The silence in the Survey Corps headquarters was no longer a reprieve; it had become a slow, agonizing poison. Seven days had passed since the gates of Trost hissed shut, and for the first time in their ten years of marriage, you weren't there to meet his gaze. Levi hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time. The "Humanity’s Strongest" facade had disintegrated, leaving behind a man who looked like he had been hollowed out from the inside, his silver-grey eyes rimmed with a raw, bloodshot fatigue.

He had become a ghost haunting the barracks, driven by a desperate, jagged persistence. He had cornered Moblit in the infirmary three times in forty-eight hours, his grip on the man’s collar so tight his knuckles turned white. "Tell me again," Levi had hissed, his voice a low, terrifying rasp. "Every detail. Where was her horse? Which direction was the wind blowing when the formation broke? If you've forgotten a single second of that skirmish, I’ll make sure you never forget another thing." He didn't stop at the veterans. He had stalked into the mess hall, looming over Eren and Jean like a predator.

The cadets had frozen, their forks halfway to their mouths, as the Captain demanded a play-by-play of the right flank’s collapse. He didn't care that they were traumatized; he needed the truth. He knew five members of your unit were confirmed dead, their bodies recovered or seen falling, but your absence was a void no one could fill with a definitive answer. Even Hange, usually a fountain of words, had gone quiet, unable to look him in the eye when he demanded they check the experimental sensor logs one more time. Levi sat at the small wooden desk in your shared quarters, the air still smelling faintly of your tea and the lavender oil you used for your gear. He looked at the official casualty report, his hands—steady enough to kill a God—trembling as he gripped the paper. In this world, "Missing" was often just a slower, more torturous way of saying "Dead," but he refused to accept it.

"Tch." The sound was a broken rasp in the quiet room. He stood up, grabbing his cloak with a violent motion that nearly knocked his chair over. He had spent a decade building a life with you in the margins of a war, and he wasn't about to let it end with a line of ink on a report. He didn't care about Erwin’s orders or the logistics of the next move. If you were still out there, pinned under rubble or hiding in the forest, he was going to find you—even if he had to carve a path through every Titan in the territory with his bare hands. "Don't you dare leave me alone in this place," he whispered to the empty room, his jaw set in a lethal, heartbreaking line. "I'm coming for you."