Make Her Smile Again

      The sun was already edging toward the horizon, hinting that the nurse would soon come and call them to dinner. Lately, Mikasa had refused to get up, and the displeased woman had been bringing her meals straight to the bed. Apparently that wasn’t the custom here—if you were able to walk on your own, you were expected to go to the common dining hall. But no one touched Mikasa. It seemed a war heroine’s status allowed a few small indulgences.       After a while the same nurse would come again, this time to take away the dishes, only to find the food untouched. As usual she would try to coax Mikasa into eating at least something, would be sure to say a few words about how fasting was bad for the stomach, that she would grow thin and weak—but Mikasa did not care. What of it if she grew weaker? There was no longer any point in being strong. There was no point in being, at all. And if refusing food helped hasten her departure, then let it. She no longer cared.       At times the nurse tried to press on her pity, saying that now there was not enough food for everyone, that it was a blessing they managed to find even this kind of fare, and that throwing it away meant, for no reason, leaving others hungry.       Mikasa could not tell whether supplies had truly run short or if it was mere bluff. Most likely, it was a lie. She did not believe that untouched food could not be passed on to those supposedly starving—and if such people really existed, then by refusing her portion she was only doing them a service, waiting for the day when nothing would need to be brought to her at all.       The fretting nurse would then take the tray, hear not a word from Mikasa, and leave. When it grew dark, the doctor appeared and examined her minor injuries. A couple of heavy bruises would have faded long ago had she been eating properly, but now her body simply lacked the strength, and the great painful blotches refused to vanish from her skin. He, too, lectured her about the harm of such senseless self-starvation, but it was useless.       She was given no medicine—there was no need. Ordinary painkillers could not drown out the pain of the soul.       Connie, Jean, and Armin looked in on her every day. She did not wish to speak to them either. What was there to discuss? Jean and Connie would surely go home and begin normal, quiet lives, they had someone to return to. Armin had, at last, his precious Annie back, and now she came to visit him in the hospital. Mikasa saw that, though it was hard for Armin too to have lost his best friend, he coped far better than she did. She decided there was no sense dragging him after her into the whirlpool of grief and despair, and so she simply ignored his attempts to talk. He, too, would start a new life, he, too, had something to live for. She had nothing.              No, her friends had not abandoned her. Even her refusal to speak did not stop them, they came again and again. But Mikasa was certain—one day they would tire of this pointless effort, and in the end she would be left alone.       The only one who had not appeared on the threshold of her tiny room was Captain Levi. That disheartened her even more. She did not know the reason, nor what was happening with him at all. Was he recovering? The last time she saw him Levi had been very bad, though he did not show it. Yet Mikasa was perceptive enough to understand that his injuries were surely agonising, and that now things were far harder for him than for her.       The captain had been the only one to come when she needed it most, he had planted hope in her—and vanished. She could not withstand another blow like that.       At first Mikasa had tried to persuade herself that he, too, needed time to improve, to be treated, and then he would certainly come to see her, but the days passed, and he still did not come. Why had she thought Levi would be interested in how she was? Perhaps he had long since left and would never think of her again. Yet hope smouldered. He was their captain. Levi had always cared, though his care took the strangest forms. He seemed to her strong enough to pull her out of this. And that selfish wish would not go away. Did she truly need help so badly from the man who had merely brought her here? Maybe. But definitely nothing more. What was she waiting for, what was she hoping for—she could not make sense of it. These torments were broken only by thoughts of Eren’s death—and then the nausea returned.       Why could it not have turned out otherwise? Why had Eren not wanted simply to talk, to explain? They would surely have found a way. Why had he chosen such a terrible path? He had not wanted to die—of that she was sure. They could have run away somewhere far, where no one would ever find them, and lived out the years remaining together, quietly, peacefully.       But Mikasa’s dreams were not meant to come true. She had lost Eren long before that ill-fated day. There was ruin and death all around—and she was the cause. Mikasa had not been able to convince him that the path he had chosen was wrong, destructive, horrific. It was no road to freedom, it led only to pain and suffering.       They had not needed freedom. They had needed peace.       Thus Mikasa spent day after day in the hospital, sunk in her thoughts, waiting for the end of her useless, pitiful life.       But Captain Levi appeared on her threshold.       She had not imagined his appearance would affect her so strongly, she had not even hoped to see him again. In that moment Mikasa felt herself once more in a castle deep in the woods, when all her friends were still alive and their only enemies were titans. It seemed as if she were merely sick, and the captain had come to scold her that the squad would be forced to move out without her, without one of the strongest. And she would only listen to his rough words and understand that he was merely worried for his people’s lives. It is hard to call those times wonderful, let alone carefree, yet Mikasa had been happy then. Everything shattered upon meeting reality, but now some small hope kindled in her again. If the captain had found the strength to care for her at such a time, then Mikasa, too, could find the strength to care for herself.       As she had promised, by evening Mikasa brought herself into a more or less presentable state and, changing her hospital shirt for another, clean one—the nurse, surprised by so sudden a shift in Mikasa’s mood, had brought it not long ago—she set off to dinner. She could not say she felt much better. The same dark thoughts still swarmed in her head, but now she could at least think of something else, distract herself for a little while.       Besides, there was no reason to break her bargain with the captain. He understood her—Mikasa felt it. Others, even if they tried to grasp what was happening to her, could not live through what she had lived through. But the captain could.       He himself had been through much—perhaps through something far worse than she had. His words of comfort did not ring as empty sounds, there was meaning in them and a deep feeling, carefully hidden behind the perpetual mask of indifference on his face. She needed his words. If he could not help her, then no one could. Time, of course, heals—but it is a wretched doctor, and relief must always be waited for far too long. For Mikasa the waiting had become unbearable. It seemed that when it finally came, it would already be too late—there would be no one left to heal.       When Mikasa entered the common dining hall, almost all the seats were already taken. She looked around. No familiar faces. There were only five Eldians here, and it was not easy to spot them in a crowd of strangers. She glanced about in confusion. The room was quite small, but apparently the hospital itself was large enough to hold so many patients.       “Mikasa?!”—a voice, surprised, called her by name.       Amid the clatter of dishes it was hard to tell whose voice it was, she turned and saw Connie hurrying toward her.       “I can’t believe it—you actually crawled out of your hole?”       “Hey! Don’t bother her—let her eat first, then you can chat,” said Jean, coming up and cuffing Connie on the head.       Grinning from ear to ear, they steered Mikasa toward a table where her modest dinner had already been set down in a hurry by one of the guys: roasted potatoes and something else—either a vegetable or a fruit. She had never seen anything like it. It had a strange, curved shape, and its bright yellow color did not inspire trust.       Mikasa looked around. There were only the three of them at the table. Neither Armin nor the captain was anywhere in sight. The sight of food still made her nauseous, but she had promised to eat, and although Levi was nowhere nearby, something told her the promise was worth keeping. She turned the strange fruit-or-vegetable over in her hands, not quite sure whether it was edible, or how one was supposed to eat it. A sudden wave of embarrassment washed over her. In Marley, left to her own devices like this, she really was for the first time, until now she had hardly paid attention to various unfamiliar objects, but she had never had to deal with them so directly.       Jean and Connie, already polishing off their portions, noticed Mikasa’s confusion and exchanged a glance. Jean realised she didn’t know what she was holding and decided to explain. Most likely, by the time her meals reached her, there were no fruit left, so she hadn’t had to encounter one.       “It’s a banana,” Jean said, lifting the fruit a little higher so it would be easier for Mikasa to see. “You peel it like this…”       He opened it from the tip down toward the base, revealing the white flesh. A pleasant, sweet smell rose at the table, and for the first time Mikasa felt like trying something. For all her disgusted mood and almost fanatical refusal of food, she was terribly hungry. Jean handed her the banana, half-peeled, the skin left at the base so it would be easy to hold. Mikasa took it and, just in case, sniffed it again, then bit off a small piece. The fruit turned out surprisingly soft and sweet. Her eyes widened, the only thing stopping her from devouring the whole banana in one bite was that her friends sat directly opposite, watching her eat.       “Eat the potatoes first—save the best for last,” Connie said, who already knew those potatoes tasted like all the other hospital food: bland and unpleasant, and it was better to leave the table with sweetness in your mouth than with that.       “Lay off her—let her eat something,” Jean grumbled, displeased. He had a soft spot for Mikasa and worried about her a great deal, but his attempts to win her attention had come to nothing. Even the support he tried to offer had been rejected outright when, coming to her improvised ward, Jean got nothing but a curt “leave.” Now he looked at her gaunt face, at how much she had shrunk over the week, and couldn’t understand why Mikasa had chosen to show up here after all. He didn’t yet know that her decision had been influenced by none other than the captain himself.       Neither Levi nor Armin appeared anywhere, and Mikasa supposed they would simply come later, but everyone had already begun to drift out, and she didn’t manage to spot either of them. She couldn’t force herself to eat properly and settled for only that strange, sweet, soft fruit. But even that was already a feat for her, for until now Mikasa hadn’t been able to eat anything at all. As for the soup the captain had all but poured into her—she had gulped it down more to oblige than out of hunger. The nausea hadn’t passed, and she could only hope the banana together with the soup would stay in her stomach. She didn’t want her effort to be wasted.       Jean and Connie were heatedly discussing something at the table, but Mikasa wasn’t listening. She was still somewhere in her own thoughts and didn’t even try to catch the thread of the conversation, let alone take part in it. She could have added a few words, but she didn’t want to. It was probably enough for her comrades that she had at least eaten.       When only a few people besides them remained in the dining hall, Mikasa realised there was no point waiting for the captain and Armin any longer. She rose from the table without a word and turned toward the exit.       “Are you all right?”       Jean sprang up at once and was quickly beside her. He set a hand on her shoulder, stopping her halfway, and looked straight at her face, trying to read its expression. He looked deeply worried, and he was clearly ready to help if needed. Mikasa only twitched her shoulder, trying to shrug off Jean’s hand, but she didn’t have the strength. The movement came out too sluggish to make it clear what she actually meant to do. It became obvious Jean hadn’t taken the hint.       “I’m fine. I just want to be alone.”       She didn’t want to be alone at all—but even less did she want to be in the company of either of these two, and especially not both together. And no, she still valued her comrades. It was just… now was not the time.       Mikasa was bitterly upset that the captain hadn’t shown up for dinner, even though he himself had asked her to come. To speak honestly, she had come here only so that he would keep his side of the bargain, and now she was stung to find she had been neatly led by the nose.       Yes, Levi had promised to come to her if she came to dinner—but how would he even know she had really been here? A feeling of indignation began to break through in Mikasa—of anger, of hurt at such neglect of her feelings—so she simply wanted to be alone, so that no one would interfere with her continuing to dig through herself.       Why had she ever thought the captain cared about her at all? No—she wouldn’t trust anyone again. And although the “deception” was harmless enough, even to her benefit, she couldn’t forgive it. Too much had happened, and it was all too easy to wound her again.       Not giving in to her evasions, Jean and Connie walked Mikasa back to her small ward, pointing out along the way how lucky she was to have been given a separate room and not to have to put up with all the “delights” of a huge hall packed with men. But Mikasa didn’t feel lucky. In such a state, even if everything she had ever wished for fell on her at once, she wouldn’t have noticed it—seeing the world through the lens of pain and resentment. She didn’t even say goodbye to the guys. Going into the room, she simply slammed the door behind her without thinking much about it. Hurt—that was all she felt now.       When it was fully dark, the doctor came again. After examining her, he noticed no improvement, but he praised her for, according to the nurse, getting up and going to dinner on her own—because now it was essential for her to eat well so that her small, minor injuries didn’t worsen. The last thing she needed was to leave the hospital in worse shape than she had arrived.       The attentive doctor truly wanted to help, even without knowing her story. He saw her suffering and tried in every possible way to ease it. So far it wasn’t working, but he was sure that sooner or later such tactics would take effect. He would certainly not discharge her until she reached a more liveable state.       The doctor left, once again leaving Mikasa alone with her thoughts. How strange the human mind works: now, more than ever, Mikasa was surrounded by care and attention—but she didn’t see it, didn’t feel it, didn’t notice it. As if it weren’t there at all, as if everyone had left her and no one cared. Mikasa remained lying in bed, firmly deciding she would not get up from it again, and if they carried her out of here feet first—so be it. She no longer cared.       The door creaked.

✦❘༻༺❘✦

      Jean and Connie, back from dinner, had immediately begun discussing what had happened. Their cots were close to the one the captain had claimed, and it was easy for him to overhear them.       Damn it—he’d forgotten he was supposed to come to dinner. He ate very little himself, especially now, when there was almost no physical strain to speak of, so he simply hadn’t gone. An almost unfamiliar feeling of guilt washed over him. He pictured how foolish Mikasa must have felt, alone in a new environment, and was grudgingly flattered that she’d listened to him at all. Apparently his authority still carried some weight in her mind. Now he needed a plausible story for why he hadn’t shown up. He couldn’t very well tell her he’d just… forgotten.       That would finish her off, he thought, and decided the best thing was to get to her ward as fast as possible and come up with something sensible on the way. He didn’t even want to imagine what that girl had conjured up in the last hour.       Not understanding why her state suddenly bothered him enough to drag himself across the hospital on a crutch in the middle of the night, Levi pushed himself up and set off as quickly as his battered body and a single crutch allowed, toward the door he already knew.       He decided he could go in as he was. Even if he waited for an answer, he was sure he wouldn’t get one. He stepped into the dark room—Mikasa hadn’t even lit the lamp—and made out her shape, curled tight. Even in the dark he could see how thin she’d become, and it unsettled him. He could only hope she still wanted his help, otherwise this might end badly. Levi knew he wouldn’t forgive himself if he betrayed his soldier’s trust—especially if that soldier was trying to starve herself.       “Hey, Ackerman,” he said, voice low and even, hoping she wouldn’t drive him out now that he’d failed to meet her expectations. He didn’t fully understand why he wanted so badly to help her. Maybe because he recognised his own bitterness in hers. She wasn’t a child to be protected anymore—but even Levi admitted that the losses she’d taken would break most grown men, and that there was no one but her commander to give her a shoulder. The boys were too young and too green. They hadn’t found a way in. It seemed Mikasa simply trusted him more than she trusted them. Getting no reply, he went on:       “I promised I’d come if you went to dinner and ate.” With that he lowered himself onto the edge of her bed, making it clear he meant to stay.       “And how would you know whether I was there or not?”       So it had hurt her, after all. Levi drew a long breath. He would have to pick his words carefully so as not to upset her further—though he wasn’t obliged to make excuses. He’d never handled speeches like Erwin did, but he could try. At least she wasn’t playing the silent game, that was something. He would even generously ignore the displeasure and scorn in her tone. Times were hard for her. He could forgive her attitude—at least until she came back to herself. He could scold her later. If he still had the right. What was he to her now, if not a captain?       “Let’s say I trust you. We had a deal.”       She still lay curled up, torn between the promise she’d made herself—trust no one—and the fact that the captain had kept his word. Petulant as a child, she didn’t want to admit her hurt had been foolish and that silence would only wear him down until he left her for good. The thought terrified her all over again, and she spoke:       “I’m sorry.”       “It’s all right.”       Levi no longer troubled himself with what was proper and let his hand slide gently along her forearm, steadying her, as if to say he was there. She tensed at his touch, then loosened.       “I don’t know what comes next,” Mikasa whispered.       “No one does.”       “Everyone has some kind of goal, a dream—but I… I have nothing. You know what I mean, don’t you?” She pushed herself up and sat cross-legged on the bed, looking at him with a flicker of hope.       He understood perfectly. They were different. They had given their lives to protecting humanity. There was nothing left to strive for. He’d thought about it himself. Once he’d overheard the trio—Eren, Armin, Mikasa—talking about cleansing the world of titans, getting beyond the Walls, seeing the sea. Such a naïve, almost childlike dream. How quickly it shattered. He felt a sharp pity for Mikasa. Even back then he had seen that those three, despite everything, were capable of dreaming. And now she had lost the very reason to exist.       It was easier for him. He had never believed his life held any meaning. Born by accident, surviving by accident, Levi had long since stopped believing you could find meaning in anything. Still, he needed to say something to lift her up. He was no good at speeches, but he would try.       “We give life its meaning ourselves. And even if it feels like everything’s gone to hell right now, in time you’ll see it wasn’t quite so hopeless.”       Mikasa let out a brittle, humourless laugh. What could be worse than this? What good could time possibly reveal? It sounded absurd, and she didn’t even know how to answer.       The emotion rose in a fresh wave, and for the first time since that day she began to cry—though it could solve none of her problems.       Levi was not good at comfort, least of all with women. He faltered, unsure what to do. He could hardly remember ever having such a strong emotional tie to anyone that he wanted to console them. But Mikasa was different. She mirrored him—in unimaginable stubbornness, in a near-mad self-sacrifice. He felt that by helping her he might, in some small way, help himself. So he let his gestures speak.       He wrapped his good arm around her waist and drew her in, noting again how light she’d become, and with the other hand he stroked her hair, hoping it would ease her, if only a little. Mikasa pressed her face into his chest, like that day, and Levi understood—she truly needed him.       He didn’t want to bind himself to anyone again. After Erwin and Hange died, he had promised himself never to invite that kind of pain back in.       But the war was over. Death no longer trailed his heels, and there was, perhaps, a chance at a normal life—though neither he nor Mikasa could picture it. In that moment he understood that if she was left alone, she would be lost. And for some reason she didn’t reach for her comrades, or for her childhood friend, but for him. He didn’t mind. He had never really had anyone to care for beyond his old, long-dead friends—Farlan and Isabel—and even they had largely fended for themselves.       The warmth of another body soothed him. He listened to her quiet sobs and held her fast. Why was he doing this? Sooner or later they would both recover. Things would ease for her, and for him. They would part and become strangers again. Was it worth attaching himself for so short a time? He hesitated, ready to release her, to draw the line again, to remind himself they were nothing to each other—but Mikasa, still sobbing, said the words that sealed his choice.       “Captain, I’m so scared…”       Cursing inwardly this alien compulsion—to help, to shield—Levi kept smoothing her soft hair and said quietly, “I’m here. I won’t leave you alone, all right?”       Mikasa started, and a light, almost imperceptible relief passed through her. Her cheeks flushed. She had wanted to hear those words, but she had never expected to hear them from the captain. She forced herself to steady, to stop clinging to him. The tears were already drying on her face, tightening the skin, but Levi still held her, afraid to let go, as if she might vanish the moment his arms loosened.       “Sir…”       “What is it, Ackerman?” Her surname no longer had his usual curt, commanding edge. His voice was soothing, new. She had never heard him use that tone.       “Thank you.”       She spoke into his shirt, the words muffled by the fabric. She wanted to trust him again. The captain had never failed her and had always kept his promises. She believed him now.       She didn’t let go of his shirt and fell asleep like that, in a thoroughly uncomfortable position. The strain of the past days had wrung her dry. She no longer cared how or when she slept.       Levi still held her, studying the thin slope of her shoulders. She had relaxed against him. By the look of it, she hadn’t slept much lately, if she could drift off in such a pose. The captain knew insomnia well and didn’t dare wake her.       The prospect of spending the whole night sitting with his knee aching did not appeal, so he eased himself back without breaking the embrace, lowering at least half his body onto the bed.       He closed his eyes for only a moment, hoping Mikasa would soon stir. He knew you couldn’t truly rest in such a fretful sleep.       It was uncomfortable. His arms were going numb. But the unfamiliar warmth of a woman’s body loosened something in him, and the captain slipped under.