ɴᴏ ᴍᴇʀᴄʏ {ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴ}

Reasons

{Levi's POV}

Months Later

We won.
Eren was defeated, Titans were no longer. The Rumbling ended, and we were victorious.
But it felt like I'd lost everything.
I was a shell of the man I used to be.
I sat in my wheelchair staring out at the sea, my mind a whirlwind of everything and nothing all the same. Memories of killing my comrades in Titan form seemed to flash before my eyes every time I closed them. The visions of Hange's brutal sacrifice.
I could remember hearing women, children, men screaming for mercy from a God who turned His back on them as they were crushed by Titan feet.
It was all so much, too much.
And I was nothing.

Titans were gone... There was no need for me anymore. Without my ODM gear I was just a man, and with a bum leg and scarred vision I knew I belonged nowhere.
I sat there in my wheelchair, staring at the sea, face scarred, leg still healing, my mind a storm of the atrocities I witnessed and committed.
But it all seemed to quiet the moment I heard her voice.
"Levi?"

{Mercy's POV}

Mikasa and Armin had come back to Paradis.
"Where's Levi?" I asked immediately as I saw them climbing off their horses. Mikasa's eyes were far away, so were Armin's.
So I asked again and they finally perked up.
"He's still in Marley," Mikasa said almost bitterly.
I knew what they went through couldn't have been easy in the slightest, but the truth was I had no idea what had happened over there, and hearing that Levi was still over there hurt my soul.
"He's alive, though? He's okay?"

"He's alive."
I stared at her and she stared at me, and I could see it in her eyes because they were a reflection of my own. She had lost the love of her life.
I didn't know how it happened. I didn't know what to say. All I knew to do was pull her to my chest and hold her tightly.
     That's when Armin told me everything.

{Levi's POV}

I didn't turn around. I wasn't sure if what I heard was the wind or if she was actually there, but I couldn't face her. Not after what I'd seen. Not after what I'd done.
I could hear footsteps, and in my peripheral someone was crouched down beside my wheelchair.
"Levi..." she beckoned softly, reaching a hand out to move the hair out of my eyes I hadn't cut in months. I flinched away, knowing her touch would bring it all back.
I hated myself. Loathed my being.
"Look at me, damnit..." she pleaded. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and turned my head before opening them.
Jesus Christ, she's so beautiful.
I hadn't seen her in over a year. Her hair was longer now, her eyes tired and worried but, God, how they gleamed in the reflection of the sunlight from the sea.
She looked back and forth between my eyes. I wanted to look away, to crawl in a hole and never come out, but I couldn't. She was too captivating.
"Levi... Let's go home, okay?"
Home.
Where my son was.
Where I used to belong.
"I can't..." I croaked out. I couldn't face my son, look at his innocent eyes and hold him with the hands of a murderer.
Everyone called me the strongest, a hero, yet now I was reduced to a broken body and soul, and I hated it even more than the praise.
"Yes you can, Rett is waiting for you-"
"I don't deserve him."
"Honey, Armin told me everything... You don't have to hide from me. Come home where you belong."

"I'm nothing now, Mercy!" I snapped harshly, hating myself the moment the words spewed from my mouth. She furrowed her eyebrows, being her patient, understanding self.
"You're a husband," she began. "A friend. A father... You won the war-"
"But at what cost?"
"Levi, you know war comes with sacrifice..."
I turned away, because she was right. I did know that, but I hated it all the same. All my friends were dead. All the people I fought next to and with, some of them by my own hand thanks to that bastard Zeke.
She reached for my hair again, running her fingers through it and instead of turning away I nestled into her touch.
"You're everything to me," she said softly, her voice broken. "You're everything to our son, our daughter."
My eyes widened.
Daughter?
"W...What?"
Her eyes softened and she held the side of my face, rubbing my cheek with her thumb.
"A baby girl... I found out I was pregnant a month after you left. Everett is turning 18 months next month and she will be 6 months tomorrow."
I felt my eyes well with tears.
What a shitty father I was, running away from my past and doing the same to my wife and children.
"Tell me about her... please..." I said as my eyes welled with tears.
"She has curly hair, where she gets it from I have no clue, but it's black like yours. She has my eyes, your lips and my nose. She's a quiet baby, but she's already a spoiled brat and she can't wait to meet you."
I nodded.
I knew it wouldn't be easy coming home. I would have to adjust back to a life of solitude and love, but I knew I had to.
     For them.
     Because these were the children I'd dreamt of.
     These were the reasons I fought.