Dissolve

What happens once will happen twice

(So I decided to make an official cover for this fic. -None of the art is mine, only the edit- Though, if and whenever anyone wants to... y'know send me some fan art I could truly die happy>///< Anyhoo, I am so happy right now with this fic, it's been it's own little journey so far but I've come love it so much! You all are absolutely amazing too. And as usual.

ENJOY)

"So you never told me what she has."

Levi was inclined towards me. Both of us resting on the hood of his car. He'd really taken me to see the stars. I didn't know this part of New York even existed. Out in the outskirts of the city limits was a huge field spreading miles wide. And the view of constellations felt so surreal. Like I was seeing the millions of beautiful stars from someone else's eyes. I prompted myself on my elbows.

"She was diagnosed with severe Leukemia about 10 months ago." I paused, deciding to start from the beginning. "She used to be so healthy when I was younger. You wouldn't ever recognize her then. Then when I turned ten, Mikasa had just turned eleven," I had thrown her name out but it didn't send a foul taste in my mouth as I thought it would. "She became anemic, like a walking zombie. Mom's face became sunken in and even with all the doctor appointments, check ups, CAT scans, everything you could think of, doctor after doctor threw it as a lack of initial sleep. It was like that for almost seven years.

"When we finally visited the latest physician in Trost, he did something the rest had failed to do. Something so simple that I was ready to sue all the previous 'doctors' before. He checked another of her blood vessels -a vessel that identifies the white ones to prove cancer has corrupted a body- that gave initial requirements to the blood stream that pumps through the heart. After being put on medications, she was put into bed rest. While then she was still conscious during the days. Then one day, she got up on her own to get her medications, she collapsed. Right there in the kitchen in our old apartment in Shiganshina, she fell to her side before my eyes. All in that moment it as if my heart had stopped. Time stopped. Because my mother -my beautiful, hardworking, devoted mother- had collapsed and would have died right then and there if Armin hadn't screamed me into action. Rushing her to the hospital, staying over night. It was so terrifying because I didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to feel outside in that horribly white waiting room. And when that doctor came to me and Mikasa after 12, heart stopping hours, just to tell us she only has 11 months to live. "

I laughed then. A dry humorless laugh.

"It's bullshit. Why should she.." I trailed off. The lump had formed in my throat again. The lump that always found it's way in when it came to talking about my mom. "What the fuck did she do to deserve such an oblivion?"

A sharp intake of breath brought my glistened eyes to Levi's. Scrutinizing his usual cool exterior. Levi's shoulders were tensed up. Opening his mouth then shutting it, the pity was there of course. But something else was too. Something distant and cold shown through his usual façade melting into the man who had kissed me so tenderly. The wind picked up then, bristling the thickness of tendrils into my eyes. A warm hand pressed into my skin then, smoothing the hair back with the base of his palm. Levi's hips met mine. His smaller body pressed into my in the most wanted quinines of warmth, forcing the small of my back down on the hood of the car.

"It is bullshit." Levi's breath was warm on my lips. "It's cruel. It's fucking unfair."

I held onto his wrist then, my slender fingers wrapping around his pale flesh still entangled in my strands of hair. Bowing my forehead to his, I took in the little affection he gave me of this moment. I barely knew this man, yet I seeked his attention, his affection.

"My mother passed when I was eight. She died of Ovarian Cancer."

"What?"

My eyes snapped to his, searching, questioning. But I couldn't see anything, Levi held his eyes downcast.