty as he speaks again. “I, uh…I may have told-- I may have told the Captain that you’re feeling…unwell.”
Your eyes widen, just before your features fall back into a scowl.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, shifting on his feet under your gaze.
You throw your hands into the air, nausea all but forgotten. “Why? You know he almost got blasted to bits and the lastthing he needs to worry about is--”
“Oi.”
You fall silent, swivelling on the spot. As you knew from the moment he’d spoken, you’re met with the sight of Levi. A lump forms in your throat, unshed tears stinging behind your eyes as you take him in – half his face in bandages, leaving the stitches running across his cheek, his lips, all the way to his chin visible. He’s leaning heavily against the railings, bandaged fingers holding onto it just as tightly as you had only a moment ago. From here, you can’t see that he’s missing two of them.
“Levi,” you breathe, and next moment, you’re by his side. “You should be in bed, you--”
“Damn if I need you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t,” he scowls. His one visible eye narrows at you, his mouth pulling into a taut line. “Why is it that I have to hear from Armin fucking Arlert that you’ve been emptying your guts into the sea for the past – what? Two days? Three?”
You open your mouth to reply – to defend yourself, to lie, to wave it off – but Armin beats you to the punch. “Actually…then it’s been going on for longer than that.”
Both your and Levi’s attention immediately fixes on Armin. He freezes, eyes wide and gaze flickering, like a deer caught by a pack of wolves.
“What do you mean by that?” Levi snaps.
Armin looks from you to Levi and back again.
Levi clicks his tongue impatiently. “Spit it out, brat.”
Armin’s posture straightens, his jaw tensing. “You stopped eating breakfast about a week ago. When the Captain left with Zeke.”
You just stare at him, stunned that he even noticed.
“Commander Hange also told me you’d complained to them about…cramps. And uh-- spotting,” he continues, a faint blush rising to his cheeks, his eyes not quite meeting yours. “They said you’d been worried about having to deal with period cramps when we had to fight.”
You feel heat rise to your own cheeks. Pointedly avoiding glancing toward Levi beside you, you send a glare Armin’s way. “And why would they tell you that?”
Armin holds up his hands, palms facing up, like in a peace gesture. “They were just worried about you, that’s all! And they didn’t want to tell you before they were sure, in case they were wrong…” He trails off, biting his lip.
“Tell me what?” you ask.
“I don’t think that’s a conversation you should have right here.”
Speak of the Devil, you think, turning towards Hange. They’re walking towards you in a brisk pace, their steps lacking the usual spring, their eyes devoid of the usual spark. You guess Commanding a group of traitors trying to stop the end of the world does that to you.
“You, Levi, c’mere. We need to talk.”
Carefully, you sling one of Levi’s arms over your shoulder, wrapping your own arm around his waist to support him. He lets out a grunt of dismay but allows you to help him up the stairs to the cabins without further protest.
You know he hates being this helpless. You could see it in the way his mouth curled in dissatisfaction when you would hold the spoon for him, feeding him in bed when his hands were still so heavily bandaged that he couldn’t move his fingers. In the way he’d avoid looking at you, jaw clenched, a vein throbbing at his neck whenever you would help him to the bathroom, when he still couldn’t walk himself.
You’re grateful he even lets you help him.
When you reach one of the sleeping cabins, you first lower Levi onto the mattress, then take a seat beside him. You don’t comment on the way he presses his lips together, his abdominal muscles flexing beneath your touch, his fingers twitching – as if he’s in pain but refuses to let it show.
Hange pulls up a chair in front of you, resting their hands on their knees and raking a hand through their hair, messing up their already ruffled auburn ponytail.
“So, you wanted to talk,” Levi grits out. He leans his head against the headboard, glaring at Hange over the bridge of his bandaged nose.
Hange lets out a sigh, then looks at you. Their eyes are deep set, shadows pooling beneath like bruises. You wonder how long it was since they last slept properly.
“So, how long since you last had your period?” they ask.
You scowl, fisting the sheets beneath you. “Wha-- what does that have to do with anything?”
“Just tell me when.”
You roll your eyes. “When I was seventeen. That was ten years ago. Happy?”
“Hm, secondary amenorrhea. Not that uncommon, especially given the food shortages. And even more common for women in the military,” they mumble. They press the tips of their fingers together, looking thoughtful. “Okay then, let me ask something else. Have you experienced anything else out of the ordinary? Apart from the nausea, changes in appetite, cramps, and spotting?”
“And apart from the end of the world approaching, I assume,” you deadpan.
Your comment earns a twitch from Levi’s lips, but Hange doesn’t look amused. “Apart from that, yes.”
You pause, racking your brain. So much has happened lately. Eren, the Rumbling, Levi getting injured. Meeting Annie again. And Reiner.
