Chapter Text
[. . .]
"An unequivocal creature of High Demand."
[. . .]
Chapter 3
In The Presence of Strangers
[. . .]
For the next week, Levi develops a new routine.
No longer does he venture through the rooms stationed inside the Survey Corps Headquarters seeking out Furlan and Isabel for their morning grub, nor does he seek them out to wake them for early practice. Instead, he forces himself up out of bed as he has every other day, weighed by the newfound crucifixion of his comrade's deaths and the two souls he found trying to squeeze themselves into the gaping hole Isabel and Furlan left behind.
He gets ready. Makes himself presentable.
And rather than head into the mess hall, he makes his way in the opposite direction, where the woman and child still harbor, to a new room. As generously requested by one Erwin Smith, rather than the holding cells suggested, he managed to sway the opposing party into giving the woman and child a proper, extinguished room—of course, in the direct vicinity of his office.
Levi rubs his face.
He has no idea how to feel. On the one hand, he's exhausted. Everything inside him feels scooped out, scratched empty, like digging a grave by hand, with dirt-coated nails rasping against the decomposed flesh and bones he's trying to cover up. He floats somewhere outside of himself, watching a stranger move with his limbs, blink with his eyes, breathe with lungs that no longer feel like they belong to anyone at all. The world moves around him in muffled tones and grayscale, like it's all happening underwater or behind glass.
He tells himself he needs to mourn, to feel, to name the bleeding wound that used to be Isabel and Furlan. But the moment his thoughts inch toward them, he drops straight through himself, plummeting into a chasm with his mother's name and teacup. So he doesn't. He hovers at the edge of it, numb, untethered, unreachable.
Whatever he is now, it's not grief. It's something beyond it, hiding at the precipice, something quiet and null.
On the other hand, he's angry.
Angry at Erwin for speaking the truth and making sense when it should've been senseless. Angry at the messenger who led them astray, setting in motion a catastrophe he can never undo. He's angry at himself, most of all, for letting his trusted equanimity override itself with an empathy he thought Kenny had beaten out of him so long ago.
Now he's stuck with a mother and her child amidst a mess of religious, sacrilegious nonsense when he could be focusing on work, and letting himself process a grief he fears he may never overcome.
All of it, Levi's fault.
The simple existence of this woman and child is causing a quiet chaos he doesn't have time for. It shouldn't have to be this way—for Levi to bring home two outsiders on a whim, and nearly be executed all over again for treason he had no idea was a fucking thing. He'd brought them into the Walls for their safety, not... He should've known. And now... he can't help but curse himself for his idiocy. They're in more danger now than they likely ever were out there, with eyes tracking them at all hours, whispers coiling around corners, food rationed, clothing withheld—rules Levi should enforce, but doesn't.
Because he's not a monster.
(But you're not sure of that either, are you?)
Yes, the woman is eerie. She is not meant to exist, and she makes no sense. Her very presence evokes irrational fear in the hearts of piss-poor men who shit themselves when anything remotely unpleasant happens to them.
It is precisely why he's been assigned the task of being their guard dog. Those in higher stations don't have time. But apparently Levi does. He was fucking invested in, captured and known because of his skill, just to land smack in the middle of a problem he created.
A problem, Levi thinks, that shouldn't be one at all.
It's just a woman and her child.
Kenny's mocking laugh echoes in the dark halls of his sanity.
Levi knows that should mean something. He knows it should matter that she walks with spools of rose-gold hair and eyes tinted in a color he's never seen before—calm, unnerving, like still water over a sinkhole. But even so. She's a mother. Something in him knows—if she meant harm, she would have acted by now. There's a power in her, no doubt, one that unsettles him because he simply can't find an explanation for it. It clings to her like a second skin, quiet and unassuming, but Levi knows better.
He can feel it. She's hiding it, tucking it beneath her silence, burying it for the sake of her child.
And the rumors? The idiotic, God-fearing whispers calling her an omen?
