Broken Hearts, Severed Limbs (Levi x OC x Erwin)

|112| Catching Up

He didn’t let her walk, and she didn’t mind it. She didn’t mind it at all, actually. It was so nice and warm there, in his arms as he carried her upstairs in the familiar building and to their quarters. The people who happened to pass by them in the halls of the busy HQ, stopped to salute them both. Word had gone out so it seemed. Welcome back, Lieutenant they said. She gave them smiles. Some were younger recruits that she had never met, and some others she recognised them from three years back. Lieutenant. It was funny to think of how she was a General of the enemy’s Army only just a few hours back and now she was back to being a mere Lieutenant of the Survey Corps.

Nathalie closed her tired eyes and she buried her face in her husband’s chest. Her fingers were clutching onto his black suit jacket around his shoulders almost all the time. She did not let go of him at all, even after they entered their quarters and he pushed the door closed. Everything looked clean in their bedroom. The bedsheets, freshly washed new ones. The floor creaked beneath his feet from how clean it was. Nathalie chuckled.

She had missed the smell of bleach and detergents that always lingered in their room with the faint smell of tea and herbs. She had missed their bed. Their white bedsheets and blankets, cool to the touch, but warm to slip beneath. She had missed her husband. She had missed her kids, her Queen who had been notified through the radio that Nathalie was back and she was on her way to the HQ. She had missed Hange, Moblit, Erwin. Everyone and everything. The only thing she didn’t miss were the labs. She loved her science. She loved her research. She loved her labs and acting like crazy with Hange and Moblit when they’d discover something.

But it was this same science that made her a monster. It was a lab that she was tied and experimented into. It was people dressed in white that would linger around her all the time. It was white walls, and microscopes surrounding her, and syringes and sharp lancets that would dig through her skin and she’d scream for it to stop and it wouldn’t, and in the nights, she’d be tossed in her cell and-

“Nat,” Levi’s voice snapped her out of it and drew her back to reality. She hadn’t realised a tear was slipping down her cheek until his thumb brushed warm and tender against it and wiped it away.

Levi had tried lying her down on the bed, but she was clutching onto him so tight, he decided not to let go of her just yet. Levi sat down by the edge of their bed, with his Nathalie on his lap and her face buried in his neck. Her fingers were still too tight around his shirt and he knew she was scared. He knew she was terrified, and there was no way she was going to let go. He noticed a tear running down her cheek, and it worried him right away.

“I’m sorry,” She said. She hadn’t even noticed she had been crying. Crying had become such a frequent little activity that she had almost gotten used to it. She lifted her face off his neck and she caught his eyes in her own. Those silver eyes, filled with utter concern. “I just… I have so much… so many…” She breathed shakily and she shut her eyes and shook her head, realising she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “Terrible… it was terrible,”

“I know, baby,” Levi leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I know. I’m here for you,” He pressed another kiss down to her nose, then her lips. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you all this time. I’m so sorry, Nat,”

“It’s alright, my love, it’s alright,” Nathalie sighed and she closed her eyes and revelled in his kisses. There were things she had to tell him. Things he needed to know. He had a right to. She cupped his face pulling him back slightly. Eyes met again. “Levi,” She caught his attention but she sighed. How was she supposed to tell him? “There’s so many things I did those past three years. You need to know,”

“You don’t have to tell me-”

“I do. We tell each other everything, don’t we?” She reminded him and he chuckled. His Nathalie couldn’t hide anything from him. He couldn’t hide anything from her either.