Unable to think of anything specific, you shrug. “I’ve been tired as fuck, but that’s probably again, you know, because of the end of the world?”
Bottom lip sticking out and brows curled, Hange just continues to look at you. The silence stretches out between you, awkward and charged somehow, as if you’re all waiting for a bomb to be dropped.
Slumping their shoulders, Hange finally breaks the silence. “Alright, I’m going to be frank with you guys. I think…I think that you might be pregnant.”
Levi jerks in the bed beside you, his head hitting the headboard with a loud thud followed by a curse.
You, meanwhile, sit completely still. There’s a ringing in your ears, the only other sound reaching you besides the thundering of your heart. You feel cold-sweat coating your palms, and you frantically press them against your thighs to dry them off – and to keep them from shaking.
“…”
“…hey…”
“…let me just…”
“Talk to me, okay?”
Hange’s lips are moving, but you don’t hear what they’re saying. And soon, your vision blurs too, and you can’t even see that anymore.
You blink once, twice, then feel something hot and wet trickle down your cheeks. The mattress shifts beneath you, and calloused, cool knuckles brush over your cheek, wiping away the tears.
“S-s-stop,” you hiccup. “You’re gonna get the bandages wet.”
Levi scoffs beside you. “Tch. I don’t care.”
“And now we can add mood swings to the list,” Hange mumbles.
“Shut the fuck up,” you hiss, tears now streaming freely down your cheeks. Furiously, you try to wipe them away, but they just keep coming and gosh, why are you crying?
You take a deep, shuddering intake of breath. “It just doesn’t make sense. We took-- I mean, we were careful.”
“I took contraceptives and never finished inside,” Levi comments, making you choke on your spit.
Hange pinches the bridge of their nose. “At any other time, I would’ve been thrilled to learn about your sex life, Levi. But now, I’m just thinking you’re both idiots.”
“Oh, and how so?” you snap, clenching your fists at your sides, nails digging into your clammy palms.
“Ackermans are resistant to drugs, remember?” they sigh. “Levi can’t get drunk, anaesthetics don’t work on him – by the Walls, he didn’t even shed a single tear after I filled his shaving cream with onion juice.”
“You what?”
“I’ll need to do a pelvic exam to be certain,” Hange continues, ignoring the look Levi sends them. It’s impressive, how he can channel so much ire into a single, grey eye.
You feel yourself tense. “Is that really necessary?” you argue. “It’s not like it’s going to make a difference.”
Hange snaps their head up to look at you, and Levi looks like you’ve slapped him.
You glance between them. “What?”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Levi demands.
His voice is just a tad higher than usual, teetering on the verge of being shrill. You’ve never heard him sound like that before.
“Well, I’m going to help trying to stop Eren regardless,” you snap.
“Like hell you are.”
“Like you can stop me.”
“Watch me try.”
“Oh, I w--"
“Hey, guys, guys,” Hange interjects, cutting you off. They place a hand on your shoulder. “Let’s talk about this like responsible adults, alright?”
“It’s her not thinking this through,” Levi grits out.
“Well firstly, then we’re not even one hundred percent sure,” Hange reasons. “As I said, I’ll need to do a pelvic exam first. And secondly…then that’s not solely your decision, Levi.”
Levi opens his mouth to argue, but Hange interrupts him again. “But that’s not to say that I don’t agree with you.” They turn their attention to you again. “You’re not stupid, I know that. Coming with us to fight – we don’t know what will happen. You might lose the child. You might both die. You know it’s a risk.”
You will yourself not to blink as you stare down Levi. He meets your gaze with a grim expression, eyes hard and jaw clenched. Neither of you willing to back down.
The silence is first broken when Hange clears their throat. “Ehem. Can I suggest something?”
In unison, you both whip around to glare at them, making them raise their hands in surrender. “Can I just do the pelvic exam first? Then we can figure out if this is just an unusual case of the flu or if you actually have something to argue about.”
You’re both silent for a while. You can see Levi’s jaw working, can hear his teeth grinding back and forth. But then, he closes his eyes, chest rising and falling – first quickly and uneven, as if he’s just run a sprint, but then slower, calmer. And when he opens his eyes again to look at you, they’re softer. The grey a little warmer. He moves his hand to place it above yours in a display of affection he rarely shows when it’s not just the two of you. “What do you want to do?” he asks.
You gulp, then glance over towards Hange. And then, you nod.
The last time Levi recalls being this restless was after the Wall Rose Invasion. Back when you’d gotten half your bones crushed by the Beast Titan and had to go through surgery, and he didn’t know whether you’d make it.