(An omen that Levi had nearly beaten people purple over, after they dared to suggest he'd sacrificed Isabel and Furlan for the sake of humanity. For her. As if the blood on his hands was some divine exchange, as if their deaths were the price to pay for an angel of mockery.
An angel. Levi hates. He hates, and hates, and hates. No matter how many times his knuckles meet bone, no matter how many write-ups get quietly discarded because he's "too valuable" to discipline, none of it matters. None of it changes the truth: That at the end of the day, the ones he loved died. And it was always—always—his fault.)
He'd scoff, but he's seen stranger things. Her presence does feel like defiance. Not loud. Not boastful. Just... knowing. Knowing and choosing not to act.
Because her daughter is here.
Because Levi hasn't given her a reason.
Which is why he's on his way to the room again, just as the previous seven mornings in a row, veering away from the mess hall chatter and the clatter of soldiers scraping together their lives. He ignores the cautious glances and half-muttered prayers that follow him like dust—the Underground Rat Levi, the one who brought back a ghost with skin like moonstone and hair too pink to be born under this sun.
Instead, he moves down the corridor just shy of Erwin's office, not the cells, no matter how many hands voted against the man. Levi gives Erwin Smith this merit: that he would not cage someone simply because the world didn't know what to call her.
The door is always slightly ajar. A calculated risk provided by one Erwin Smith, and an unintentional show of trust, perhaps even a silent dare, from Levi himself.
He makes his presence known as soon as he steps forth.
Every day, she greets him the same: alert but not aggressive, steady gaze tracing him like she's still trying to solve what exactly he is. Her daughter always stirs first, padding over with tiny feet and the wide-eyed certainty of someone who's never yet been given reason to fear. It gives Levi some insight into a protective home life, questioning whether or not this little girl has a present father in her life, or if she sees some trace of him in his presence. Perhaps not, for her to seemingly trust him as she does. Or that's just her response because he'd taken them in. Who fucking knows.
Levi stiffens when she toddles close. She lifts her arms. Every damn time, like clockwork. And every time, she acts like he's warmer than he is.
Her smile smushes something sharp in him, dulling it into soft cotton he suffocates in.
The woman watches it happen without speaking. She never stops watching.
Levi doesn't find it uncomfortable in the visceral way she scrutinizes him. It's good that she peels the skin and meat off his bones. He's a stranger. She's a mother. It's how it should be. He won't do anything, won't hurt her, but she doesn't know that. There's a grim sort of solace in knowing she doesn't trust him, that she isn't some divine, all-knowing being untouched by fear or doubt; that she isn't what the rumors make her out to be.
It's why he thinks what everyone says is bullshit.
(It has always been bullshit.)
Her language, though alien, is beginning to grow familiar in cadence—musical but clipped, beautiful but guarded. Words drip from her lips like a current Levi can't fight nor read, though he's beginning to learn the rhythms, the inflections. He thinks he can tell when she's warning him versus when she's asking something impossible.
Not that he has many examples of that. Be it a warning or consolation, she is neutral, and very rarely does her mouth part to express herself.
Levi just... knows.
Hange visits daily. They're not here today, though. They'll be occupied dealing with further Titan testing, a new flag of operations granted by Erwin's growing reputation as the next Commander.
It's a relief. Levi has been losing his damn mind having them around for so long.
Every day until today, Erwin made sure they took notes, as their research was important simply because it wouldn't cause unnecessary provocation to those above Erwin Smith's counsel. Hange tended to stand sentry in the doorway with arms crossed as they chatted like they were old friends reunited. They tried every strategy—gentle tone, grand gestures, scribbles on paper. The woman never responded in kind, not really. Not yet. But she listened. Her eyes tracked Hange's movements. She mirrored facial expressions, tilting her head like she was cataloging everything.
A dangerous habit, one that only Levi seemed to be concerned about.
And yet. He said nothing about it.
