This is My Last War (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 3

A Failed Experiment

"What if they went to Paradis? With Zeke? Who knows what they might be able to do there..."

Hanji's ominous words hung in the air like the poisonous fumes that sometimes shrouded the city of Liberio. Armin gasped, turned pale, and then vigorously nodded in agreement, earning him an irritated side-eye from Levi. Gloom and doom were not the sentiments expected from Mr. Genius; they were all entangled in mindless panic when they needed to think rationally. All their meticulous planning had become obsolete the moment Eren had revealed his true intentions, which had been days ago. Where was their new plan?

"I'll go to the Titan facility straight away to check whether Zeke is still there," Hanji's hands were shaking as she put the black hat atop her head. "If he's not, I don't know...," she swallowed thickly. "Levi, we should never have..."

"But we did," he interrupted her. Yes, he had distracted her. Deliberately. To take some of the weight off her shoulders. And he'd do it again, anytime. "We did not guard the asshole ourselves because we trusted Mikasa to do it. We cannot allow distrust to erode the fabric of the Scouts. And for fuck's sake, we cannot stay in the past either, crying over 'should have dones' and 'could have beens'. We move forward. It's what we do. Am I the only one who remembers?"

Zoë regarded him solemnly through her gold-rimmed glasses that enlarged her amber eyes. He wasn't used to her without the eye patch. What did she manage to see with the damaged eye? They hadn't even properly caught up since their reunion. They hadn't talked about the things that mattered, not really. Suddenly, time felt too short, fleeting, like sand running through his fingers, and unease settled heavy in his stomach.

"You are right, Levi," she sighed. "But I cannot believe how careless we were. Mikasa is in love with Eren, we both knew that."

"Maybe. But despite it, she struck me as thoroughly sensible all these years," Levi grumbled. Fools in love. Did all people in love do foolish things? Then, maybe love wasn't worth it?

"Then why?"

Or... maybe it was the only thing that counted.

"He has a sweet tongue, that fucker," Levi shrugged, moving his eyes over Hanji's body slowly. She looked good in her male disguise, it brought out the length of her legs, the shape of her face. Briefly, he wondered whether he would have fallen for her if she was a man - and had to answer in the affirmative. Definitely. All over.

"Levi," she chided him with a frown. "Focus."

"Tsk," he pulled a face at his own silliness. "Hanji, have you heard of something called 'déjà-vu'?"

"What has that got to do with...," she looked at his scowling face, then over at the Doctor's, who was quietly observing their headless milling about with arms crossed in front of his chest. He looked like he hadn't slept much, which, judging from what he had told Levi about his nocturnal activities, he actually hadn't. "Yes, I've heard of it. Help me out, Ernst? It's a potentially pathological phenomenon where an individual feels like they have experienced a situation before. The sensation creates an illusion of memory, a powerful sense of recollection, yet leaves the time, place, and context of the "previous" experience shrouded in uncertainty or even impossibility."

Von Bergmann nodded, tilting his head to the side to scrutinize Levi over the top of his glasses.

"Don't look at me like I'm a specimen to study," Levi growled, "or I'll rip your fucking head off."

"Charming," the Doctor smirked without humor. "Out with it, Ackerman, what's bothering you? If it's a medical condition, I'll do my best to help you."

"I'm not sick," Levi bristled. "But something really weird keeps happening, I cannot quite place it. I have dreams... only that they do not feel like dreams. They feel like memories?"