❝𝑵𝒐 𝒒𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚 - 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏!❞
— 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲
꧁꧂
"EXCUSE ME," Valen half-shouted over the string quartet, shouldering past a group of well-dressed noblemen. "Excuse me," she said again, this time shoving through a clique of giggling noblewomen with too much champagne in their veins; trudging through, fourteen different brands of perfume that varied in tackiness assaulted her nostrils, making Valen's head swim.
I should have stayed in the barracks. Valen had made the horrendous mistake of assuming that because it was Historia's coronation ceremony, things would be far from disastrous, but no—in the two and a half hours she'd been here, two people had already been carried out because they'd downed more liquor than they could handle, and the sons of a wealthy merchant had nearly killed each other in a drunken haze over something that happened over a decade ago. The same snobs who turned their noses at the working class for supposedly "lacking refinement" were brawling over inheritances on the luxurious carpets of the royal palace and spilling scotch all over their custom-ordered waistcoats. It was all too reminiscent of her days as a maid in the Stohess District, and it made Valen want to bash her head open against the ballroom's flowery wallpaper.
There, she thought, a hint of relief trickling through her wearing anxiety. The doors to the outside finally came into view: two shiny panels of cut glass framed by a glossy white door frame with tiny flowers engraved on it. On her way, Valen accidentally bumped against an older woman dressed in tasteless purple silk, who tossed her a scathing look. Valen ignored her—those kinds of looks stopped bothering her years ago.
Opening the doors, she was kindly greeted by a mild evening gust. She'd stepped into the palace's grand garden, which sat under a darkening sky, orange fading to pink, pink fading to purple, and purple fading to royal blue. For the first time in hours, she felt her lungs expand and contract freely, felt the fog clouding her brain evanesce completely.
Valen allowed herself a minute to slow down and take in her surroundings. She'd been meaning to escape to the garden for a while, but between the too-tempting array of dishes laid out on the long table near the door and the bright-eyed journalists who incessantly fired question after question in her direction, it'd only been until now she could take a gander at the garden on her own. She drank in the whispering green walls that were the fringed hedges, the flowers planted strategically to create striking patterns. The sight vaguely reminded her of the town square she'd dreamt of months back in the Trost barracks.
Time's flowed by so quickly. Whether the square she'd dreamt of genuinely existed was beyond her—dreams tended to distort already existing things—Valen believed it was far superior to the garden she was standing in. As unreliable as dreams were, she still had faith in what she'd seen. In one way or another, they hinted at what her life was before her brain injury. All that was needed was time.
"So you finally showed up." Valen perked her head—Levi lounged on an iron bench under the shade of a magnolia tree.
Like all of the military officials present at the coronation, he was dressed in his olive green trench coat, the Wings of Freedom proudly emblazoned on his breast pocket. His cravat had made a comeback, tied snugly around his neck. The trench coat, in Valen's opinion, looked good on him—or rather, he made the coat look good.
Levi stood, holding back what Valen perceived as a smile. "I was wondering where you were. I haven't seen you all day," he said, walking over to her.
"I was handling business," Valen answered plainly, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. Levi wound his arms around the curve of her back, squeezing her body to his. Any lingering stress from squeezing past aristocrats and well-to-do merchants faded in his arms, Levi's very presence drawing out her seemingly never-ceasing discomfort from her body. "And what are you doing alone in the garden?"
"I've never liked parties much. That, and all the pigs standing around. You'd think with all the booze they're passing around they'd be a little more tolerable." Valen rested her chin on his shoulder, humming in agreement. "Nile's right-hand hurling into a vase was the last straw for me. I walked out and figured you'd come around soon."
"You might be horrified to hear that people hurl in vases all the time," Valen remarked; the other maids had forced her to wash all the puked-in vases the first time she worked a party as a "rite of passage." No matter how hard she scrubbed or what she sprayed in them, the stench of upchuck and regret never seemed to ebb. "Some guests even 'reserve' certain vases beforehand."
Levi cringed. "Disgusting." Valen pulled away from Levi. Entwining her fingers in his, they continued on a cobblestone walkway that cut across a field of orange roses. "So, about this 'business' you were handling..."
"You'll be more than pleased," Valen said, almost breaking into a smile. "Hange wormed her way into Erwin's schedule and cornered him in the barracks. It's settled: I'm no longer being discharged."