Levi couldn't admit to himself that he was deeply fascinated by it. By the woman being so capable of pronouncing such feats, he means. Even though he's been topside for a couple of years now, he still has trouble comprehending some material, let alone reading. He refuses these sentiments due to their abrupt oddity, especially when Hange kept sending cheeky looks back at him when they caught him hooked on the sights given. He made sure to sneer as a message to leave him be in his makeshift corner.
The child, on the other hand, mimicked Hange's mannerisms shamelessly, puffing her cheeks or raising her fingers mid-sentence as if to cast a spell. Hange thought it hilarious. Levi thinks it's a damn miracle how adaptable children are.
(The little girl also glared at him. He stared back at her much in kind, or he had, until Hange horrifically pointed out that she was copying his expressions. He quickly stopped entertaining her after that.)
No one knows their names yet. Hange has tried asking. Levi has tried listening. But either the words are too sacred to offer, or language still builds too thick a wall between them.
There is progress, however. Hange left with heavy records in their hands, departing every time with a cheery goodbye that the girl repeated fullheartedly. The mother never admonished her for doing so, and Levi can't explain why he feels a fraction of consolation at this. Perhaps because she's truly just letting her daughter bond, however much of a bad influence Hange is.
Erwin hasn't visited once. He hasn't been seen in Headquarters at all, not since he left Levi with the mother and child. Again, Levi suspects Erwin is debating with the higher-ups.
He doesn't try to think about it.
What he did realize, however, was that this was an advantage.
It happened two nights ago. When the building had settled and the judgment of others had gone to sleep, Levi led both mother and child through the back halls after much frustrating debate within himself. Cloaked and hushed, the child rested on her mother's hip with eerie composure, mirroring the hush of the one who carried her.
Levi had—has a few particular thoughts about that. The child, in appearance, is just that. A child. But much like her mother, she glimmers with an uncanny otherness to her face that conveys a profound knowledge, information that no normal child part of their world should have. It throws him off every damn time.
Because.
They are not.
Normal.
Levi has acknowledged this.
And yet. He doubts. Again.
Levi isn't one to cling to denial; grief has hollowed him out into something raw, something unraveling. And still, he questions if the mother has her hand in this quiet madness contorting inside his pumping chest. But Levi is far from blameless. He's killed without mercy, tortured without regret, and broken people without hesitation. He does not trade in empathy. He trades in results. So when he begins to feel the weight of blame tilting toward the woman, he stops himself—because it isn't her. It's him. He projects.
No, he doesn't trust this woman. He doesn't trust people, never to the full extent as he had once trusted Kenny, before he left him to rot with the rest. Not in the way he trusted his mother, who is long gone now.
Levi remembers the moment in which the woman and child challenged that trauma.
Once he'd led them to the showers after collecting buckets of water for them, she had paused, turning back to study him with an unreadable expression. He held her gaze without flinching, letting her search for whatever it was she needed to find in him. Whatever it was, she seemed to find it—because she turned and walked away, balancing four large buckets of water with one hand and her daughter with the other in complete ease.
(He'd decided to pick her strength apart later.)
He'd left them to their devices. He knew it wasn't wise to take his eye off of them, but privacy was a commodity he wasn't going to take away. Not from them, even though it was irritating him to no end, not knowing if this was what they were waiting for to leave. But. It was stupid. If they left, then maybe that was better. They wouldn't be subjected to relentless methods of probing research, and maybe that would be for the best. Maybe if they left, they would escape the uncompromising surveillance, the whispering, the threat of being picked apart by the council waiting to carve them up under the guise of study.
But they didn't. They stayed.
They stayed, and so he waited.
Let the cascades of water wash the blood from their bodies. Let the steam strip them back to something resembling human.
He waited outside the entrance, as he always did, with eyes on the window, a blade within reach, and his breath just a tad uneven.