But it isn’t the same kind of restlessness as he’d felt back then – not exactly. Back then, red had clouded his vision, and he’d found himself in a misty haze of rage. He’d almost broken down the door to the operating room and had to be restrained by half the Scouts, and later, he’d paced back and forth in front of your room in the hospital wards, feeling empty. Like someone had ripped out his guts and left a gaping hole in their wake.
But now, he isn’t angry. He’s not feeling empty. No, it’s like someone stuffed him full to the brim with emotions he doesn’t know how to contain. Surprise. Confusion. Happiness. Excitement. Dread. Joy. Fear. Awe. Pride. Anxiety. Gratefulness. Anticipation.
And he doesn’t even know if it’s true yet. If you really are carrying his…child. Just thinking the words makes his heart thrum loudly in his chest, his blood rushing in his ears and drowning out every other sound as he, just for a split second, imagines it.
How it would be like with you, belly round and breasts heavy with milk.
You’d look so pretty, he’s sure of it. The only downside would be that he’d have to take you from behind when you grew too big – not because he doesn’t enjoy that too, but because he prefers to see your face when he makes love to you. When he makes you cum around his cock, your eyes fluttering shut and your lips parting as you cry out in pleasure.
And he imagines how it would be after, when the bump has been replaced by a living, breathing, human being. Such a tiny person, looking like the perfect blend between him and you – or just like you, he wouldn’t mind that either. In fact, he knows they’d be perfect regardless – because how could something created from his love, from his devotion to you, be anything but?
He lets out a small huff.
Tch. Since when did he turn this sappy?
The door to the cabin creaking open snaps him out of his daydreams. The look on your face – your pale cheeks, the hard pull of your mouth, the crease between your brows – tells him everything he needs to know.
So, it’s true.
He watches as you walk over to the bed, expecting you to take a seat on the edge – like you’ve done these past days, to hand him water or feed him or just to keep him company. But instead, you crawl over the mattress until you’re sitting beside him. Your warmth seeps into his veins, making it feel like he’s melting. When you lean your head against his shoulder – slowly, carefully, so as not to hurt him – he turns to press his nose against your hair.
You smell sweet – like a spring meadow just after rain has fallen – but also with a slight tang to it, like iron. Probably from your time in the military, handling ODM gear and blades and thunder spears daily.
“I’m going with the others,” you tell him. It’s not a question, but a statement.
“Well, so am I,” he says.
You snap your head up to look at him. “Levi, you can’t. You’re still injured, you can barely walk--"
“If the woman pregnant with my child insists on going to war, damn if I’ll let her go without me,” he growls. “Besides, I don’t need to walk. I’ll be using the gear.”
“And how are you going to handle the gear with only three fingers?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“That’s not the point, Levi. The point is that you won’t be top of your game and I refuse to lose you because of your stubbornness--”
“Like you’re one to talk.”
You pinch your lips together. He’s almost never seen you cry before, but he knows you’re just about to break into tears again – your eyes red-rimmed and glossed over with a sheen of fury, lashes wet and glinting in the dim light from the small window beside you.
He feels his throat constrict with guilt – guilt and regret. It was never his intention to make you cry again, even if you’re probably more susceptible to tears now than you’ve ever been before. At least, he’s heard that can happen during pregnancies.
He leans closer to you, his forehead pressing against yours. The bandages are in the way, but he hopes you’ll still find some form of comfort in just being close – like he does.
“If you go, I’ll go. If you stay, I’ll stay. How’s that?” he croaks, voice oddly strained by the emotions flooding through him.
“I…I don’t know, Levi.”
He reaches up to cup your jaw, tilting your chin until you look him in the eyes. “We’ve been through everything else together…this is no different.”
You blink at him. A single tear rolls down your cheek, from the corner of your eye to the curve of your mouth.
He leans in again, intending to kiss it away, but then pauses. It occurs to him that he hasn’t kissed you – not really – since his injury. At first, it was because his lips were split in half, and it hurt as fuck just to talk. But now, even when they’ve begun to heal and talking has become bearable…he knows his lips will never be as soft, never as pleasant to you as they were before.
He hates to admit it, but it makes him self-conscious.
“What are you thinking about?” you whisper, your breath fanning across his exposed cheek.
“Do you…” He trails off, gulping. His grip on your chin slackens, but you reach up to wrap your fingers around his wrist before he can pull away. Keeping him there.
“Do you still want me to kiss you?” he asks, then holds his breath. Dreading the answer.
It doesn’t come. Instead, you close your eyes, tilting your head slightly. Your hand moves to the back of his head, fingers gently curling around the longer locks falling over the short buzz at his nape. Carefully, you press your lips against his. Peppering him with kisses, from the base of his nose to the corner of his lip to his chin. Your lips move over the bandages and stitches, as if you don’t even notice they’re there.
And when you pull away again, you’re smiling.
“Of course, Levi. Always.”