Levi stopped, his gray-blue eyes lighting up. "You're staying?" he asked, perhaps with more enthusiasm than he wanted to convey. He quickly neutralized his expression, looking a tad embarrassed. Valen held back a laugh: Humanity's Strongest sometimes resembled a love-stricken teenager more than a valiant soldier. "How?" he asked, this time working to keep his tone even.
"Hange cornered Erwin in the barracks right before he could even get started on the paperwork," Valen answered. She was surprised the Commander had even allowed Hange to present her argument; he'd been clear when he said he'd discharge Valen. But Hange hadn't cared. She'd still barged in with that ear-to-ear grin of hers, mangled shoulder and all. "Could you believe her? She prepared a five-page essay in advance, including counterarguments. I'm stuck working stable duty for a week, though."
"One week of stable duty is generous. I would have given you a month." Valen so badly wanted to make a certain hand gesture, but she just pouted instead. "So that lasted the entire day?"
"Not precisely." They'd resolved her conflict with Erwin in little under an hour. She and Hange had spent the rest of the early afternoon handling something else, something Valen was reluctant to share but was going to discuss regardless. "I'm thinking of seeking counseling," she confessed.
"Valen Ferreira is seeking counseling—" Valen punched Levi hard in the shoulder. "My bad. That was insensitive."
"Insensitive it was," Valen growled. Levi released her hand and massaged his shoulder, wincing. "I told you this. If I do things, it's because they're in my best interest and my best interest only. And this is one of them." Running a hand down his arm, Valen sighed. "There are years of emotions I have to work through, and it's going to be ages before I can unlearn everything. That's why I'm seeking counseling."
"And your fear of medical professionals?" Levi asked. "Not that I'm against you seeking counseling. But how is the counseling going to work if you're scared of the person who's treating you?"
"Hange said she'd make time to come with me in the case anyone tries anything, but she insists I'll be alright. She recommended some people who she says are trustworthy," Valen explained. "One thing's certain: I'm ending this now. It's gone on for too long, and if I don't address my issues right now, they'll worsen."
"I might have been an ass about it, but I'm glad you're seeking help. I think we can both agree that was a shitty way of going about life." Levi trailed his hands down her back. "I can already feel a difference. Your shoulders aren't as tense as they were when you were crying in the barracks."
Valen felt her face warm. She didn't regret opening up to Levi at all, but the mental image of her breaking down crying in his room made her squirm with embarrassment; it'd be a long time before she would be fully comfortable with vulnerability. "Please do not bring that up right now," she said.
"Alright then, I won't." The string orchestra's music floated from one of the ballroom's open windows. Valen faintly recognized the piece—the nobleman she'd worked for had always requested said piece at dinner parties whenever he commissioned a quartet.
As the orchestra crescendoed toward a second movement—andante? Her knowledge of musical terminology was only paltry—Levi pulled her close. She allowed him to wrap his arms around her, and she burrowed her head in his shoulder. "Seriously. How are you holding up?" Levi asked her.
"I haven't a clue. I've suppressed everything for so long that I don't even know how to properly identify my own emotions." Valen snorted bitterly and gazed up at him. "Can you believe that? I'm twenty-one and incapable of identifying my own emotions."
"That's why you're going to counseling, right?" Levi said. "We all begin somewhere."
"I presume so." The quartet slowed, sliding into an adagio—that one she recognized easily. Valen coiled her arms around his neck. "Can we dance?"
"You want to dance?"
"Please?" Levi mulled over her request, screwing his lips and gashing his forehead in deep, pensive lines. Valen beheld him hopefully with pleading eyes. She wasn't asking for much, was she? Just when her hope began to waver, Levi groaned, conceding. "Fine then. But only because you asked," he muttered.
Valen smirked. "I was certain you'd concede," Levi mumbled something under his breath as they began rocking back and forth, swaying to the rhythm of the string orchestra. Their movements, awkward and janky, could have given any onlooker the impression that they were two infirms depending on each other to remain upright. Even then, Valen was thoroughly enjoying herself. The garden's flowery fragrance combined with the flowing orchestral music created such a beautiful scene, like a romantic painting had jumped to life. "And you? How are you holding up?"
"Me?"
"Who else?" Valen replied. "You asked me how I was feeling, so it's only reasonable for me to check in on you. Especially after what happened yesterday." Levi averted his gaze, his eyes flitting to the palace. "Is everything alright?" she asked, soft.
"Everything's alright," Levi reassured, "but there's something Kenny said that's been on my mind."
