{LEVIHAN} Always

Chapter 18: Reality

Levi's POV

Hanji's been passed out for a few hours... and she deserves her sleep. My daughter was resting in my arms, quietly cooing. She inherited my traits... my black hair and silver eyes. Hanji and I... we named her Raven Kuchel Zoe Ackerman. When we were thinking of girl names for her middle names, we realized we didn't have a lot of female names. Our friends were mostly male...

So, we started listening to names that we remembered combined with the small list of female names we had. We were about to give her the middle name, Petra, but Hanji decided Kuchel will be better. As she said, "We should name her after your mom."

Raven's first name was interesting. When we were about officially writing her name on a certificate, a flock of birds began to fly over the cabin. One of these birds had black feathers, and Hanji said that it was a raven. It cocked its little head from behind the window before taking flight again. Raven cooed at the little thing, giving a little laugh. Hanji and I both knew it... Raven had to be her first name.

Every day when I wake up... I always struggled to believe that Hanji was alive and well. I know that every day, Hanji proves that she's alive and the baby was real. With Raven in my arms... she reinforces the idea that I'm not hallucinating. I helped make this baby that's currently in my arms.

Raven began to whimper, squirming in my arms. "What's wrong?" I ask her, trying to steadily wheel myself out onto the front porch. "Want to see the sunset?"

She had this smile stretching from ear to ear.

"Let's go and see it then."

Carefully, I pushed myself out of the cabin with the infant in hand. We watched the golden sky slowly turn dark. Of course, I had to shield part of the sunset from Raven's sensitive eyes. But still... we enjoyed our first sunset. Some insects began to chirp as night fell. A shiver ran down my spine as I decided it was time to go back inside and warm ourselves up by the fire.

*   *   *

"L-Levi..." I turned to Hanji, seeing her wake up. Dr. Annis had prepared some stew for us, and her cooking isn't that bad. I had a tray of stew on my lap as I stayed by her side. "W-What's that smell...?"

"Dr. Annis' cooking. Here, you must be starving."

"Don't spoil me with that much food, Levi-."

"You do. Raven still needs to be fed some milk, and the only place where she'll get milk is from you. Eat up so Raven doesn't starve from the lack of nutrients."

"I hate being spoiled for eating this much food when I know there were people out there-."

"Just eat the damn stew."

I slowly fed her the stew as she asked questions about Raven. Then, her questions about Raven turned back to the snake she adopted a month or so ago. I love who she cares about most. First, it's Raven. That's good that she cares about our daughter. But then she asks about the goddamn snake? The snake and not me.

Raven's cries alerted the two of us as Dr. Annis walks in with the baby. "Pardon me, but she's hungry."

Hanji reaches for the little one, and she began to feed her. I'm not trying to be creepy or something, but it's strange to see Hanji feeding milk through her... yeah, it's weird. I never think about it. It's one of those things you question, but you don't know how it's answered.

In the middle of Hanji feeding Raven, I pulled my wheelchair next to them and laid my head on Hanji's lap. Her little laughter echoes in my ears. "Hanji..."

"Yeah?"

"I think I know the truth..."

"What truth?"

"That this is real... and I'm not hallucinating."

"How many times do you have to realize that?" She chuckles softly, shaking her head. "Actually, it's a bit nice..."

"I'm just scared of being insane again..."

"And Raven's changing that?"

"Of course she is. She's our daughter... I helped make her. Besides, I have never seen an infant before, so if I was hallucinating, I wouldn't know how an infant looks like until now."

Hanji nudges me with her knee a bit and I had to look up to her. "Hey... Levi... if we could... should we have another baby?"