Blue and White - Levi Fanfiction

Ch. 96 - What Gives Her Hope

"Killed?"

"Yes, Captain," Floch replied with an easy air of nonchalance. "Captain Levi was holding him back, but he's out of the way now. I hope your personal feelings for your husband don't get in the way of your work."

I nearly beat his shit in for that. My personal feelings? For my god damn husband?

I'm going to beat him up, I swear. One more comment like that...

But I couldn't think about beating him up right now, not when my mind was still going a million miles a minute at just the thought that Levi might be dead. The mere thought of it, simple though the words were to understand, remained incomprehensible in my mind.

"Did you see him?" I asked quietly, unable to speak any louder than that.

"Hange found him," Floch said. "She went to him, and said that he was dead. I didn't have time to confirm it myself."

So... he might not actually be dead?

It was a slim sliver of hope, but my heart took it and ran with it. Maybe Hange only said that he was dead, for fear of what the Yeagerists would do to him if he was still left alive. Maybe...

"I won't let it interfere with my work," I said, my mouth going on its own as my mind remained preoccupied with the grave situation I was facing currently, "but if I may have some time to grieve..."

"Fine," Floch granted, as though he had any authority to grant me that. "I look forward to working with you, captain."

I went back to the barracks and cried the rest of that evening.

—

That tiny piece of hope my heart held onto was quickly discouraged by my brain. It tried being reasonable, of all things. It was the slimmest, tiniest fraction of hope, I should not have latched onto it as I had. Floch wouldn't have told me that Levi was dead unless he firmly believed it, right? He was far too valuable a target for the Yeagerists to leave alive. So unless Floch really thought he was dead, he wouldn't have let him get away.

However...

My heart refused to believe that Levi was dead. His words left room for error. In any experiment, human error was always accounted for, no matter how meticulously the procedure was followed. Therefore, his words had some margin of error. That meant that maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe Levi was alive. Maybe Hange had taken him away and they were ok. They were alive.

Because if Floch really did have a high-priority target dying at his feet, why would he risk allowing him to heal with the help of the enemy? The only reasonable explanation for Floch to even dare allow Hange to get away with Levi would be if Floch truly believed he was dead.

Hope was hope. No matter if it came from a whim, or on the surest certainty, hope was hope, all the same.

And this was nothing more than a slim sliver of hope after all, but to be frank, I needed every bit of it that I could take right about now.

I couldn't allow myself to think that Levi was dead. It wouldn't do me any good.

Just look at what it had done to me just earlier today (and it was difficult to believe it was still the same damned day), when Marley attacked and the Rumbling began; I'd nearly worked myself to death. I became reckless. As soon as I'd seen Zeke and not Levi, I'd all but given up, only fighting on for the sake of fighting on and wanting to go out like a hero. All sense of self-preservation had gone out the window.

I'd worked tirelessly, carelessly, recklessly. Caution had been thrown to the wind, all manner of strategy and decision-making tossed aside for the sake of just moving. That's all I'd wanted to do. To move, to fly, to fight, all in order to distract myself from what was happening and what might have happened.