Valen glanced up, intrigued. On the way back to the barracks, Levi hadn't said a single thing about his conversation with Kenny. She'd considered asking him during dinner but ultimately decided not to, not wanting to upset Levi. "What did he say?"
"A lot." Levi went on to explain what Kenny had told him. Some things Valen was already aware of: the Founding Titan's ability to manipulate people's memories, how Valen's heritage played into her resistance against its power, and why Caven had been so set on seeing her dead. Other things, though, were more surprising—Levi's family history, for example. Kenny was his maternal uncle, and his last name, Ackermann, also belonged to Levi.
"I always asked myself why you lacked a surname," Valen said. Then does that make him related to Mikasa as well? That would make for a most awkward family reunion. "Is that all? Did he tell you anything else?"
"He did. But..." Levi exhaled. "You might not like what I'm going to say."
"What do you mean by that?" Learning that the royal government had targeted her on the basis of her heritage had already been shocking enough. If that had been enough to keep her up an extra hour, then she almost wanted to say that she didn't want to hear what Levi planned to tell her. "What did he say?" she questioned.
"After he told me why you were hunted down, I asked Kenny if there happened to be more of your people inside the Walls," Levi began. "Valen, you're the only descendant remaining."
Something inside Valen cracked, crumbling to pieces until nothing remained. Her lips set into a scowl, and her skin blanched, losing its healthy tanned color from days spent under the sun. "What?!" Valen demanded, in disbelief.
"It's exactly as he said." Valen rubbed her arms, and it wasn't because night was settling in. "There's no trace of your family. Of course, there's always the possibility they died before your memory loss. This, or they're skilled nomads. But Kenny said he and his squad could never find anyone of your heritage inside the Walls."
"Then I don't understand," Valen started. "If not even the royal government knew a thing about my family or my people, then who?" She refused to believe they'd vanished in thin air—they'd existed, and no one was convincing her otherwise. Her brain just didn't "create" people and slap them into her dreams.
"Your guess is as good as mine. I barely just learned about all this yesterday," he said. "The woman you lived with in Shiganshina. Would she have known anything?"
"No, she wouldn't have," Valen responded. The woman remembered her name on a good day. She'd never cared for much else about Valen other than her surviving to see the next day. "She only covered my necessities."
"And what about the other person?" Levi interrogated. "Back in the cabin. You said there was another person involved in your life, someone you considered a paternal figure. Would they have known anything?"
"Perhaps, but as I told you, I can hardly recall a thing about that person," Valen countered. "All I can recall about them was that he was a man and that he wore round glasses."
"Was?"
"Yes, was—he disappeared in the Fall of Wall Maria five years ago. It's best to assume he's dead by now." Valen worried her bottom lip. "Again, there's not much I recall about him. He was supposed to come by that day, I think, but he was handling something in Wall Rose."
"Come by for what?" Levi asked. "Did he visit you often?"
"I think so...?" Valen thought hard over his question. "Now that I think about it, he might have been a doctor. It makes the most sense if he was, considering I was sick for so long. Doctors make routine visits. In my case, every two weeks." A hazy image surfaced in her mind: a man with a rag tied around his face holding a thermometer, his glasses partially fogged. "Yes, he definitely was a doctor."
"A Shiganshina doctor who wore round glasses and disappeared in the Fall..." Levi stiffened as if he'd been stunned with a spell. "Shit, it can't be."
Valen knew Levi was asking her questions for a good reason, but digging around in foggy memories and being expected to provide near-perfect answers made her blood boil. "Can't be what?" Valen snarled, growing impatient.
"Does the name Grisha ring a bell?" Levi pressed. "Grisha Jaeger?"
Grisha Jaeger. The name was like a brick to the head, a punch to the stomach, sending her thoughts in a whirlwind that was spinning out of control. That was his name—the name of the man who cropped up at her doorway, a suitcase and a forward-looking attitude on hand; the name of the man who, despite being one of humanity's most prominent doctors, made the time to check in on her and kept her as healthy as she could be.
The name of the man who Valen once deemed the closest thing to a paternal figure.
"Yes," she answered. His absence was suddenly more pronounced, a fireplace that lacked a blazing fire, a lake gone dry from a year-long drought. Years ago, as a frightened seventeen-year-old girl who'd narrowly eluded Death's dark grasp, she'd shoved away any memory she had of the man as a way to cope with the staggering sense of weakness that'd crushed her when Wall Maria fell. I'll be alright on my own, she'd thought then, straggling along a side road in Trost, her—like the tens of thousands of refugees that'd poured into the city—looking for a scrap of decent work to get ahead. But now that the name was so clear in her head, she felt like an invisible hand had punched a vast hole through her chest.
