Silent Love, Silent Pain [Levi x OC]

51. 57th expedition

"No. The most interesting thing was your absence actually," she said after a moment and Sophie's face turned red due to embarrassment. "Oluo started to copy captain," she added after she saw the guilt written on Sophie's face, giving her an idea that her absence was caused by something bigger than injury as they thought.

"Seriously?" Sophie asked with disbelief. "Did he go insane?"

"Clearly, he can't even do that right," she giggled and Sophie smirked in response. As soon as they entered the room where the rest of them were, they got serious again. Sophie caught Levi's eyes for a moment and couldn't read them. Maybe it was for the better. She was worried that if she could do that she would break right there and that wouldn't make things better. Besides, there was a new member of their squad with them and she had to remain calm for him. Eren. The titan boy himself was part of Levi's squad now. She wondered if he made any progress since she spoke with Hange who briefly told her about her experiments with him.

"Hi, I'm Sophie," she reached with her hand to him and he quickly shook it. She liked the fact that he didn't hesitate. It wouldn't be good for anyone if he was timid.

"You'll get time to get to know each other after we'll deal with that," Levi said harshly as he pointed at the map with the draw up map of the formations.

They quickly focused on him and the information he was about to give them. It turned out that Erwin was suspecting that someone wanted to harm Eren and that's why they wanted to keep their true location in tomorrow's formation a secret. Very smart. Sophie was actually impressed that Erwin thought about it and found a solution for a detected problem. So his beautiful friend didn't distract him, she thought. She spotted that blonde woman that he fell for a long time ago during the trial. She also knew that he didn't come back to the HQ that night, probably spending it with her in some tavern. She admired him for that - being able to care for someone and still put his job first. Sophie couldn't do that. She cared for Levi and that was making her put everything else in second place. Levi was her priority, his happiness, his safety. It was hard sometimes, especially when making him safe and happy were things that were excluding each other.

When their meeting was over she wanted to go outside, but Levi stopped her. She could have expected that, despite what he said earlier about getting to know each other with Eren. She understood that. They had to talk eventually. When everyone left the room and they finally got alone no one wanted to start talking first. They were just looking at each other, searching eyes for anything that would tell them what to say or where they were now. But it was hard to say anything for sure as they were both anxious. Levi was scared actually. He was always scared when it came to her, his only source of insecurity. His sweetest weakness that he was so afraid of losing. "How are you feeling?" he asked, staring at her so intensively that she almost forgot how to breathe. His question wasn't full, it was supposed to be how are you feeling about us, but he didn't dare to say that out loud.

"My injuries are gone," she mumbled awkwardly and he nodded. So she was avoiding that topic as well. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," he answered honestly. Those last few weeks exhausted him. Not only he had to look after Eren, but he also had her constantly on his mind which was driving him insane as he didn't know what they were now. If they still were anything actually.

Was he talking about his job or us, she wondered. Yet she wasn't ready to ask him about that. All she wanted to do was to hug him and apologize. "I was talking with Hange about...what happened," she admitted.

"Why?" he tensed. He didn't want others to know what exactly happened between them. He didn't want them to know how bothered he was with Sophie's rejection.