He'd caught a glimpse—only a glimpse—through the steam as she stepped out to wring her daughter's clothes dry, and it had stopped him cold. Skin that caught the lantern light like glass, slick with water, flushed from warmth. That hair, now free of dust and blood, hung down her back like strands of dawn dragging across rotten flooring. There was something luminous about her in that moment—less creature, less stranger, and more celestial being unearthed from ruin. In that moment, she looked like something mythic, like something unearthly clawed from the ashes of a ruined temple. Beautiful, though Levi thought the word tasted wrong on his tongue. Not beautiful in the way men reached for. Beautiful in a way that hurt. That felt like guilt.
He'd looked away fast. Jaw clenched. Not aroused. Just. Thoughtful.
She looked so different.
It was a wonder how she even existed at all.
He'd told himself it didn't matter, as it was irrelevant when matters of survival came first, always. But the image lingered anyway, like soot in his mouth, like the end of a prayer he didn't believe in but could not forget.
When she returned hours or so later, she was not softer. She wasn't meant to be. But she was cleaner, the raw shell of her presence exposed. Less like an omen. More like something that had once been human, before the world carved the softness out of her. The little girl at her side looked significantly better, as out of the two of them, she was wrapped in the cleaner parts of their previous clothing. The woman was... exposed, to say the least. Her long hair covered most of her, though. He wasn't sure. He wasn't really looking.
He'd been distracted by her voice.
She looked at him, pointed gently, and murmured gratitude that sounded accented in her foreign tongue.
"Thank you."
He hadn't said anything. He looked at her funny, heart dropping at the abrupt discovery. He held her quiet gaze, searching, wandering for miles.
And then nodded absently, turning away.
Perfect Eldian.
As he walked them back, his thoughts turned sharp, quick, relentless. He hadn't known she understood the language. The realization hit like a stone dropped in his gut, spreading a cold dread that prickled across his skin like needles. Doubt coiled in his chest, slick and suffocating, threading through his thoughts like a spiderweb spun from paranoia.
Had she been lying this whole time?
Had every blank stare, every pause in comprehension, been a calculated move? A performance?
The thought made something old and cruel stir inside him, something Kenny taught him to never ignore. Had he let his guard down again, only to be played for a fool?
Despite his internal panic, he did nothing.
He simply waited. Observed.
He led them back to the room. He gave her new clothes. He waited outside to let her change.
"Watcher," She said to him again several long minutes later, when it was clear she was done.
His heart jumped to his throat as he managed to open the door as calmly as possible, staring at her intensely.
She stared back.
He did nothing. He said nothing, nor did not comment on the fact that she now seemed to speak Eldian. Instead, he traded suspicion for weariness, too tired to untangle what her choice meant, only that it meant something. Something irrational. Something he didn't want to admit. That she trusted him enough to speak. That she had revealed something she could've kept hidden.
Whether she'd picked it up through Hange's patient lessons or had always known, Levi chose not to question it. He sat in his usual chair, allowed the silence to settle between them, and waited.
The little girl was already asleep.
When he finally glanced her way, the woman was watching him again, gaze steady before she looked down at her child with a smile, soft, broken, and painfully human.
It was then he realized: she wouldn't do anything. Perhaps not to him, yet.
It was... a comforting thought.
Now, as he shuts the door behind him, her presence lingers in his thoughts.
She doesn't flinch when he approaches. She accepts the meager scraps he brings—the pilfered slices of apple and pear, the stolen clothes from storage. She even nods. Almost smiles once, when the little girl toddles over and tugs boldly at the cuff of his boot.
Levi doesn't meet her gaze. He's too tired, too wary. So he offers the child the bowl in silence.
She takes it with a babble of delight, waddling back to share with her mother.
Until she returns. A tiny hand outstretched.
She offers him a slice.
He hesitates.
Then, he swallows.
He takes it.
He eats.
Every day has become routine.
And every day, when Levi leaves, something aches, dull and invisible, like bruising in the chest from a hand that reached into his chest and squeezed all the blood of his comrades out.
He doesn't know who they are. What they are. Why the child looks at him like he's the safest place in a world built to collapse.
But he knows one thing.
They've taken root in his bones.
And he's not sure what that means, from here on out.