[ Hange pauses and it's like something has closed around him. The world goes deadly quiet, and he's just staring at a spot on the table without seeing, eyes wide and mouth drawn into a thin, tight line.
He'd had a chance to save Erwin and didn't.
He chose not to.
And on the other side of that decision, Hange had been passed the burden of command over a nearly exterminated regiment. It's not difficult to see how that has weighed on them. Four years. Every one of their peers, gone.
Why?
His expression shutters, utterly afraid to look over at Erwin and see his expression.
They'd been pushed into a corner, forced to sacrifice everything. The suicide charge. Erwin would only have done it if there'd been no other choice. Levi recalls their conversation the very night before they found themselves here, Erwin's confession of his true motives. And yet he'd given that up, seemingly, to give them all a chance.
He knows he's missing pieces. He can get part of the way there to understanding himself, but not fully. Levi wants to ask a dozen more questions about that moment - surely the two of them would have talked about it after, surely he said something to Hange that would have made his decision clearer-
It's that second catch, the quality of their voice on the edge of breaking that shakes him from his stunned stupor. He can't help the briefest of glances at Erwin, eyes full of confusion and guilt, but turns to Hange and reaches for them. Mirroring a gesture from what feels like a lifetime ago now, his fingers slide into warm brown hair where they've tied it back, and he turns their face to his.
Levi gives them an equally complicated look, but it's one mostly of sorrow as he leans in and sets their foreheads together.
His voice is a rough, coarse whisper. ]
...I'm sorry, Hange.
[ Sorry for the way his decision had affected them; for the years of memories and shared loss he doesn't yet have that separate them; for not being strong enough to prevent any of it. It isn't fair, that he is the one to live. ]
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He'd had a chance to save Erwin and didn't.
He chose not to.
And on the other side of that decision, Hange had been passed the burden of command over a nearly exterminated regiment. It's not difficult to see how that has weighed on them. Four years. Every one of their peers, gone.
Why?
His expression shutters, utterly afraid to look over at Erwin and see his expression.
They'd been pushed into a corner, forced to sacrifice everything. The suicide charge. Erwin would only have done it if there'd been no other choice. Levi recalls their conversation the very night before they found themselves here, Erwin's confession of his true motives. And yet he'd given that up, seemingly, to give them all a chance.
He knows he's missing pieces. He can get part of the way there to understanding himself, but not fully. Levi wants to ask a dozen more questions about that moment - surely the two of them would have talked about it after, surely he said something to Hange that would have made his decision clearer-
It's that second catch, the quality of their voice on the edge of breaking that shakes him from his stunned stupor. He can't help the briefest of glances at Erwin, eyes full of confusion and guilt, but turns to Hange and reaches for them. Mirroring a gesture from what feels like a lifetime ago now, his fingers slide into warm brown hair where they've tied it back, and he turns their face to his.
Levi gives them an equally complicated look, but it's one mostly of sorrow as he leans in and sets their foreheads together.
His voice is a rough, coarse whisper. ]
...I'm sorry, Hange.
[ Sorry for the way his decision had affected them; for the years of memories and shared loss he doesn't yet have that separate them; for not being strong enough to prevent any of it. It isn't fair, that he is the one to live. ]