They stood there, letting realization slowly sink into them. Valen was so focused on getting to the roots of her dreams that she hardly paid any mind to any of the conversation surrounding Grisha Jaeger that floated through base, but the little details she knew was that he, like the Titans in the Walls and the concept of unaffected bloodlines, was part of the glittering web of mysteries that only grew bigger every day. "It's making more sense now—Grisha was the one who examined you after your brain injury," Levi remarked.
Valen looked at him—did this man know everything about her? "And how do you know that?"
"The report."
She moaned. "It's always the reports."
"How I learned of this doesn't matter," Levi said, carrying along the conversation. "What matters is how involved in your life he was. He was visiting you every two weeks. Most doctors only come by once a year. Yeah, you had a brain injury, but even then doctors don't normally come that often. In fact, I'm assuming most doctors wouldn't have even tried to nurse you back to health—too much time and effort. For a man like Grisha to be so heavily involved in your life is a sign that something was going on. He had a reason for visiting you often."
My skull is going to split open. For so much time, Valen believed that the man cared for her just because he was benevolent and passionate about his profession, but now that she thought about it more clearly, why had the man gone to such great lengths to keep her alive? She recalled what the others had said about her—that she was best left to die, that keeping her alive would be an enormous waste of time and resources. Yet Grisha continued to stop by nearly every week, giving her supplements and medication just so she could stand for a couple of seconds more. On days when she'd begged him to put an end to her misery in half-conscious hazes, he'd never obliged, responding to her wishes for death with words of encouragement.
What if he'd kept her alive for something?
"Perhaps he wanted me to live long enough to witness something," Valen considered, staring at nothing in particular. She was pulling at a sea of straws, trying to piece together what he'd wanted her to see. I could be misinterpreting things. Perhaps Grisha had cared for her out of benevolence. Still, she couldn't brush off a renowned doctor investing so much time and effort into her health as simply goodwill.
"What if he wanted you to see the cellar?" Levi speculated.
Valen cocked an eyebrow. "The cellar?" She'd caught wind about the Jaeger cellar often, especially before the failed expedition to retake Wall Maria—the one Petra, Oruo, Gunther, and Eld had perished in. Back then, she hadn't cared much for the cellar and what it represented, so all the knowledge she managed to hold down about it was that it held some groundbreaking secret about the world inside the Walls and perhaps what stretched on beyond it. "I understand the cellar belonged to Grisha, but what does the cellar have to do with anything?"
"He might have something in there that could explain why he stayed so close to you. Medical documentation, a journal, who knows, maybe even some weird message scrawled in a pile of dried shit."
"That pile of dried shit remark was in no way necessary."
"If there's anything the last couple of months has taught me, it's that anything can happen."
"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to agree," Valen replied. If someone had told her three months ago that the government would send an MP on her tail because of her heritage and that she'd somehow wound up crying into the shoulder of the man who'd ripped her sleeve away during a spar, she would have branded them as a cracked-up fool with too much nonsense bouncing around in their head. As much as she wanted to not confess so, she was thankful Levi had made the crude joke about the cryptic message scrawled in dried excrement. It'd lightened her quickly-sinking mood, and tonight was not the night to sulk around. "What do you think he knew?"
"That's beyond any of my guesses, but if he's locked it underground, then it's likely highly sensitive. No sensible person would leave sensitive information in broad daylight for everyone to see." Valen yawned, her eyelids growing heavy. "Tired?" he asked.
"Perhaps." Though last night was the first time in a week Valen had rested in a proper bed, sleep had evaded her—she'd only secured a pitiful four hours before she was up again, slipping her belt around her trench coat. That, plus the chaos unfolding in the ballroom, had made for an exhausting day.
"Come on. There should be a bench around." Valen normally despised being nudged around like a stubborn child, but she didn't protest as Levi guided her toward a bench sitting under a willow. Sitting down, she slumped against Levi's shoulder, closing her eyes as he looped an arm around her neck. "So? Where do we go from here?"
Valen cracked open her eyes, weakly lifting her head. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, after everything that's happened..." His words faded to nothing, carried away by the shuddering of the leaves. "Listen, I don't want things to return to how they were before. The arguing and everything, it's exhausting. I just want things to be steady between us."
