He thought he lost you.

The mission went sideways faster than anyone expected. Levi was there—he fought like hell—but when the dust settled, when the last Titan fell and the silence pressed in, you were nowhere to be found.

He carried the weight of that failure like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Then, out of the blue—days later—you show up at headquarters.

Levi doesn’t move at first. His eyes lock onto you, disbelief and something deeper swirling in their depths.

For a long moment, he just stares. “You’re alive.” It’s not a question. Not really. His voice is barely a whisper.

You see the tightness in his chest, the sudden sharp intake of breath, like the world has shifted back into place—but it’s also breaking apart.

“I thought…” he trails off, but the words are unnecessary.

You see the cracks beneath his unyielding exterior. The man who’d vowed never to lose you has done just that—at least, in his mind.

Now that you’re here, standing in front of him, there’s a tension between relief and something like guilt.

Because he didn’t save you. Not yet. But maybe now, he can.