A Rose In The Storm (Rivamika)

The First Goodbye

April 5th, 1941

Levi knocked on the door, adjusting the collar of his uniform as he waited for the door to be answered.

Today was the day. He and Jean were being sent off to train for the military training camp for the next year. Hopefully they would not be sent off to war, hopefully the war would end before it came to that. But they would have to wait and see.

The door opened and Marco came into view, his eyes slightly red and his face surprised when he saw Levi standing at his door.

"Hi Levi," He said, trying to regain his composure.

"Marco," Levi said firmly, "You're coming with." His bluntness caught Marco off guard.

"What?"

"To the train station."

Marco shook his head and blinked a few times, not understanding why Levi was saying this.

"Why?"

He wanted to go, he wanted to say goodbye, but he had decided that it would be better not to do this. Not to cause any attention.

Levi held Marco's eye contact for a long moment, trying to figure out what to say at this moment. "Marco. You know why."

Marco's eyes went wide and he looked like he was going to stop breathing. "You...you...I don't know what you're...I...I'm not - "

Levi did not look away from Marco and simply shrugged while staying straight faced, "That's not important."

Marco looked down at his feet and tried to keep the tears from resurfacing, "How could you possibly...Who..."

"No one told me. No one knows."

Marco looked up and gave an almost betrayed look at Levi, "Then how could you possibly know?"

"That's not important."

"It is."

Levi noticed that Marco's knees were shaking. He was scared. Of course he was, he didn't know if Levi was going to turn them in or what he was planning on doing. Levi's heart twisted a little bit feeling incredibly sorry for Marco in this moment.

"New years."

Marco's head dropped again, his hand coming up to his eyes and his shoulders shuddering lightly. Levi placed a hand on Marco's shoulder.

"Marco. Come to the train station. Jean wants you there."

Marco looked up quickly, "You're not going to-"

Levi interrupted, "No. Why would I?"

"It's illegal."

A chuckle came from Levi's mouth and Marco looked taken aback by this.

"Illegal. Yeah. I think if you knew who you had just said that to, well, you probably wouldn't have said it."

Marco stared at Levi for a long moment before nodding slowly.

"You're going to be fine," Levi said as he walked past Marco and into his home, looking for his coat to get him out the door. He found the brown coat and tossed it to Marco, who caught it but still had a slightly stunned expression on his face, "Put it on. We've got to go."

Marco slid his arms into the coat and followed Levi out the door, locking it behind him and the two walked in silence. Marco noticed that Levi kept readjusting the collar of his uniform, he seemed slightly uncomfortable in his new attire. Or perhaps he was nervous for what was to come.