"I want things to be steady between us too," Valen agreed, grasping his hand in hers and kissing his knuckles. "Because I'm sick of arguing."
"Valen..." Levi whispered. Valen dropped his hand and pressed her fingers to his cheek, drawing herself closer to him. With two slender fingers, he tipped her chin upward and attached his lips to hers.
She was so glad she wasn't leaving the Scout Regiment.
His hands strayed from their place on her shoulders, sliding down until they rested comfortably on her waist. Over a day had passed since the night they shared in the Trost barracks, but his caress was no less electrifying. Valen dangerously craved him, his calloused hands, his presence, everything. She felt foolish for pushing away her feelings for him for so long, so foolish it was genuinely infuriating.
Levi stroked her hair as he latched his lips on her neck, tracing the curve of her jaw with his lips. When his hands began to sit low on her hips, Valen's eyes snapped open, and she instantly separated from him. "Sorry, did I—"
"We are not doing this in a garden."
"And who said we're doing 'this' in a garden?" Valen eyed him dubiously. "I was only trying to be affectionate."
"Your definition of affectionate must vary from mine because I certainly do not recall it being 'groping your partner on a garden bench'," Valen huffed, tightening her belt. "Have you no decency?"
"'Have you no decency?' What are you, some sort of nun—" Valen pinched his ear, making Levi grimace. "Great, now you're pinching me?" Levi griped, nursing his pinched-red earlobe.
"There are far more sophisticated ways to go about seducing a woman," Valen chided. She pressed her palms to her thighs, flattening the wrinkles of her trench coat. "Shame. Had you tried this back on base, perhaps I would have ceded."
"Had you tried what on base?" a new voice chirped from the bushes, slurred yet bright.
"Fuck." Levi released a disgruntled sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Valen snapped around to where she and Levi had walked in through: Hange, visibly drunk, was stumbling around like an infant, a slender brown bottle clutched in her right hand. How Hange saw them was beyond Valen—the Section Commander's glasses were perched right on the tip of her nose, in perfect position to fall. She'd abandoned her trench coat somewhere, leaving her in a buttoned shirt and white pants (with a stain that Valen hoped was food). Evidently, her injury hadn't stopped her from having her fun.
Hange paused to take a swig from her bottle. Valen straightened herself, readjusting the lapels of her trench coat and tucking her hair behind her ears—the last thing she wanted was to look like some village girl getting discovered in the shed with the local stablehand, especially in the royal gardens. She stood, schooling her features into the most uninterested expression she could pull together. "Look at you two, hiding away in the garden like a pair of lovebirds...!" Hange garbled, swaying from side to side.
"And look at you, staggering around like an idiot," Levi spat. The insult fell on uncaring ears, Hange's silly grin unchanging. "It's the Ehrmich fete all over again."
Valen pulled in close to Levi. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened at the Ehrmich fete?" she asked as discreetly as she could.
"Trust me, you're better off not knowing."
"I remember that!" Hange squealed, somehow overhearing them. "You see, I—" She gagged, doubling over and wretching all over the walkway, making Valen jump back. She could already visualize the royal gardener's going slack with dismay when they'd stumble upon the dried, puke-colored stain on the stone.
"I'm out of here," Levi said, wrinkling his nose. He sidestepped the reeking puddle of half-digested pastries and buttered potatoes that was seeping into the stone. Valen didn't follow right away. "Come on, let's go."
"Is she going to be okay?" Valen asked. She might be one of the most self-serving women around, but Valen didn't like the idea of leaving Hange to her luck in the garden, even if the woman was a seasoned soldier. Sometimes it wasn't Titans that swept soldiers away, but rather random accidents that did (autoerotic asphyxiation seemed to be a popular one)(it was always with ODM belts too).
"She'll be alright. Moblit's probably looking for her right now anyway." Valen stayed in place, hardly reassured. "What, Do you want to throw up too?" Levi said.
"You can go back. If Moblit comes around, I'll come and find you," Valen said. "I'll stay with Hange."
Levi's gaze drifted to the puking Section Commander, back to Valen, then to Hange again before he shrugged. "Suit yourself," he grumbled. As Levi walked away, Valen walked around the puddle, kneeling by Hange's side. The acidic smell of vomit combined with Hange's signature stench was something she was working to block out, but for now, she'd have to stick through until Moblit came around. Finding nothing more to do, Valen awkwardly patted Hange on the back as the four-eyed woman continued to hurl her stomach's contents onto the pavement.
This is my life now.
𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐈