𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙰𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚂𝙴𝙲𝚁𝙴𝚃𝚂

21

Y/N wasn't even really sure how exactly she had managed to get back to her home. She was in so much pain that she really wished she was dead. She hadn't told them anything, but she knew that they were onto her. She would have to leave and hide somewhere. She'd have to talk to Levi about all of this, too. And she had no idea how to approach him, especially in the state she was in.

While she dragged her broken body home, she was thinking about how she could work things out with him, how she might be able to fix whatever had gone wrong between them, but she couldn't really think of anything good. She'd just have to go and find him and hope that he would accept her apology and everything could go back to normal. She still loved him so much and she knew she should have listened to him from the start. She needed to fix this as soon as she could, because she very suddenly realized that she might not have much more time left.

When she opened the door to her home, she realized that she wouldn't even have to look for him. He was there - curled up on her couch and fast asleep, wrapped up in a thick blanket. Y/N smiled involuntarily and flinched immediately, because everything hurt. She wasn't going to wake him up right now. She had to fix herself up first. And Levi looked like he had been staying awake for hours just to see her, so she would let him sleep. He was exhausted enough.

She might be able to read a little, before he woke up, depending on how long it would take her to patch herself up. Y/N limped past him and towards the bathroom to find whatever disinfectant she could find. She filled some hot water in a pot and started boiling it, so she could wash out her wounds. And she started gathering up ointments and whatever bandages she could find. They would have to do, no matter how old they were. She had nothing else at hand.

She hoped that Levi wouldn't wake up from her pottering around in the kitchen and the bathroom and then she had to laugh, because that was such a silly thing to think about when she was beaten up and bruised and barely able to stand straight. She just hoped that Levi was here because he actually wanted to talk to her. For a second Y/N felt her heart sink as she wondered whether he had only come here to tell her he wanted nothing to do with her anymore.

But that wasn't a thing that Levi would do. If he wanted nothing to do with her anymore he would just start ignoring her. He wouldn't make all the effort to come to her place to tell her that. It was one of the things Y/N appreciated about Levi - he didn't beat around the bush. When he meant something, he said it and that was the end of it. No playing games, no guessing. Everything was clear and direct and very simple. So much simpler than everything else in life.

Y/N started washing the wounds on her legs - the badly scraped knee, her ankles, the open wound on her shin, her feet that were more or less cut up. It was a painful and slow process and Y/N wasn't even sure how much time had passed, once she had cleaned all the wounds with hot water. She put some disinfectant on the worst bits afterwards and bandaged the worst open wounds quickly. She used some ointment for the bruises that were littered all over her legs.

After that, she had to take care of her arms. There were thankfully just a few scrapes and scratches, some bruises. Nothing major, except her wrist. It had been giving her trouble for a while despite Levi taking such good care of it. And the rough treatment earlier on hadn't really helped it either. It was much the same process again - cleaning, disinfectant, bandages, ointment if necessary.

After she had finished that up, she moved into the bathroom, where the broken mirror was. She needed to see how bad her face was and how bad the bruises on her torso and her back were. She could imagine that they were awful. She was still in pain from the kicks to her stomach and her kidneys and she wouldn't have been surprised if she had broken a rib or two.

Her face looked absolutely gruelling. She had a massive bruise on her right cheek and a black eye as well. There was a cut on her eyebrow and her lip was bleeding. There was a lot of crusted blood that had come out of her nose earlier. Her nose looked swollen and bruised, but thankfully it didn't seem broken. Either way, it hurt like hell. Y/N had to clean up her face with a lot of hot water first, before she could properly assess the damage, because there was just so much blood.

She was glad that Levi hadn't seen her like this, because she thought she looked pretty scary. Even after all the blood was gone, she knew she would have to somehow try and cool the swelling in her cheek. Disinfectant was good, but she needed the swelling to go down. It wasn't like she just had ice available down here in the underground, so she would have to find something that was just naturally cold. Maybe a cold rock or something. Anything would make it feel better, if she was honest.

The bruises on her torso didn't look so bad at first glance, but once Y/N thought about how much damage would have to be done to make those areas bruise like that, she was feeling sick. She would be surprised if she didn't have any internal bleeding. Breathing was painful even. She wondered if she should try to find a doctor or at least a pharmacist to take a look at her, but she doubted that there was really anything anyone could do. If she had any internal bleeding she would probably die sooner or later. She just hoped that she might have gotten lucky.

Once she was done applying whatever ointments she had and wrapping up any bigger wounds with the bandages she had at hand, Y/N dragged herself towards the library. Or rather the secret door that led to the library. She set off the mechanism that would reveal the door, her hands barely nimble enough to get it right. She wanted to get herself a book and fall asleep reading and maybe when she woke up, Levi would be awake and they could talk it all out and he'd know what to do.

Y/N could only hope. She quickly went inside the door and closed it behind her, using the same mechanism on the other side to hide the door again. She felt much better, being surrounded by the smell of old books and surrounded by all the high shelves, full of books and manuscripts and scrolls. She took a deep breath, ignoring the pain in her side from it and smiled to herself. It was all painful, but she felt genuinely happier now that she was here. Safe. Safe and with Levi again.

At least for now she was with Levi. What would come of that... well, they'd see when he woke up. Y/N walked through the rows of bookshelves until she reached her desk and grabbed the book that was lying on top of it. It had piqued her interest as soon as she had seen it in her pile of books after her latest haul. It seemed like a very old book, about a hundred years old or maybe a little older. Definitely from the time before the walls were built. Way before the walls were built.

She opened it and started reading. She had skimmed it a little at first, but it had confused her at the time, just like many of the books she had were slightly confusing her and she wasn't sure where to place it. There were a lot of words thrown around that she didn't understand - Eldians, Marley, Paradis, Wall Titans... it was confusing. But Y/N dug into it anyway, reading on and on and on. The more she read, the more it became like a fever dream. She had to stop after a while, because her head was starting to spin. Whatever was written in that book... it couldn't be right. There was no way this could be true...