Blue and White - Levi Fanfiction

Ch. 41 - The Morning After a Hard Fight

That morning, I didn't wake up until the sun was high in the sky, and it was a glorious, natural stirring, not at all how I usually woke up - with the morning bells, and normally before that, as my body was by now so finely-trained to wake up at the same time each day.

Erwin might have my head for this, but I far preferred waking up in this manner, honestly.

(It's a damn good thing that, to my knowledge, he still wasn't awake to be witness to me even hinting at such a thing, isn't it?)

Anyway, when I awoke, my mind was awake before my body was. It came to be quietly and gently, and I relished in the rare time to be able to gather my thoughts before even opening my eyes. There weren't many thoughts to gather; I was still tired, my body still achy and slightly sore, but I was alive and after so much time fighting and in increasingly more difficult battles, that was almost too much to ask for, especially considering...

Goodness, had anyone heard from Mike? I could only hope so. But if I wanted to find out, I would have to get up. And if I wanted to eat, which I did, because I was hungry, I had to get up anyway.

So... get up, I did.

My bleary eyes fluttered open, though my eyelids were heavy. I wiped them clear then stretched my limbs out. My senses returned to me slowly, and when I relaxed, simply keeping my limbs where they were after stretching, I closed my eyes once more.

Made evident by the sunlight streaming into the room, it was well past breakfast by now, and if we were in the main base, training would proceed as normal. But here, the grounds were much smaller - but then again, so too were our forces. After the 57th Expedition, after Stohess, after Utgard and after our charge...

Our numbers were thinning out once more. And hell, we nearly lost our commander, too.

"It's happening again," I murmured sleepily and without thinking - though I did realize how often I'd been thinking it, lately. It seemed that more often than not these days, our missions were reminiscent of that troublesome one under Shadis' command - though maybe now it would be more helpful to start just comparing them to our more... successful expeditions. Maybe then I would stop feeling so bad, at least for a while.

We've lost a lot recently, that was for sure. And it seemed that someone, after breakfast, had gotten lost on the way back to bed, because Levi wasn't here. It seemed that even thinking about him summoned him to me, because the door to the room opened at that moment.

My eyes opened once more at the sound of the door opening, and I lifted my head to see who it was - as though there could be any doubt about who would enter this room, the room of a commanding officer, labeled or not, officially mine or not, without knocking - and I smiled at the sight: Levi, dressed in his uniform, with his hair parted perfectly as always, and absolutely glowing in the sunlight pouring into the room.

He was radiant.

That was the best word to describe him at this moment: radiant. And that's because he was, and incredibly so. He slid his uniform jacket from his shoulders when the door was closed behind him, and crossed the space to drape it over the back of the desk chair when, at long last, he noticed the weight of my gaze on him.

His surprise shone through clearly on his face, his feline eyes widening slightly before he caught himself, relaxed, then finally made his way to the bed. Stopping only to pull his boots off, he eased himself onto the bed atop the covers and sat leaning against the wall beside me.

He looked down at me, his eyes soft and his face relaxed, with all the notes of affection and fondness he always looked at me with, but perhaps there was more than usual - yes, actually, there was. I smiled sleepily up at him, wondering if I looked as radiant in this moment as he did to me, and if he saw all the love in my own eyes.